~ Both Sheila at Book Journey and Chris at Bookarama both posted on the changes in the book blogging world. Thought-provoking posts and great discussions in the comments sections of both.

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read list:

~ After reading Book Trunk’s post, I really need to get my hands on a collection of George Orwell’s essays!

Read-alongs:

~ Don’t forget to vote for your choice of an Irish March read-along book. I’ll keep the poll open until the end of the month, and then announce the winning book so everyone has a month to get their hands on a copy.

Book to movie news:

~ The fourth Narnia movie is in limbo. Is anyone surprised by this after the train wreck that was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

~ Kate Winslet to star in director Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

~ The Mystery of Edwin Drood: the unfinished Dickens – A new BBC drama imagines how it might have ended. This stars Matthew Rhys – I loved him in Brothers and Sisters.

Other bookish links:

~ Have you read Holly’s Inbox (click on the link for my review)? I loved it – and it is now available as an e-book. The whole book is written in e-mails and text messages, so should be perfect reading on an e-reader or iPhone – and much lighter, as the book is fairly huge.

~ Flavorwire: The 25 Greatest Epigraphs in Literature

Movie links:

~ 2012′s Most Anticipated Movies – I can’t wait to see The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, World War Z (need to read this book first!), The Great Gatsby, and Lincoln. Going to be a good year for movies, I think!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogging, book to film, book to tv, essays, ireland reading challenge, movies, read-alongs, TBR list

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I know that a lot of people wonder why anyone would read essays for fun. I’ve heard comments like, “Aren’t those the horrible things we were forced to write in school?” But essays can be so much more than three points and a conclusion. I read essays to learn, to laugh, to understand, to be convinced, to live vicariously through the author, to explore other people’s points of view.

Personally, I love travel essays, essays about literature, personal essays, essays about history – and so much more. If you’re not sure exactly what I’m talking about, I hope you’ll peruse some of my reviews and reviews from last year’s participants that I’m linking to in this post – they’ll give you a good idea of the variety of essay collections available. The lowest commitment level for the challenge is only 10 essays – that’s less than one per month. I challenge you to give it a try!

~ The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ The Conscious Reader, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes, reviewed at C’est la vie!

~ Far and Away: A Prize Every Time by Neil Peart, reviewed at The Written World

~ The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorie Authors on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ “Growing Pains” by Michael Thomas Ford, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ “Helping Students Understand Assessment” by Jan Chappuis, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ “Life Without Go-Go Boots” by Barbara Kingsolver, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing by Margaret Atwood, reviewed at C’est la vie!

~ “Notable Quotables” by Louis Menand, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ “Scenarios on the Use of Formative Classroom Assessments” by Cassandra Erkens, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ “Solipsism” by Ander Monson, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie, & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen, reviewed at Books and Movies

~ “What It Means to Be an American” by Qiong Li and Marilynn B. Brewer (and six other essays), reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ “What Makes Superman So Darned American” by Gary Engle, reviewed at The Conscientious Reader

~ “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision” by Adrienne Rich, reviewed at C’est la vie!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Welcome to the fourth annual Essay Reading Challenge! If you’re an avid essay reader, or just want to expand your reading horizons a bit, this is the challenge for you. If you’re thinking, “What would I read?” – stay tuned: I’ll have a post up with suggestions later in the week.

~ This challenge runs from January 1, 2012 through November 30, 2012.

~ If you read a book of essays, that book can also apply to any other challenges you are working on.

~ Choose a goal of reading 10, 20, or 30 essays, and then write a challenge post, linking back to this post. Feel free to copy and paste the above image into your challenge post.

~ Copy your challenge post’s link into the Mr. Linky below or on the main challenge page.

~ You don’t have to list your essays ahead of time – just have fun reading throughout the year.

~ I will put up a page for the challenge in my header, and add a Mr. Linky for essay reviews and wrap-up posts as the year goes on.

~ Everyone who completes the challenge and writes at least one review will be eligible for the giveaway prize: A copy of Best American Essays 2012.

~ I will put up a wrap-up and giveaway post sometime early in December – that’s why the challenge only runs through November.

