Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2012

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top 10 Tuesday new Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Favorite New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2012

Well, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? While much of what I read in 2012 was by tried-and-true favorite authors, and still more were books in ongoing series, I did have the pleasure of trying many authors for the first time. Without further ado, and not necessarily in any discernible order, here are my top ten for 2012:

1) Elizabeth Wein, author of Code Name Verity, one of my very favorite books of 2012. This is yet another example of a YA novel that should be read by everyone. With an amazingly intricate plot and unforgettable characters, Code Name Verity left me breathless and teary-eyed.

2) Patricia Briggs — I was so happy to stumble across her phenomenal urban fantasy series centering on Mercy Thompson, full of werewolves, shapeshifters, vampires, and fae. The series is well-written and exciting, and I can’t wait for more!

3) John Green — Including John Green in this list may be a bit of a cheat, as I’ve read something co-authored by John Green before 2012 (Will Grayson, Will Grayson, cowritten with David Levithan), but The Fault In Our Stars was the first book I’d read by John Green alone. It left me a completely tear-stained mess, but I loved it immensely and am now on a mission to read more of his novels.

4) Bill Willingham – Author of the amazing Fables graphic novel series, which I fell madly in love with this year.

5) Maria Semple — I loved Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and am on the wait list at my local library for the author’s earlier novel, This One Is Mine.

6) Gillian Flynn – Wow, was Gone Girl an amazing ride! I definitely want to read the author’s two earlier novel, Dark Places and Sharp Objects.

7) Eowyn Ivey — Her descriptions of frontier life in Alaska were so real, I needed an extra sweater. The Snow Child was a magical read, and I’d love to read whatever the author writes next.

8) Carl Hiassen — Believe it or not, I’d never read anything by this bestselling author until my son and I decided to read his newest book for children, Chomp. What fun! I’m not sure whether his adult fiction is for me, but I’ll certainly look forward to reading more of his children’s books.

9) Ransom Riggs — Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was weird and wonderful, full of deliciously odd photos. Altogether enjoyable, and I can’t wait for the sequel.

10) Charles de Lint — I know he’s written a lot of books and has a loyal following, but somehow this author had never made it across my radar until I picked up a copy of The Mysteries of Grace, which I really enjoyed. More, please!

I’m looking forward to all the new discoveries that await me in 2013!

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10Dec2012

The Monday agenda

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Not a lofty, ambitious to-be-read list consisting of 100+ book titles. Just a simple plan for the upcoming week — what I’m reading now, what I plan to read next, and what I’m hoping to squeeze in among the nooks and crannies.

Right down to business: What books are brewing this week?

From last week:

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin: Done! My review is here, but the bottom line is: If you read the first book in the Birthright series, you’ll want to pick this one up.

Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin: Just started, hard to put down.

Magic By The Lake by Edward Eager: My most recent out-loud read with my son, finally finished, and not entirely successful. Neither of us loved it, unfortunately.

And, as always, still going strong with the group re-read of Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon.

And this week’s new agenda:

It’ll take me a few days to finish Ashen Winter, unless I continue staying up past midnight because I just have to see what happens next. After that, I plan to read The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. Still on my library pile: Beta by Rachel Cohn and Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.

And then I plan to shift gears and take a break from young adult fiction for a bit.

In children’s books, my kiddo and I are undecided. I presented him with a big stack of books, but he’s not ready to commit. Me, I’m pulling for A Wrinkle In Time, but that may be a tad too intense for him at bedtime. We shall see.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon: Chapters 70 and 71 this week… then one more chapter next week, and we’re done!

So many book, so little time…

That’s my agenda. What’s yours? Add your comments to share your bookish agenda for the week.

9Dec2012

Book Review: Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

Because It Is My Blood, book 2 in the Birthright series which began in All These Things I’ve Done, continues the story of Anya Balanchine, 17-year-old heiress to the Balanchine Chocolate empire. Unfortunately for Anya, in New York in the year 2083, chocolate and caffeine are illegal under the laws of the Second Prohibition. As a result, the Balanchines are a notorious organized crime family, and as the daughter of the murdered head of the family business, Anya is a prime target for both internecine bloodshed and for the law enforcement agents eager to make a big splash in the press.

