Archives for September 2012
My unedited shelves
Since it appears everyone is sharing their unedited bookshelves, I thought I’d participate. Remember when I actually organized all of my books before? I would say that flew out the window pretty much immediately after it happened. I do have a system to my madness, so let me give you a tour of my bookshelves. They are completely unedited and thus a disaster. And some of these photos leave something to be desired.
This is the living room book case, and this is where new books I pick up or receive end up. There are library books shoved among ARCs shoved among finished books. There are also a ton of other non-book things on the shelf. I will say this — I’m mostly a neat person, and this is the only part of my house as messy as this. On the left on the floor, you can see audiobooks, too. Here are is a close up of the middle shelves of this case:
To the right of this book case, a pile of books. Same story: they’re ones I haven’t read yet, just came into the house, or I have other action to take. That box also has books in it.
So the room behind the living room is the guest room are four boxes of books. They’re all older, antique, maybe-but-probably-not rare books that my husband’s parents shipped to us when they moved. In January. Yep, those boxes are still doing a great job holding those books:
My bedroom has become the official landing place for all of the committee-received books. I don’t want to do a closeup for a number of reasons, but if you were wondering what sort of commitment being on a selection committee is, here’s an idea of the staggering amount of material received:
There’s a small pile in my office/library room, and these are books I picked up at ALA that I’ve been slowly working through:
Then there’s a pile and a box in the same room. Same story: working through these books, figuring out what to read, what to review, and what to pass on.
I’m not a huge book purchaser. If I’m going to buy a book, it’ll be something I plan on rereading or revisiting or lending out personally. A number of the books on these shelves have been in my life for a long time, and some of them are galleys of books I still need to do something with (read or pass on). Let’s start with the adult books:
I love Bill Bryson, Haruki Murakami, Franz Kafka, along with my maybe not-so-secret loves of Don DeLillo and Douglas Coupland. My favorite book in the world — Ann Patchett’s The Magician’s Assistant — sits on these shelves, as does my favorite collection of short stories, Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. The very bottom shelf on the right hand side are my poetry collections. I used to be so into that. Maybe someday I’ll return. And yes, I own Snooki’s book. I couldn’t even get through it. I got it on sale, for what it’s worth.
This is the middle set of stacks in my library/office. The top shelf are mass markets. Judge away, but I keep that copy of Atlas Shrugged there because I got through the damn book.
The shelf below — starting with Deadly and ending with The Girl of Fire and Thorns — are all my signed books. Some are finished copies and some are ARCs. It’s one of my favorite shelves.
Just above the mass markets on the top of that book case are my comics. I don’t own too many.
The very bottom of that book case are my series books. Obviously, there are some holes.
The next book case in the library/office are my YA books. This is a mix of finished, must-keep copies of books nearer the top and mostly ARCs I still need to read or pass along lower down.
The top shelf are a combination of my favorite YA books and authors, along with books I really liked and a couple of books I still need to read. And on the far right are some classic Babysitter’s Club titles.
And there are my shelves unedited. Be kind. I think maybe the titles on my shelves and the way I keep them around the house share way more about me than I would share otherwise.
Speechless by Hannah Harrington & The Love is Louder Campaign
A couple of weeks ago I posted a review of Hannah Harrington‘s sophomore novel Speechless, which you can read here. Here’s a little more about the book:
Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can’t keep a secret. Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast — and nearly got someone killed. Chelsea has taken a vow of silence to learn to keep her mouth shut and to stop hurting anyone else.
Speechless tackles real-life teen issues, including bullying, mean girls, LGBT awareness and hate crimes. In October 2012 — a month from now, Harlequin TEEN will be releasing a new survey following up on interviews with 1,500 girls between the ages of 13 and 18 on the subject of bullying. In part of this project, they’ve teamed up with the Love is Louder Campaign.
Love is Louder is a non-profit group and Harlequin TEEN partnered with them to help use the power of YA literature to take a stand against bullying. The Speechless action kit is up on the Love is Louder site and uses tie book to provide ideas for activities and events that promote the anti-bullying movement. The goal of this partnership is to help make a difference in the lives of teens, one student at a time.
If you weren’t aware already, October is anti-bullying month. Keep your eyes around the blogosphere because I bet this is a topic that’ll be touched on quite a bit over the next month and a half.
To celebrate the partnership between Harlequin TEEN and the Love is Louder campaign, I’ve got two copies of Speechless to give away to those who live in the US or Canada. All you have to do is fill in the form, and I’ll pull two winners on September 24. If you’re interested in book trailers, I’m including it here for you to check out.
Links of Note
I’ve found I love doing these posts — they’re a little all over in terms of content, but I tend to like reading across topics, so I hope other people find these as interesting to read through as I do.
- Let’s start light. Here are some child-friendly computer books. Be warned that label is a bit of a misnomer but there is plenty of good computer humor to go around.
- Do you keep track of what books have been optioned for film? The LA Times ran a story with a bunch of new YA titles recently optioned. I bet you’ll recognize many of the titles (and maybe groan at a few).
- Related to that, there’s a nice interview in SLJ with literary manager Eddie Gamarra about the process of turning children’s books into movies.