Sign up here:

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Back cover blurb: “Katinss Everdeen’s adventures may have come to an end, but her story continues to blaze in the hearts of millions worldwide. Here, 13 YA authors and Hunger Games fans share their thoughts on the series. From Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ rejection of both Peeta and Gale, to Blythe Woolston’s exploration of PTSD among Hunger Games victors, to Carrie Ryan’s shrewd analysis of the “real” in Reality TV and our responsibility as viewers, The Girl Who Was on Fire lets fans get even more out of the series they love.”

You know the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind?” Well, sometimes I think it applies to books I love. When I go back and revisit an old favorite, it’s like falling in love all over again. And reading this collection of essays, alongside reading the first book in the trilogy aloud to my sons, has me head over heels with The Hunger Games all over again. It is truly a testament to the brilliance of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy that it can inspire a collection of 13 essays. Each one deals with a different aspect of the trilogy, and helped me realize how many layers there are to these books, these characters, and this fictional world.

The effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on Katniss and Peeta (as well as Hamitch and the other Victors); the rejection of the idea of seeing Katniss only in light of which man she chooses; our responsibility as media consumers and reality TV viewers; the role of fashion in The Hunger Games; Katniss’s ability to create community wherever she goes – the topics and discussions are endless. Each author does a fantastic job of exploring the themes, characters, setting, and wordplay in this remarkable series of novels. Reading through this book brought back the emotions I felt during certain significant moments and made me so excited to read through the entire trilogy all over again. It also cemented more firmly in my mind how much I hope the film version does the book justice.

If you are a lover of The Hunger Games then you will love this book – even if reading literary essays is not something you would normally do for pleasure. Trust me – you’ll like these.

List of authors who contributed: Sarah Rees Brennan, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Mary Borsellino, Elizabeth M. Rees, Lili Wilkinson, Ned Vizzini, Carrie Ryan, Cara Lockwood, Terri Clark, Blythe Woolston, Sarah Darer Littman, Adrienne Kress, Bree Despain

I am so happy that I will be able to share this book with two of my lucky readers! I have two copies that I want to give away to spread the love around and give the book even more buzz: an ARC and a finished copy. Here are the details:

~ I’m shipping the books myself, so this giveaway is open in the US and Canada only.

~ To enter, please leave a comment below. To make it fun, please tell me who your favorite character in the trilogy is apart from Katniss – and why.

~ One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.

~ All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. PST, Friday, April 8, 2011. On Saturday, April 9th, I will use Random.org to choose two winners. The first winner drawn will win the finished copy; the second will receive the ARC.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 49 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: essays, giveaways, hunger games, non-fiction

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We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world – to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity – our own capacity for life – that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled. ~p. 20, from “A Native Hill”

Back cover blurb: “The Art of the Commonplace gathers twenty-one essays by Wendell Berry that offer an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture. These essays promote a clearly defined and compelling vision important to all people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, ill-health, and destructiveness of contemporary American culture.

Why is agriculture becoming culturally irrelevant, and at what cost? What are the forces of social disintegration, and how might they be reversed? How might men and women live together in ways that are to the benefit of both? And, how does the corporate takeover of social institutions and economic practices contribute to the destruction of human and natural environments?

Through his staunch support of local economies, his defense of farming communities, and his call for family integrity, Berry emerges as the champion of responsibilities and priorities that serve the health, vitality and happiness of the whole community of creation.”

How do I even begin to review this book? It is dense, thought-provoking, convicting, and mind-changing. In fact, there really is no way to “review” it. Some of these essays are intellectual and deep and require slow reading. Others are more easily accessible to those not familiar with the agrarian philosophy. All of them are worthy of much time and contemplation. While I may not agree with every single conclusion Berry asserts, there were many points that had me nodding my head in agreement and wishing that we could turn back the clock to a simpler time. I realize that isn’t possible, and so am having to look at other ways to change the way I think about community, food, health, and the economy. I really can’t say anything else to do this book justice, and so will let Berry’s words speak for himself.