On top of all this, Anya must worry about protecting both her genius younger sister and her mentally-impaired older brother — not to mention the more typical teenage worries of boyfriends, best friends, and high school graduation. The fact that Anya is a convicted criminal who has served prison time complicates matters tremendously, and when she is re-jailed on trumped-up charges, an escape seems to be the only answer.

Because It Is My Blood is a serviceable second book, moving the plot along at a mostly fast pace, although several of Anya’s sojourns along the way seem to drag a bit. The heart of the story is somewhat lacking in this installment. All These Things I’ve Done was propelled forward not only by the crime family plotline but by a compelling “star-crossed lovers” romance between Anya and the son of the New York District Attorney. This romance still features in the second book, but doesn’t carry the sense of excitement and passion present in the first. In fact, that sums up the problem that I had with Because It Is My Blood. The book often reads as a recitation of facts and events — jailbreaks, deaths real and faked, meetings with lawyers, meetings with Balanchine family members and associates — but without a sense of burning passion driving the story forward.

This is not to say that Because It Is My Blood isn’t fun to read. I got a real kick out of the familiar New York landmarks reimagined in the setting of a deteriorating city with meager resources and ample crime. The popular nightclub Little Egypt is housed in what was once a museum (i.e., The Metropolitan Museum of Art), and a vacant mess of a property with weird lion statues out front (i.e., The New York Public Library) is described as a place where they used to keep paper books in the old days. Anya is amused by the old-fashioned slang of her grandmother (OMG, for example), and there’s a film festival showing ancient movies including one where a lady crosses a river on a horse (which I can only assume is a reference to Lord of the Rings). Little details like these make the story accessible and bring to life both the setting and the era in ways both entertaining and relatable.

By the end of Because It Is My Blood, the stage has been set for what I believe will be an exciting third installment in the trilogy. Anya has made key decisions and is about to take a bold new step that will impact all the people around her and will have dramatic impact on the family business as well as on the New York political world. The developments are quite promising, and the storyline is left hanging with a tremendous amount of potential for a satisfying conclusion to the series.

As a young adult trilogy, the Birthright series has a lot going for it: a smart, strong female protagonist, an unusual premise that breaks from the ubiquitous dystopian model saturating the YA market, and a clear-eyed look at a girl who has to balance love, family, honor, and her own sense of purpose. Because It Is My Blood is not a stand-along novel, and you wouldn’t want to jump into the series with it. But if this type of story appeals to you, I’d definitely recommend giving the series a try, starting with All These Things I’ve Done. The writing is fresh, funny, and appealing, the characters are not run-of-the-mill YA teens… and who can resist a book about chocolate?

Note: I have two other book 2s in the works this week, and may actually be back with a few astute observations when I’m done. Middle children never have it easy, do they?

8Dec2012

Happy Hanukkah to me! A celebration – with books.

Posted in Bookish Thoughts by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post as part of the Top Ten Tuesday blog hop, about the top 10 books I’d like to receive as gifts this holiday season (or any holiday season, or ever, really). I bemoaned the fact that no one in my family or circle of friends buys me books, for reasons too sad to get into again (but you can read my post here, if you’d like).

But really, it wasn’t entirely fair for me to make this statement, as my wonderful and amazing daughter is the exception to the rule. A brief moment of mommy bragginess: My daughter, age 22, is smart, funny, caring, and a reader; she’s the light of my life, and everything a mother could want in a daughter. We make each other laugh; we share the same taste in books, movies, TV shows… you name it.

And so, darling daughter — currently spending a year in Alaska as an Americorps volunteer — sent the family a package in time for Hanukkah, which we opened tonight after latkes were eaten, candles were lit, songs were sung. And in that package was a book for me! And guess what? It was:

A book that I didn’t already own
A book that I hadn’t already read
A book that I hadn’t even known existed
A BOOK THAT I LOVE!

Success! My girl is amazing. She got me… drumroll, please… the brand-new graphic novel of A Wrinkle In Time! A Wrinkle In Time is only one of my very favorite children’s books, and now THERE’S A GRAPHIC NOVEL! (Please excuse my excessive use of caps lock — I’m a tad overexcited at the moment).

You know when someone gives you a present, and you open it up and it’s not really something you’re all that into, but you smile and say “wow!” and “oh my god” and other inane things intended to show happiness with something you could really do without? This was not one of those times. Darling daughter picked out the perfect something — something that I’ll enjoy, something I’m excited to receive, and most important to me, something that shows that she really knows me.

