It's as if I've abandoned the site lately, but I haven't. I've just been exceedingly busy. (This is also why you haven't gotten e-mail from me, if I owe you one.) I'm going to aim for some actual books posts this weekend, even. Promise. And there are so many books I love coming out in the next month or two, and I'll be hosting some of the wonderful writers who wrote them on blog tours too, and doing a giveaway or two. Sound fun? I think so.
- Books Inc. has a new kids' book blog that you should be checking out.
- Justine Musk on "The Art of the Start."
- I totally missed posting about Jackie Dolamore's Magic Under Glass ARC comp while it was on, BUT you should make a note of the title because you'll be wanting to get yourself a copy when it comes out.
- Shannon Hale's excellent, much-discussed post about how reviewing impacts reading and vice versa. See also: John Green on times he was being a wronghead about certain books. (And so agree about The Fountainhead–the only place it belongs is as a character grace note in Dirty Dancing.)
- Stephany on how Shirley Jackson's fictionalized family-centered nonfiction confused the memories of her children.
- Want.
- Bennett Madison's The Blonde of the Joke is finally out. This book is AMAZING. Please read it. I loved it all the way back in 2008: "It is SO good. With this book, he's pulled off something so difficult to do; as I told a friend in e-mail, it satisfyingly blurs the line between realism and the fantastic in a way that's still rare. It's a realistic novel, but flirting with being something else, flirting heavily, and in the process becoming its own unique, perfect thing. Beautifully written, too." And it does, in fact, pair excellently with Frankie Landau Banks.
- Do not miss Tempest's list of Mindblowing SF by Women and People of Color.