The hill is like an old woman, all her human obligations met, who sits at work day after day, in a kind of rapt leisure, at an intricate embroidery. She has time for all things. Because she does not expect ever to be finished, she is endlessly patient with details. She perfects flower and leaf, feather and song, adorning the briefest life in great beauty as though it were meant to last forever. ~p. 28, from “A Native Hill”

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has set his mind decisively against what is wrong with us. He is helping himself in a way that dignifies him and that is rich in meaning and pleasure. But he is doing something else that is more important: he is making vital contact with the soil and the weather on which his life depends. He will no longer look upon rain as an impediment of traffic, or upon the sun as a holiday decoration. And his sense of man’s dependence on the world will have grown precise enough, one would hope, to be politically clarifying and useful. ~p. 88-89, from “Think Little”

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: essays, non-fiction, wendell berry

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Vasilly from 1330v and I decided to read this essay collection together for the Essay Challenge and because we both had it on our to-read list. We both found the collection hit-and-miss. I slogged my way through the whole thing; Vasilly read the ones she enjoyed and skimmed the rest. I think she probably had the better idea, because some of the essays were just plain boring.

Afterward, she asked me, “Did you go into Changing My Mind with any expectations about the writing or subject matter?”

I answered, “I did have high expectations for the Smith essay collection, for two reasons. One, I adored her novel On Beauty. Second, I have been spoiled by essay collections like Yolen’s Touch Magic, Chabon’s Maps and Legends, and Fadiman’s Ex Libris and At Small and At Large – oh, and Hornby’s bookish essays – in which every single entry in those collections was amazing. My experience with Changing My Mind was much more hit and miss. There were a few I enjoyed greatly, several I found boring, and I will admit to skimming the final one about David Foster Wallace.”

We did both enjoy the first essay, “Their Eyes Were Watching God: What Does Soulful Mean?” Vasilly will be writing more about that particular essay today at her blog, so be sure and click over to read her thoughts. As I read that essay, there was a question that immediately came to mind.

As an African-American woman, do you agree/disagree with the following passage – and why or why not?

“Gratifying as it would be to agree that black women writers “have consistently rejected the falsification” of their experience, the honest reader knows that this is simply not the case. In place of negative falsification, we have nurtured, in the past thirty years, a new fetishization. Black female protagonists are now unerringly strong and soulful; they are sexually voracious and unafraid; they take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, spirits of history; they process grandly through novels thick with a breed of greeting-card lyricism. They have little of the complexity, the flaws and uncertainties, depth and beauty of Janie Crawford and the novel she springs from. They are pressed into service as role models to patch over our psychic wounds; they are perfect; they overcompensate. The truth is, black women writers, while writing many wonderful things, have been no more or less successful at avoiding the falsification of human experience than any other group of writers.”

Vasilly answered: “I haven’t read enough to say that it’s true of black women writers but I can say that this stereotype is true. Of the stories that I love that feature a black woman as the main character like Morrison’s Beloved or Pearl Cleage’s What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, it’s the flaws in the character that I have loved. No reader can relate to the main character who’s perfect in every way. There’s no story there.

I also think this stereotype was created because of the real world. As a black woman, I know that strangers often look at me as if they’re waiting for me to have an attitude about something. You know the obnoxious, head-swinging, finger-snapping female with whatever economic issues they think I have. But when I take out my book to read, I see people relax and how easy their perception of me changes. It’s sad really.

I think that’s why some black female characters are described in the way they are. It’s a shield from the world. It’s made to give people one less thing to judge black women by. But you don’t just find these characters in books written by blacks but also by other races also. A similar stereotype can be found about women of other races also.

I recently talked to another blogger, Ari from Reading in Color and she told me how much she loves Janie Crawford. To her Janie was this great character who was headstrong and could be a bit frustrating at times. That’s the kind of character I always want to read about. Someone with flaws but redeeming qualities, who is so realistic that I can be fooled into thinking that this person really exists.

I haven’t read Their Eyes Were Watching God yet but I do plan on reading it this month. Janie Crawford sounds like an amazing character.”

“Rereading Barthes and Nabokov” was another essay that I enjoyed, especially the following passage:

“After all, you can storm the house of a novel like Barthes, rearranging the furniture as you choose, or you can enter on your knees, like the pilgrim Nabokov thought you were, and try to figure out the cunning design of the place – the house will stand either way.”

This brought to mind another question for V:

Is the author’s intention upon writing the work important, or does only the reader’s reaction matter? And can you separate your “self” from what you read? Is it possible to approach a work of literature with a completely blank slate?

Vasilly answered: “As readers, we bring our experiences with us when we open up a book and begin reading the first page. There’s no way we can leave those experiences behind when we do so. Our experiences is what help us relate to a work of art. The author’s intention is very important but because the reader is a different person than the author, there are things that a reader picks up that an author may never notice until it’s pointed out to them.