I can’t wait to read my new book. I love my daughter. Basically, I’m a happy camper.

See? The way to a booklover’s heart is through her bookshelves. ‘Tis the season to give and receive good books. And, oh yeah, one more time: I love my daughter.

7Dec2012

Flashback Friday: Morgan’s Run by Colleen McCullough

Posted in Flashback Friday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

It’s time, once again, for Flashback Friday…

Flashback Friday is a chance to dig deep in the darkest nooks of our bookshelves and pull out the good stuff from way back. As a reader, a blogger, and a consumer, I tend to focus on new, new, new… but what about the old favorites, the hidden gems? On Flashback Fridays, I want to hit the pause button for a moment and concentrate on older books that are deserving of attention.

If you’d like to join in, here are the Flashback Friday book selection guidelines:

Has to be something you’ve read yourself
Has to still be available, preferably still in print
Must have been originally published 5 or more years ago

Other than that, the sky’s the limit! Join me, please, and let us all know: what are the books you’ve read that you always rave about? What books from your past do you wish EVERYONE would read? Pick something from five years ago, or go all the way back to the Canterbury Tales if you want. It’s Flashback Friday time!

My pick for this week’s Flashback Friday:

Morgan’s Run by Colleen McCullough

(published 2000)

My go-to book by Colleen McCullough would probably be The Thorn Books. I read The Thorn Birds many, many years ago, but it still remains a point of reference for me in many ways. Who can forget Father Ralph and Meggie? (Insert big, romantic sigh right here…) Still, a more recent book by Colleen McCullough had quite an impact on me, and that book is Morgan’s Run.

From Amazon:

It was one of the greatest human experiments ever undertaken: to populate an unknown continent with the criminals of English society. For Richard Morgan, twelve months as a prisoner on the high seas would be just the beginning in a soul-trying test to survive in a hostile new land where, against all odds, he would find a new love and a new life. From the dank cells of England’s prisons to the unforgiving frontier of the eighteenth-century outback, Morgan’s Run is the epic tale of one man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

Morgan’s Run is a terrifically detailed historical novel, telling the tale of the prisoner transports from England to the Australian penal colonies through the experiences of a remarkable individual. Lead character Richard Morgan is an honorable man, falsely accused and convicted, who suffers unimaginable horrors during the sea voyage and the struggle to survive in a harsh, undeveloped land. I learned a great deal about the experiences of the transported convicts and the early days of English settlement down under, but what really made this an engrossing tale for me was the more personal story of Richard and his challenges, sufferings, and survival.

For those who enjoy historical fiction, I heartily recommend Morgan’s Run. And of course, if you’ve never read The Thorn Birds, read that one too!

So, what’s your favorite blast from the past? Leave a tip for your fellow booklovers, and share the wealth. It’s time to dust off our old favorites and get them back into circulation!

Note from your friendly Bookshelf Fantasies host: To join in the Flashback Friday bloghop, post about a book you love on your blog, and share your link below. Don’t have a blog post to share? Then share your favorite oldie-but-goodie in the comments section. Jump in!

4Dec2012

Wishlist Wednesday

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

And now, for this week’s Wishlist Wednesday…

The concept is to post about one book from our wish lists that we can’t wait to read. Want to play? Here’s how:

Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.
Please consider adding the blog hop button to your blog somewhere, so others can find it easily and join in too! Help spread the word! The code will be at the bottom of the post under the linky.
Pick a book from your wishlist that you are dying to get to put on your shelves.
Do a post telling your readers about the book and why it’s on your wishlist.
Add your blog to the linky at the bottom of the post at Pen to Paper.
Put a link back to pen to paper (http://vogue-pentopaper.blogspot.com) somewhere in your post.
Visit the other blogs and enjoy!

My Wishlist Wednesday book is:

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

From Amazon:

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is an old school mystery set firmly in tech-loving, modern day San Francisco. Clay Jannon (former web designer) lands a job at a bookstore with very few patrons and even fewer purchases. His curiosity leads him to the discovery of a larger conspiracy at play, one exciting enough to rope in his best friend (CEO at a startup) and love interest (works at Google). As Clay and company unravel the puzzles of Mr. Penumbra’s book shop, the story turns into a sort of nerdy heist, with real-life gadgets, secret societies, and a lot of things to say about the past, present, and future of reading. Sloan originally self-published Mr. Penumbra as a short story through Kindle Direct Publishing, before expanding it to its current form with a traditional print publisher–a fitting trajectory for a fast, fun story that has so wholly and enthusiastically embraced the tension between the digital and analog books.

