bookshelves of doom

My prayers have been answered.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are splitting.

I'm going to go back to my regularly scheduled stomach flu* after I do a happy dance.

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*Barfing is THE WORST.

So, in case you missed it...

...today, Kelly at Stacked wrote about the recent ALA convention in Anaheim and about the movement of ARCs out of said convention:

It's not going to be easy to find a solution to this, but something needs to be done. I do not for a second believe that all non-librarian/non-teacher/non-ALA members who blog are bad people. What I am saying, though, is those few rotten apples are spoiling this for EVERYONE, and they're spoiling it for people who are working hard, who should be able to treat themselves to something they are interested in, be it an ARC or be it having a second to talk with a publishing rep.

It's a thoughtful post, and the conversation in the comments is (mostly) thoughtful, measured, and civil.

The same can not be said of what went down on Twitter.

There were bright spots, of course.

Me? I avoided the whole thing by playing Kingdom Rush.

Fashion at the NYPL.

There's a slideshow at the WSJ.

My only question: NO BETSY BIRD??

On gender and reading shame.

From BookRiot:

When it comes down to it, women seem to show more reading shame about reading specific genres. Men either a) also read those genres but don’t buy them or read them in public (with a few exceptions), or b) aren’t shamed about what they read as much as women are. I suspect it’s the latter. Basically, if men read “unliterary” but stereotypically masculine genres, it’s fine. If women read “unliterary” but stereotypically feminine genres, it’s deserving of a brown paper bag in the form of increased e-reader sales so you can read in public in peace.

Some of the stories in the column (and in the comments section) made me think of the Christmas season during my tween years in which my music-aficionado father was horribly, horribly embarrassed at the prospect of being seen purchasing a NKOTB cassette.

J.D. Salinger, entertainment director.

Early jobs of famous authors at mental_floss.

Top 10 fairy stories...

...according to Graham Joyce.

Mine would have to include The Perilous Gard, Lament and Ballad, Fire and Hemlock and Wicked Lovely.

Yours?

Relatedly: I hope this girl was joking.

This is exactly why...

...I haven't finished Insurgent yet.

Infographic: US Public Libraries Weather the Storm.

(via @kurthartwig)

Faith Erin Hicks.

Her website.

Her blog.

Her Twitter feed.

Titles I've written about:

Friends with Boys (2012):

TOTAL DELIGHT FROM EVERY ANGLE.

Friends with Boys -- Faith Erin Hicks

The McKays are homeschooled by their mother up until high school. At that point, they transition into the local public school. The three oldest—Lloyd, Zander, and Daniel—have already made the switch. 

Now it's Maggie's turn to take the plunge.

At first, everything is pretty overwhelming—navigating the building, being surrounded by crowds all of the time, getting to know people that she's not related to—but she starts to get things figured out, and she even starts to make some friends.

Now, if she could only:

A) Come to terms with her mother's recent—and possibly permanant—departure.
B) Figure out why Daniel doesn't like her new friends, and why Lloyd and Zander don't seem to like each other anymore.
C) Get that darn ghost to stop stalking her.

Yes, you read that last one right. There's a ghost.

It's a family story, a friendship story, a high school story, a ghost story. And I loved every single page.

Loved the artwork, the facial expressions, the relationships between the characters. Loved the outing to see Alien, loved Lucy and Alistair, loved Lucy geeking out in the maritime museum. Loved the brothers, loved the action sequences, loved the combination of realism and cartoon-y anime-style in the illustrations. Loved that the characters were so real that any one of them could have been the protagonist, loved the juxtaposition of the ghost story and the departure of Mrs. McKay. Loved the pauses in conversation that said more than words would have, the subtleties of emotion, and that Hicks just lays the story out there and leaves it to the reader to take from it what they will.

Friends with Boys = TOTAL DELIGHT FROM EVERY ANGLE.

And you can read the first twenty pages at the author's website.

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

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Read for the 7th Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge.

Okay. So who's read...

...Hold Fast, by Kevin Majors?

I haven't.

But it's on my list now:

The classic Newfoundland novel Hold Fast, ranked by Quill & Quire as second only to Anne of Green Gables for Canadian children's books, will soon be a film starring Molly Parker, Andy Jones and soulful newcomer Avery Ash.

My lack of knowledge about Canadian literature continues to depress me.

You're only a few hours north, Canada! Why don't I know you better?

NCAC interview with Patricia Polacco.

The inspiration for the story is a heartbreaker:

 

(via)

Does E.L. James' husband count as a celebrity author?

Probably not.

Either way, he wrote a YA book for NaNoWriMo, and Random House is publishing it.

Amazon's picks for the best books of the year...

...so far. 

Hmmm. Of the teen picks, I've read 5/10. I really need to read The False Prince and Starters, both of which are sitting in my TBR pile. As are Pandemonium (I still haven't read the first one, though) and Insurgent. And the Handler/Kalman, which I should ILL right now, while I'm thinking of it.

As much as I enjoyed Shadow and Bone, it had enough issues that it definitely wouldn't make my Top Ten.

The Storyteller (which didn't make the list), however, would. That book needs more love and attention. So. Go read it, please!

Thank you.

Afternoon links.

• Which of Philip K. Dick's predictions have come true?
• Alan Moore is experimenting with the short film format.
• Flavorwire's picks for the 10 Greatest Female SF/F Authors.
• The earliest LOLCats.
• The Shakespearean Hokey Pokey.
• Writing tool: SmartEdit.
• What short book is most likely to change a reader's life/worldview?
• Matisse takes on Joyce.