STACKED

books

Links of interest round up

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Here’s another irregular installment of links that have caught my attention or have otherwise been neat to see.

  • Jennifer Hubbard has a list of books that deal with suicide — the topic at the center of her latest novel, Try Not to Breathe — up on her blog. It’s a sensitive topic but it’s an important one.
  • Have books you need to get rid of or a pile of ARCs you want to pass on? Help out one of Blythe Woolston’s local organizations by sending them on for their EPIC library. I’ve already sent some myself, and I’ll tell you the secret to keeping it affordable: pick up a flat rate box and pack it to the gills. For sending about 20 or so books, it was under $15. Worth it for the cause.
  • A few weeks back, Kelly Thompson at Comic Book Resources wrote a fantastic post about inequality in female/male representation in comics. She approaches it from a bit of a different angle, and it is well worth the read. Both the article and the comments are thought-provoking. 
  • On the lighter side, I love this comic of Tolstoy discovering a bad review of Anna Karenina on GoodReads, and I’ve gotten more than a few laughs out of Least Helpful Reviews (which seems to have blown up this week — but it’s been around for a while).
  • In totally self-indulgent news, Tracey Neithercott wrote up a great article in this month’s AARP magazine, and she was kind enough to give us a shout out. Thanks to her, and thanks to everyone who has stopped by to check us out! And in more self-indulgent news, I was included in an article for April’s print and digital edition of SELF magazine, talking about my treadmill desk. Check it out, if you want to — you can even see a sliver of my books in the background (of course).

Tomorrow we continue our “So You Want to Read YA?” series with our first guest post. We’re so excited about this series and we hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are! 

Spreading the love: Blogs I’m reading

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in the process of cleaning out my feed reader and weeding out the blogs that aren’t active anymore, that don’t suit my interests anymore, or that otherwise don’t merit my daily attention. I probably subscribe to a healthy number of blogs, but I haven’t subscribed to many new blogs in a long time. I put a call out last week on Twitter for help and got some responses, but part of the challenge is that you don’t know what I’m reading and enjoying.

In a way to spread some blog love, as well as a way to solicit some new reading suggestions, I’m sharing a handful of the blogs I love reading. Not inclusive, not a full representation of everything I read, but more of a way to talk up some of the blogs maybe not everyone knows about. These are blogs that are strictly book blogs (so the library blogs that do a lot of reviews I read aren’t included).

I’m not the best blog commenter, despite being a big blog reader, but these are among my always-reads and the ones I hope someday to be a better commenter at. Also, these are all full-feed blogs; as prickly as it sounds, I can’t read blogs that aren’t full-feed. I am trying to get better about it, but it does make me less excited about content if I have to click on a new screen. 

Feel free to leave links to any other blogs you’d like to share. I am open to reading most book blogs, as long as they’re well-written, don’t rely on memes (one or two a week is fine with me as long as there is other content), and the reviews are thoughtful (length doesn’t matter). I’m not a vlog watcher.

These aren’t in any order.

  • Crunchings and Munchings: Aside from their savvy and thorough reviews, I am digging how they’re writing book lists (and book/film lists) on different topics. They’ve got a great voice. 
  • That Cover Girl: If you love covers at all and you’re not reading Capillya’s blog, get on it. She not only talks covers, but she has neat features spotlighting the cover designers talking about their work. She’s also interviewed a number of authors about the cover process.
  • Inkcrush: I like not only that she’s Aussie and exposes me to a ton of Aussie titles, but her reviews are thorough and thoughtful. Her short reviews, though, are just as good, and they’re to the point.
  • Reading with My Ears: I love posting the links to Lee’s reviews during for AudioSynced, but anyone who listens to audiobooks needs to read this blog. She knows exactly what she’s talking about when it comes to the good and the bad side of the listening experience.  
  • The Readventurer:  These girls are among my favorite GoodReads reviewers to read, and they have an excellent blog together. What I like best is that it’s a wide variety of books being reviewed, and that it’s not all reviews — and they’re not afraid to talk audiobooks, either. The pairing of a song with a book review is unique, too.
  • Someday My Printz Will Come: I know I’ve talked about this one before, but this blog is so good at the in-depth, textual analysis I love reading. They’ve also just added a third blogger, Sophie, who served on last year’s Printz committee, so I expect this great blog is just going to get better. 
  • The Midnight Garden: I’ve been reading the GoodReads reviews Wendy writes for a long time, so that she and two fellow GoodReads power users have a blog excites me. Again, this one has thoughtful reviews and fun features that make it a must-read.
  • YA Love Blog: Sarah’s a teacher, and the way she writes her reviews is very reflective of the fact she works with teens. I love that perspective, and I love how she has her students interview the authors for her interview features. 
  • The Book Smugglers: I’m pretty certain most people know this one, but just in case you don’t — they write some of the most thorough and honest book reviews around. I like to read what they write on books I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about, as well as the books I review myself because we either agree whole-heartedly or we’re on completely different sides. I love that! I don’t like to read blogs where I agree on everything said. 

