Wednesday Snow Day Hangovers
- I know it's probably unwise to give Apple information about my iTunes library, but I'm absolutely loving the Genius Playlists. Alchemy for lazy listeners.
- ALA's lists are out: top ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, Quick Picks long list, top ten Best Books for YA, and Best Books for YA long list. These look incredibly diverse and there's tons of good stuff on them (is there usually this much discrepancy between the Printz shortlist and the top 10?). Congratulations to all who made the selection.
- It's official: Washington Post Book World will no longer publish as a standalone section. There are silver linings, as eloquently voiced by Terry and Sarah. Still, I can't help but suspect that the four pages of content to be lost will impact the coverage of genre books and children's literature, two things I've always thought Book World did an excellent job with. I hope I'm wrong.
- Jason Pinter gathers responses to the big question for publishing at the moment: How will all the layoffs, restructuring and cost cutting solve the industry's #1 problem–getting more books into the hands of readers?
- Unaired Bill Hicks video–and Hicks' mom–to appear on David Letterman Friday.
- Ilona Andrews critiques a first paragraph and rewrites it–in my experience, this is exactly the kind of guidance that's helpful to writers on the cusp of a quality breakthrough in their work.
- The culinary Olympics: "The beef platter — of Uruguay!" the female commentator in a white chef’s jacket and high-heeled boots exclaimed in English as drums rolled and trumpets blared. I want to go!
- My dear friend (and fellow Mistress of the Fine Arts) Micol's new series the Bradford Novels launched this week with the release of GoldenGirl, and the Bradford Blog is full of celebratory goodness all month long–interviews, giveaways, scoop, etc. The Bradford books are the first teen novels designed to have a fully immersive online component that I'm aware of, with all the characters and many locales in the book having Web sites, blogs, Tumblrs and twitter feeds–and, yes, updated ones with fresh content, at that. And while I'm superexcited for this series' prospects, I'm even more excited about Micol's novel due out from Flux later this year, So Punk Rock (And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother), described as "the E! Behind the Music story of an epic Jewish band that never was" and featuring interstitial graphic sections drawn by her brother David.
- The news of Realms of Fantasy's demise is particularly sad, especially given what a track record it had as a venue for the debut of promising new writers (like one Christopher Rowe, for instance). It's really too bad that Shawna McCarthy never got the World Fantasy Award she has so long deserved. If it's possible to give her one this year, I say go for it.
- In better news, Jeff VanderMeer announces that the Best American Fantasy series continues, with the latest volume out in the next month. Support it.
- And, finally, Leila cracks me right up.
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