Why do I want to read this?

Because it sounds wacky and exciting and it fits (I think) into one of my favorite categories: books about books! The fact that it’s described as a “nerdy heist” won me over immediately, and I love that it has to do with the “past, present, and future of reading”. All that, plus a San Francisco setting, makes this a book I’d love to dive into.

Has anyone read it yet? What did you think?

Quick note to Wishlist Wednesday bloggers: Come on back to Bookshelf Fantasies for Flashback Friday! Join me in celebrating the older gems hidden away on our bookshelves. See the introductory post for more details, and come back this Friday to add your flashback favorites!

3Dec2012

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Bringing Me

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different topic for a top 10 list each week. This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Book I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Bringing Me

Before jumping in, let me preface this post by saying that I’m using “Santa” in the metaphorical sense. I have never received nor do I anticipate ever receiving a visit from Santa. It’s not that I’m naughty (at least not on a daily basis) — I just don’t swing that way, religion-wise.

So onward to the top 10 books I wouldn’t mind receiving this holiday season. Bear in mind that my loved ones usually shy away from buying me books, since chances are either a) it’s something I want to read and I already own it; b) I’ve already read it but thanks anyway; or c) it’s sooooo not my taste — don’t you know me at all? As a result, just about all of the books currently on my shelves are books that I’ve bought myself, and everything else that I’ve read has come from the library. I’m difficult, I admit it.

Therefore, my top 10 list consists of books that I’d LOVE to receive as gifts but either haven’t bought for myself (because I haven’t gotten around to it yet or they’re just not available), OR they’re books that seem wonderful but would feel like too much of an indulgence to buy for myself.

1 & 2) Two pop-culture celebrations top my most-wanted list: Firefly: A Celebration is what appears to be a lovingly produced tribute to Joss Whedon’s Firefly series, filled with photos, scripts, behind-the scenes looks, and more. Buffy: The Making of a Slayer is a hardcover, slipcased edition that is, according to Amazon, “the first authorized, fully illustrated retrospective” of the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are priced at about $30, which puts them into my luxury book items category. Unless there’s a huge price drop at some point, I probably wouldn’t get these for myself — but if any family members happen to be reading this, consider this a huge hint droppage.

3) I find myself rather intrigued by Building Stories by Chris Ware, which is a graphic novel that comes in a box and consists of 14 separate pieces that can, if I understand correctly, be read in whatever order you’d like. I’m not sure that I need to own this, but boy, would I like to open it up and play with it.

4) The Rolling Stones 50 by The Rolling Stones. 352 pages, over 1,000 illustrations! It sounds like a real treat for Stones fans, but I’m certainly not die-hard enough to spend $60 on it. I’d be perfectly happy to just look through it once or twice at a friend’s house, to be honest. Still, if it turned up as a gift, I certainly wouldn’t say no.

5) My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly La Force and Jane Mount. Can I just tell you that I’m in love with this book? I mean, I really love everything about it. The concept is just lovely:

The books that we choose to keep –let alone read– can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. Contributors include Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Keller, Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Maira Kalman, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Miranda July, Alex Ross, Nancy Pearl, David Chang, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Dave Eggers, among many others. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first-person commentary from all the contributors, this is a perfect gift for avid readers, writers, and all who have known the influence of a great book.

Not only that — check out the artwork! I could spend hours staring at these paintings of book spines. And what’s more, you can buy prints of many of the shelves from the artists’ website (www.idealbookshelf.com)… and, if you’re willing to shell out some $$, you can order a custom original painting of your own ideal bookshelf. Love, love, love.

