I’m currently loving this series of “Things that remind me of” on this tumblr, and the image above is for the “Things that remind me of” for Malinda Lo’s Ash. Spend a little time checking out all of the awesome posts here — talk about a neat idea for visually thinking about books. I might have to try it.
This week’s edition of Links of Note is short — we’ve been collecting so many links for “30 Days of Awesome” and for the read and blog along to The Chocolate War. If you haven’t spent time on either of those, you should.
If there’s something I missed from the last couple of weeks worth knowing about, let me know.
- Andrea Pinkney talks about diverse covers over at the CBC Diversity blog and calls for a love fest of favorite covers featuring the full faces or bodies of people of color.
- At School Library Journal, there’s a nice post about YA books you might have overlooked in the last couple of years. Interesting to me is the book that just came out being listed, only because it just came out. How could it already be overlooked? Either way, it’s a good list.
- Flavorwire has a fun post featuring the handwritten book outlines from well-known authors, including JK Rowling and Sylvia Plath.
- Is it weird to include a post I helped write in the roundup? I’m going to anyway. Author Kathleen Peacock and I cowrote a piece about how piracy hurts libraries, authors, and readers. I talked specifically about how you can get books you want into your own library (and how piracy doesn’t help that happen).
- Hilary T. Smith, author of Wild Awake (which I have a review of coming in a couple weeks) has an interview with the designer of her book cover. This is a neat read!
- A panel of authors on the question of likability. This is worth reading.
- “Where are all of the funny YA books?” is a question I hate hearing. Sure, there’s not necessarily a YA humor section but there are plenty of funny YA books. Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Kansas even made this awesome flowchart to funny YA.
- This post is from earlier in May, but it resonated with me: what is the fate of the book blogger?
- I have yet to finish reading this piece, so part of why I’m sharing is because I want to remember to finish it and because it made the rounds of a few blogs I read. It’s long form journalism and super interesting — the lack of the female road narrative and why that matters.
- I think this is one of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long time. EM Kokie talks about how in YA, sexuality tends to be shied away from when it relates to females and female body parts. Why is this? I think I could write an entire post about this very topic because it’s one I think about quite a bit.
- So it’s interesting no one has talked about the fact that this New York Times Book Review of Andrew Smith’s Winger coins the term “Green Lit,” as though John Green is the gold standard for realistic fiction. In my mind, this piece said more about THAT than it ever did in terms of reviewing the book.
Pam, of Mother Reader, isn’t hosting this year’s annual 48 Hour Book Challenge, but it will be happening. Check out her post for all the details on the new hosts and how it’ll play out. I plan on participating — are you?
Wow… all the interesting things in one place. Thanks!
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on NYTBR's "Green Lit" comment. Nothing against John Green (nothing for him either, though), but seriously? My eyes almost rolled out of my head.
There's a whole blog post in this topic alone. If I boil it down though, it's a term that bothers me greatly — not because I don't think John Green writes excellent books — but because it classifies ALL contemporary/realistic books as trying to achieve what Green does when that's not the case. It also makes huge assumptions about readers — that they all only want one kind of book — and what of all the books prior to Green's publication? It's a gross dismissal of EVERYTHING that is not JG.