I think the first time you read a book, you’re “rearranging furniture”. After that every reading of the same book is more about paying attention and seeing how this work was designed.”

Here’s another passage from the same essay:

“The novels we know best have an architecture. Not only a door going in and another leading out, but rooms, hallways, stairs, little gardens front and back, trapdoors, hidden passageways, et cetera. It’s a fortunate rereader who knows half a dozen novels this way in their lifetime.”

As for the rest of the essays, I told Vasilly: “There were a few essays on authors and/or novels that convinced me I have no interest in reading either those authors or those novels! Kafka and David Foster Wallace, for instance, seem like two authors whose books would be way too much work to read. I did, however, renew my pledge to read Middlemarch very soon after reading her essay on that particular classic.”

Vasilly responded: “I remember reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” when I was younger and thinking it was so bizarre. Last year I read Wallace’s “This is Water” which is a speech that he gave to a graduating class. It’s a great read and really easy. I want to read more by DFW but I am pretty scared! His writing does sound like a lot of work which I don’t mind, but I hope to understand half of it when I do read it! ”

My favorite essay in the collection was “That Crafty Feeling,” about Smith’s writing process. I love reading about how writers work and then feel about their work after publication. Here are my two favorite passages from that essay:

“In the middle of a novel, a kind of magical thinking takes over. To clarify, the middle of the novel may not happen in the actual geographical center of the novel. By middle of the novel I mean whatever page you are on when you stop being part of your household and your family and your partner and your children and food shopping and dog feeding and reading the post – I mean when there is nothing in the world except your book, and even as your wife tells you she’s sleeping with your brother her face is a gigantic semicolon, her arms are parentheses and you are wondering whether rummage is a better verb than rifle. The middle of a novel is a state of mind. Strange things happen in it. Time collapses. You sit down to write at 9 a.m., you blink, the evening news is on and four thousand words are written, more words than you wrote in three long months, a year ago. Something has changed. And it’s not restricted to the house. If you go outside, everything – I mean, everything – flows freely into your novel. Someone on the bus says something – it’s straight out of your novel. You open the paper – every single story in the paper is directly relevant to your novel. If you are fortunate enough to have someone waiting to publish your novel, this is the point at which you phone them in a panic and try to get your publication date brought forward because you cannot believe how in tune the world is with your unfinished novel right now, and if it isn’t published next Tuesday maybe the moment will pass and you will have to kill yourself….

When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second – put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year or more is ideal – but even three months will do. Step away from the vehicle. The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat backstage with a line of novelists at some festival, all of us with red pens in hand, frantically editing our published novels into fit form so that we might go onstage and read from them. It’s an unfortunate thing, but it turns out that the perfect state of mind to edit your own novel is two years after it’s published, ten minutes before you go onstage at a literary festival. At that moment every redundant phrase, each show-off, pointless metaphor, all the pieces of deadwood, stupidity, vanity and tedium are distressingly obvious to you. Two years earlier, when the proofs came, you looked at the same page and couldn’t see a comma out of place. And by the way, that’s true of the professional editors, too; after they’ve read a manuscript multiple times, they stop being able to see it. You need a certain head on your shoulders to edit a novel, and it’s not the head of a writer in the thick of it, nor the head of a professional editor who’s read it in twelve different versions. It’s the head of a smart stranger who picks it off a bookshelf and begins to read. You need to get the head of that smart stranger somehow. You need to forget you ever wrote that book.”

So, to sum up: if you decide to read this book, be willing to dip in and out, skip around, skim until you find the essays that resonate with you. And do read Zadie Smith’s On Beauty – it’s brilliant.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: essay reading challenge, essays, non-fiction

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Questions About Angels: Poems by Billy Collins

From my review: “Reading Billy Collins is like soaking in a hot bath after a long day, or diving into a dish of your favorite ice cream. His poems are deceptively simple – you don’t have to read them over and over again to decipher their meaning. And yet you will want to read them over and over again for the pure beauty and joy of them, and because you’ll find something new each time you do. His poems alternately make me laugh, bring a lump to my throat, and elicit a sigh of pleasure or melancholy when I finish one. There really are no words to use to tell you how much I adore his work.”