6 & 7 & 8) It’s graphic novel time! I’ve been reading a lot more graphic novels this past year, and the more I read, the more I want to read. My choices here are some graphic novels that have been out for a while. The idea of trying to catch up and read the whole series for any of these is rather daunting. Still, if my metaphorical Santa decided to gift me with one or two of these, I’d be thrilled. My top picks for extravagant graphic novel gifts are:

The Walking Dead Compendium 1 & The Walking Dead Compendium 2: These massive paperbacks each encompass eight of the Walking Dead graphic novels and are over 1,000 pages in length, with a retail price of $60 each. I’ve missed the Walking Dead phenomenon completely so far, on the page and on TV, but I’m soooo tempted to dive in.
The five hardcovers that make up the Absolute Sandman collection each run about $100. But, hey, it’s Neil Gaiman! Considering the price, I’ll probably rely on my public library when I’m ready to tackle what I’ve heard is a masterpiece. Still, if a gift were to come my way…
Bone! It’s the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Edition! The Bone series by Jeff Smith is marketed as a children’s series, but I found it engaging, funny, dramatic, and wonderfully drawn. What a world! And the stupid rat creatures are, hands-down, my very favorite stupid evil carnivores. My son has the Bone collection in paperback, but this hardcover special edition looks absolutely stunning.

And to wrap it all up, how about a couple more books about books?

9 & 10) My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (published by Black Dog & Leventhal) and One For The Books by Joe Queenan. I spend a good portion of each day either thinking about, writing about, or talking about books. These books about other people’s favorite books sound like perfect reading for a bookworm like me.

And there you have it, my top 10 pie-in-the-sky wishes for holiday gifts. Maybe most aren’t too realistic, but it’s awfully fun to fantasize a bit!

Here’s hoping that you find some reading goodies wrapped up in shiny paper with your name on them this year! Happy reading!

3Dec2012

Great (But Wrong) Expectations

Posted in Bookish Thoughts by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I had the very weird experience this past week of reading a book and realizing, close to the end, that this book was not about what I thought it was about after all.

The fault is my own. While I’m an avid reader of book reviews, I do tend to shy away from reviews of books that I know I plan to read. I’m a spoiler-phobe, you see. I’ve often started reading a review, only to get a few paragraphs in and realize, “ooh, this sounds like a book for me!” and immediately stop reading the review. I just don’t want to know anything in advance, thank you very much.

And so, after inexplicably waiting a year past the publication date, I finally read Doc by Mary Doria Russell this past week – and while I loved it and thought it was fascinating (and will write a review in the next couple of days), it wasn’t the book I expected it to be.

Mary Doria Russell is the author of The Sparrow, a book I love passionately. She’s basically one of my “free pass” authors – so good, and with such a winning streak with me, that I’ll automatically read anything she writes, whether or not the subject matter is in one of my usual areas of interest.

Such was the case with Doc. A Western, for me? Written by any other author, the answer would be no. But in this case, I just had to read it.

I admit to being rather ignorant of the Western genre, and my knowledge of historical figures from the “Wild West” era is woefully shallow. So yes, I’d heard of Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the OK Corral, but couldn’t tell you much of anything about them. Doc Holliday – some sort of gunslinger? An outlaw, maybe? Good on a horse? I’ve never even watched “Tombstone”. Shows you how much I knew about the historical events and people in Doc before I picked up the book.

And of course, being this unprepared, I expected to read more or less a biography of Doc Holliday, culminating in the big gunfight at the OK Corral. It wasn’t until I was about 50 or 60 pages from the end that I realized, “Wait a minute! There’s no way she can fit that in! Whaaaaaaaaaat is going on?”

Silly me. Had I read reviews – or really paid attention to the opening paragraph of the book – I would have known what to expect. Here’s how the book opens:

He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

See? She says it right there: “a single season of something like happiness”! But somehow or another, I didn’t really process this information up front, and so ended up expecting something much different than what I got.

The book was excellent, and I’m thrilled to have finally read it. But, I’m quite certain that my reading experience would have been much different if my expectations had been set properly from the start. Instead of viewing many of the incidents in the plot as prelude to a big, gun-slinging climax, I would have realized that what I was reading was, in fact, a beautiful snapshot of a year in the life of an extremely interesting man and the people around him. The incidents I viewed as preludes were really what mattered – the personal exchanges, the small and big moments that made Doc who he was. It was only when I realized where the book was going and what its scope was, and recalibrated my expectations, that I was able to do a course correction for myself. I can only imagine how frustrated I might have been otherwise, expecting an ending that was never intended to be a part of this particular story. As is, I wish I had read the entire book with this new knowledge, as I believe I would have appreciated it in a much different – and richer – way.