- New blog alert! Sarah Flowers and her son Mark have put together a blog based on the concept of their generation gap — how do they read YA books and share them with one another? What are their similar and different perspectives on YA librarianship? This looks like a blog to watch. If their names sound familiar, it’s because they’re both heavily involved in YALSA.
- From Flavorwire, a look at the first edition covers of 25 classic novels. I love how simple and clean most of them are and it’s interesting to see which images are still the iconic ones associated with certain titles (like Gatsby).
- The resident YA expert at The Atlantic writes about the way online critics have been given a hard time when it comes to reviews, including a rehash of the Emily Giffin debacle. I will say this: I’ve noticed a huge change in tone for review/response in the last year and behavior among bloggers and authors. That’s part of why I’ve had a hard time reviewing this year. It’s always a weird risk, as silly as it sounds. I should be used to it having done this for 3.5 years, but it seems tensions are higher than ever now and sometimes the risk isn’t worth it for me.
- What kind of reader are you? The Atlantic has a guide to define your type. I read through all of the types listed on that page and I didn’t fit any of the descriptions. But lucky for me, there is another page of reader types here. I would call myself a mix of Hopelessly Devoted, The Critic, and The Sharer. Maybe also a bit of an “it’s complicated” reader, though I’m not a Pisces, thank you very much. I am a balanced, variety-seeking Libra.
- Is this the year of the infographic? Here are a ton of library-related infographics that have made an appearance this year. Bonus: tools for making your own infographic — this will be particularly helpful for a little project I’m working on (tease!)
- How many Norton Anthologies clutter your book shelves? Between my husband and I — both of us were English majors in college — we have more than one shelf of these door stoppers. Did you know the Norton turned 50 this year? Check out the story behind the anthologies. If you’re wondering, my favorite Norton is my Postmodern American Fiction edition (it’s portable, not too heavy, and contains amazing postmodern work. . . my favorite kind of lit).
- The Horn Book has a fascinating story about font choices and picture books worth reading. If you get a print version of the magazine, I also suggest spending some time reading “Whitney and Me” in the September/October edition. It’s a great story about work-for-hire writing and about how the author’s perspective of writing that way changed when charged with writing a biography of Whitney Houston. It’s not on the website yet, unfortunately.
- Another story from The Atlantic, and this one is on “cross-unders,” or books published YA that have adult appeal. These are all fall releases. Can I just say I hate the term “cross-under?” I don’t know what it is but it makes me feel uncomfortable. Why can’t it just be cross-overs? Why under?
- Want a good laugh? Here’s a list of a bunch of funny books by reading preferences. Source is a little suspect to me, but the lists look pretty solid.
- I love this blog post over at The Readventurer so much — a metric ton of YA novels at 220 pages or fewer. I love shorter YA novels, so I plan on checking out a ton of the ones on the list that I’ve overlooked.
- Razorbill UK just made a deal with self-published author Tammara Webber to publish a number of her books traditionally. Of interest to me in this story are a few things: it’s another self-published author (and one doing really well if you pay attention to rankings) choosing to go with a traditional publisher and what caught Razorbill UK’s attention was her “new adult” novel. I have feelings about that label — it’s adult and there’s no shame about it — but I found the publisher’s discussion of how this is a new trend worth looking into interesting. That’s basically the opposite of the reaction in the US, isn’t it?
- You should go ask Courtney Summers a bunch of really tough questions over at the YA Book Club Group on Goodreads. Also, I don’t normally link to other contests around the web, but she’s giving away 4 books coming out this fall that I’ve read and approve of: Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Through to You by Emily Hainsworth, Yesterday by CK Kelly Martin, and Send Me A Sign by Tiffany Schmidt. Go enter here — and yes, you will see reviews of all of these books on STACKED soon.
- Still on the fence about Kid Lit Con? Betsy Bird has posted the entire schedule on her blog, and you should read it and be convinced to go. You saw Maureen Johnson is the keynote speaker, right? Because I’m pretty excited about that.
- Ever dreamed of having your book design dreams become a reality? Simon and Schuster are looking for the next look for Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451 to commemorate it’s 60th anniversary. Details here!
And that’s a wrap! But before I sign off on this post, I’m curious: are there things that are of interest worth sharing in bi-weekly link roundups? Would you be interested in links to contests on other blogs or venues for books we dig? Non-book news that catches our eyes? I don’t know about anyone else, but I read a ton of different blogs and collect a lot of different, interesting pieces and wonder about what other people would be interested in seeing. Drop a line in the comments — or privately via email — with any suggestions or thoughts you have. Ninety-nine percent of what I blog is what I want to blog about; this is the one percent where I’d be happy to tailor it a bit to what readers might be interested in!
What I’m Reading Now
my funk – in 20 pages or so, I can get a beginning, middle, and end,
and I haven’t invested huge gobs of time. The stories have been hit or miss, as expected. My favorite so far is Malinda Lo’s story about a girl hunting for her missing brother in the tunnels below a city where racial purity is mandated by law. It’s one of the better-written stories and also makes sense narratively. A couple of the stories have been more disappointing than usual – I feel like they were too disjointed and hard to follow, not just “eh, not my thing.”
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