At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman

From my review: “The best kind of essay is one that teaches you a little something, challenges your thoughts or beliefs, and makes you laugh or cry, engaging your emotions. The essays in this volume all accomplished those things in one way or another, while adding to my to-read list and giving me some wonderful passages to copy down so I don’t forget them.”

Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie, & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen

From my review: “The other main thing I took away from this book is that I will no longer feel like reading fantasy is a “guilty pleasure.” I don’t know why I let other people’s opinions bother me so much, but I will argue forcefully now that reading fantasy (and science fiction) is just as legitimate as reading any other genre.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: essays, favorites, poetry

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After two years of doing the Essay Challenge, and a few years of reading essays on my own before that, I have read, browsed, and read reviews of a lot of different essay collections. If you’re interested in doing the challenge, but not sure where to begin, this list should help get you started.

Here are some I’ve read and reviewed:

Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie, & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen – my review

Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby – my review

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – my review

Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon – my review

At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman – my review

Here are others I’ve read and enjoyed:

How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen

To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian by Stephen E. Ambrose

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays by Wendell Berry

Writers on Writing, Volume II: More Collected Essays from The New York Times

Standing By Words: Essays by Wendell Berry

Essays of the Masters edited by Charles Neider

Here are some titles that have been read by other challenge participants:

Abolishing Christianity: And Other Short Pieces by Jonathan Swift

Calm Things: Essays by Shawna LeMay

Pathologies: A Life in Essays by Susan Olding

Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism edited by Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs

On Literature by Umberto Eco

The Lost Origins of the Essay by John D’Agato

Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays by D.H. Lawrence

My Famous Evening: Nova Scotia Sojourns, Diaries, and Preoccupations by Howard Norman

Why I Am Not A Christian And Other Essays On Religion And Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell

Here are some recommendations that Vasilly sent me at the beginning of this year’s challenge:

The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate by Marjorie Williams

This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women edited by Jay Allison

This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women edited by Jay Allison

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker

The Best American Spiritual Writing series edited by Philip Zaleski

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith

And if that’s not enough to get your wheels spinning, you can find more titles listed in this post from the 2009 Challenge and Ash at English Major’s Junk Food highlights essays in her Awesome Essay posts.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Welcome to the third annual Essay Reading Challenge! If you’re an avid essay reader, or just want to expand your reading horizons a bit, this is the challenge for you. If you’re thinking, “What would I read?” – stay tuned: I’ll have a post up with suggestions later in the week.

~ This challenge runs from January 1, 2011 through November 30, 2011.

~ If you read a book of essays, that book can also apply to any other challenges you are working on.

~ Choose a goal of reading 10, 20, or 30 essays, and then write a challenge post, linking back to this post. Feel free to copy and paste the above image into your challenge post.

~ Copy your challenge post’s link into Mr. Linky below.

~ You don’t have to list your essays ahead of time – just have fun reading throughout the year.

~ I will put up a page for the challenge in my left sidebar, and add a Mr. Linky for essay reviews and wrap-up posts as the year goes on.

~ Everyone who completes the challenge and writes at least one review will be eligible for the giveaway prize: A copy of Best American Essays 2011.

~ I will put up a wrap-up and giveaway post sometime early in December – that’s why the challenge only runs through November.

Sign up here:

If you have any questions or titles for the list of suggested reading, please leave them in the comments section below!

Special thanks to my husband, Kevin, for designing the gorgeous challenge button!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Discussion starters:

~ Reading with Tequila: Sex in YA – One Mom’s View

~ Book Lady’s Blog: On the perks of being picky

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read list:

~ The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan, reviewed by Meghan at Medieval Bookworm.

~ Veracity by Laura Bynum, reviewed by Michelle at Galleysmith.

~ Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt, reviewed by Jen at Devourer of Books.

~ The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel, reviewed by Swapna at S. Krishna’s Books.

~ The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, reviewed by Alayne at The Crowded Leaf.

~ The Lost Origins of the Essay edited by John D’Agata, reviewed by Kim at Bookstore People.

Book lists:

~ The Guardian: Best Children’s Books Ever

~ Read Kiddo Read: Ultimate summer reading list

Other bookish links:

~ If, like me, you’re not lucky enough to be going to BEA, sign up for Armchair BEA – we can still have fun!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2010. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: BEA, book lists, TBR list, YA fiction

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