Has this ever happened to you? How do your expectations of a book affect your reading experience? Is it better to know nothing at all before starting a new book or to have some idea of the overall plot before you begin?

Please share your thoughts!

3Dec2012

The Monday agenda

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

And a very happy Monday morning to one and all! So what’s cooking, reading-wise?

From last week:

Doc by Mary Doria Russell: Just finished last night. I’ll probably need a day or two to digest a bit before writing a review. The short version is: LOVED it. I’m really looking forward to our book group discussion of Doc at the end of this week.

And that’s it! I didn’t have nearly as much time for reading this week as I would have liked (isn’t that always the case?). Here’s hoping the coming week contains extra minutes each day, by some magical stretch of the time-space continuum.

In ongoing reading, my son and I continued with Magic By The Lake by Edward Eager, and may even be ready for something new before this week is done..

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon (group re-read): Back on track!

And this week’s new agenda:

Whew! I just finished Doc, and it’s hard to think about moving on to a different world and a different book. Maybe I should just spend the week watching DVDs of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp?

No? Okay, I’ll admit that it’s impossible that I won’t start a new book today.

I’ve still got a big stack of library books to get through before the library starts sending collection agents after me. I’ll probably start with Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin and then move on to The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin or Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon: Chapters 68 and 69 this week. Another couple of weeks and we’ll be done.

So many book, so little time…

That’s my agenda. What’s yours? Add your comments to share your bookish agenda for the week.

2Dec2012

News for bookslovers: Oddities and goodies

Posted in Bookish Thoughts, Pop Culture by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

All sorts of good book news came our way this past week. In case you were snoozing and missed something, consider this your friend public service announcement from the land of book obsessives:

In book-to-TV news:

The BBC announced that it will be producing a TV adaptation of Susannah Clark’s wonderful Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. So far, it sounds like this will be a six-episode mini-series airing in the UK sometime in 2013… let’s hope it crosses the pond to the US soon thereafter. You can read more about this delightful news here.
Coming next summer on CBS: Stephen King’s Under The Dome! This was one of my favorite books read in 2011 — big, creepy, and scary in an all-too-human sort of way. I can’t wait to see how this translates to TV. Read about it here.

In sheer insanity news:

Because apparently it’s not enough to have read and loved the Harry Potter series… Amazon is selling a $1,000 gift set about the Harry Potter movies. Sure, why not milk this cow for all it’s worth? If you’re thinking, “So worth it! Where do I get one?”, click here to read more. As of today, Amazon is offering this item at a 40% discount… so for just $600, all this can be yours:

hp set

Author updates:

Herman Wouk has published a new novel — at age 97! The Lawgiver, an epistolary novel about screenwriters working on a movie about Moses, is Wouk’s 18th book, and, he says, not his last. According to this article in the New York Times, he’s already begun his next writing project.
In early November, Philip Roth announced his retirement from writing. His last book, Nemesis, was published in 2010.

And in other bookish news:

British author Nick Hornby will be writing the screenplay for the movie adaption of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild. I haven’t read the book yet, and I always enjoy Nick Hornby, so… wait for the movie version?
Remember the Janie series from your distant or not-too-distant teen days? Starting with The Face On The Milk Carton, published 20 years ago, Caroline B. Cooney’s engrossingly addictive series focuses on a teen girl named Janie, leading a happy suburban life, who accidentally discovers that she may in fact have been kidnapped as a child. If you walked away from the final book in the series wishing for more, your wishes are about to come true! Janie Face To Face will be published in January, and promises to reveal (according to the Amazon blurb) “if Janie and Reeve’s love has endured, and whether or not the person who brought Janie and her family so much emotional pain and suffering is brought to justice.”
Did y’all see this awesome creation from EpicReads? It’s a YA fiction map to the US, with a book for each of the fifty states. Pretty amazing — check it out. You may even want to hang up a copy, or use it as a checklist, or — just thinking here — put it up on the wall and throw darts at it in order to pick your next book. I’ve read 10 out of 50, and can definitely see a bunch more that I’d like to add to my TBR list. Fun!
And finally, on a hopeful note, NPR Books reports that this is looking to be a good holiday season for independent bookstores. Which reminds me, I have more shopping to do…

Cheers, all! If you have any other interesting tidbits from the world of books, please share in the comments!