This isn’t at all exhaustive, as I’m also a regular reader of about twenty other blogs, including this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and so forth.

Hope this filled up some of your reading holes in the blogging world, and now I’m eager to see what you’re reading (and enjoying).

Links of interest

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I’ve been saving up a bunch of interesting book and reading related links worth sharing, so why not on Sunday afternoon before the dawn of a new week — though I guess some folks have tomorrow off for a holiday.

  • Naomi Bates, a librarian down in Texas, has created this really neat road trip of books. She’s put books set in different states together in a list, complete with book trailers. They’re all current titles (pubbed in the last couple of years) and it is worth checking out. They’re not road trip books, but rather books set in specific areas. She’s developed the “road trip” portion. 
  • Author Nova Ren Suma has been running a fantastic series over the last few weeks called Turning Points, and if you haven’t been checking in on it periodically, you are missing out. A wide range of authors have written up guest posts talking about what was the moment that changed their careers or their mindsets about pursuing their dreams. Some of these have moved me to tears because as much as they’re about writing, they’re about much, much more. If you’re looking for a little inspiration, spend a little time reading these. 
  • At the YA Blogger Meetup in Dallas, I met a librarian from Pittsburgh named Tessa and she started telling me about a blog project she and a friend were working on. Well their blog launched and I have to say I am impressed. I love their post from Valentine’s Day that is a book list featuring sweet romance (the innocent kind) and heavy romance (the sultry kind). 
  • Love Dystopian YA? Then make sure you’re spending time this month over at Lenore’s Dystopian February celebration. She’s got a ton of reviews, interviews, and title previews for dystopian titles that are out or coming out in the next year.

Coming up & Going down

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I don’t usually share interesting links from the week, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about posting on an (irregular) basis. It was just good luck there was a lot of great stuff to share this week when all I really intended to post about was an upcoming feature on the blog.

This month, we didn’t do our regular Twitterview because we’re doing a two-week long series at the end of the month featuring the young adult debut authors who are part of the Class 2k12. Each of these authors has done a mini-Twitterview and shared a guest post for us from a pool of topics we brainstormed, ranging from serious to the completely ridiculous. You’re in for a treat. And don’t worry — we have some of our own content to post those weeks, as well, including our favorite books from the year.

(And if anyone’s interested in making a graphic for this two-week feature, let me know).

Onto some of the interesting links this week:

  • Cecil Castellucci shared a fantastic book list for young readers that features teens involved in protests. It’s a timely list and a topic I hadn’t thought a whole lot about as a reader, but I can see the great possibilities here for displays and discussion.
  • Kirkus and School Library Journal released their “Best of” lists for 2011 this week. I find the cross over titles pretty unsurprising, but what struck me were the titles that were clear outliers in the best of lists. I’ve read a lot of books this year, and many of these sort of came as shocking choices as “best of” when other titles were left off. Noticeably missing from these lists, (but not the Publisher’s Weekly list)? John Corey Whaley’s Where Things Come Back which I think is a front runner for not only the Morris Award, but it has serious potential for the Printz, too. What’s most interesting to me about these lists is that we as outsiders never know what the criteria are that go into selecting the titles. What qualities are the list creators looking at? Are they looking at literary merit (and then I question some choices) or are they looking at appeal (and then I question some more choices)? We don’t know. “Best of” lists are so subjective, and that’s what leaves me fascinated. How is it some books continue to be “best of” titles and how do others fail to make any lists when they meet as many criteria as possible?
  • That question leads me right to another one I have from a blog I hope other people are reading as regularly as me: how is it that Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls is not on the list of contenders for the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list? This is a book that we have praised right here, as well as a book we think has serious potential to be a Printz contender. Best Fiction titles come from committee nominations, as well as field nominations. Those field nominations need to be seconded by a committee member to join the list for consideration at ALA Midwinter, where the final list is determined. I’m really shocked and disappointed that this title didn’t make the cut. That’s not to say it’s the committee’s fault, but it’s a head scratcher and a disappointment. These selection lists help librarians in making purchasing and reader’s advisory decisions, so it’s a bit disconcerting to not see a title like this one even being considered.
  • Are you a librarian or teacher who needs books for your school or classroom library? Your budget’s been cut or you have no budget? Get in touch with Maureen Johnson. She wants to help you. Watching Maureen this morning as she learned how few budgets exist for books in the library/school world has been interesting, and she’s dedicated to making some sort of impact about this. Her email is maureen@maureenjohnsonbooks.com.