moriath

If anyone's curious about what happened at ALA last week regarding BBYA, I did a follow up post on my book blog. (Short version: proposal to sunset BBYA was changed to a discussion item, lots of discussion happened with no decision made as to BBYA's final fate - that's for another board meeting another time)

I know there are some people on my flist who are working in libraries/studying to be librarians, so I thought this might be of interest to some of you.

This weekend at the ALA conference, the YALSA board is going to discuss the possibility of eliminating the Best Books for Young Adults list. I wrote up a long and somewhat emotional response my book blog over here that explains a bit about what's going on (and provides links to people who are actually involved with ALA/BBYA/YALSA/other-abbreviations who can give more logical insight) and how BBYA has affected me as one small bit of argument for why the list should continue to exist in something akin to its current format.

Just finished reading Catching Fire, sequel to Hunger Games. Holy crap, it was amazing.

Currently debating whether I should just turn around and read it again (I'm sure I missed about a bazillion things, especially since I read the first part of it in the middle of Times Square!), or move on to Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. Decisions, decisions....

So I've had a post percolating in the back of my head for a week or more now about the discussions about Hunger Games going on at Goodreads. Something about a few of the topics just rub me the wrong way and I really want to know why the hell people are obsessing over them.

But this morning there was one that took the prize for inanity.

Quick review of Hunger Games: government chooses 24 kids every year to fight each other to the death. The whole point of the Hunger Games is that there can be only one survivor - and since the book is told in the first person we have a pretty good idea from the outset that the survivor this time around is going to be Katniss.

But there are people in the forums asking why Rue had to die.

~headdesk headdesk headdesk~

Okay, now getting ready to party on at Book Expo!

So I recounted my ordeal last Saturday with getting shit delivered, ie that shit was NOT getting to my apartment, like the wedding photos that they conveniently tried to deliver while I was out picking up my other shit from the post office.

There was (apparently) no attempt at re-delivering on Tuesday or Wednesday. So Wednesday evening I go through the online shenanigans to request it to be delivered today, since yesterday Billy was (supposed to be) at school (he ended up getting sick, poor thing), and clearly they aren't willing to leave shit at my door anymore.

But guess what? THEY DIDN'T FUCKING DELIVER TODAY, EITHER.

So my options are now either go to the post office first thing tomorrow, or do another fucking redelivery request for sometime next week. Normally this would be a no brainer - just go to the post office and pick up the damn wedding pictures. But I managed to score a pass to Book Expo tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I am terrified that if I don't get there first thing my chances at getting a Catching Fire (sequel to Hunger Games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) galley will be lost (of course, this could all be for naught anyway if they ran out of galleys today, but I figure I have a better chance of getting it at nine tomorrow than at eleven or twelve).

One should never have to choose between wedding pictures and books.

The NYC Teen Author Festival had their last event today, the massive book signing at Books of Wonder. 40+ authors + god knows how many excited teenage fans = fun fun fun Sunday afternoon.

My signed book collection now stands at eight. Previously I had picked up Christopher Moore's Lamb and Scott Westerfeld's Extras as signed stock, then back in the fall I got The Hunger Games signed in person, and today I added How to Ditch Your Fairy (Justine Larbelestier), Devilish (Maureen Johnson), The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (E. Lockhart), Boy Toy (Barry Lyga) and Peeps (the inimitable Scott Westerfeld).

Billy said we would one day be able to sell them for millions. I scoffed - maybe our children would be able to, because I'm sure as hell not parting with them. And even then I doubt they'll be worth much - I prefer to read my books (certainly in the current apartment we don't have room for books that just sit around looking pretty - hell we hardly have room for books we actually read).

See me fan girl over Justine Larbelestier, E. Lockhart and, most especially, Scott Westerfeld at my book blog.

Let me just reiterate here, that Scott Westerfeld is awesome and amazing, both as a writer and in person. He is probably officially my favorite author now. If there is anyone on my list who isn't reading him yet, please get to your nearest bookstore or library and start reading right now. I suggest SF fans begin with Uglies, fantasy fans begin with Midnighters, and horror fans begin with Peeps, but you'll probably love it all (I have yet to meet anyone who dislikes ALL of his work). And this fall his steamdieselpunk novel Leviathan comes out. I can't wait!

Everyone should check out Google's homepage today for their homage to the Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was first printed 40 years ago. Gotta love it when kids books get some love :-)

It's 10:30 and today already sucks hardcore.

First, as usually happens on a day when I'm changing my schedule slightly, I couldn't get out of the apartment in a timely fashion this morning. Just lots of little crappy things adding up to me leaving the apartment when I normally do. Which would be fine if I didn't have errands to run before work.

Run over to the bank to deposit my paycheck. This should be a painless procedure - fill out the deposit slip, noting that I want $100 back from the transaction. Which is something the teller manages to miss. Probably because he keeps jabbering on about some dumb credit card even after I tell him I don't have time to apply for one. Then we can't re-do the transaction because I don't have my ATM card with me, I only have Billy's. Never mind that he's my husband and both of our names are on the account. So he has to call his manager over and I'm like, dude, I'll just go to the ATM because I don't have time for this. I eventually walk away to do so.

Miss the train I wanted to catch. Get on the next one, which takes for friggin' ever. Debate between arriving at my office exactly on time or a few minutes late to accomodate my new jamba juice oatmeal addiction. Decide to feed the craving EXCEPT THEY'RE OUT OF OATMEAL and I'd have to wait another 15 minutes to get some. So I get my smoothie and a disgusting blueberry oat...thing...and go to my office...

Where no one shows up for half an hour, meaning I could have waited as long as I needed to for the oatmeal.

~bangs head on keyboard~

On the other hand, started reading a new book today that feels very topical in light of RaceFail. It's a futuristic fantasy story (setting feels very SF, with advances in technology, but thanks to some deathly technology "magic" has returned to the world, so the combination makes it a palatable fantasy story for me, so far) set in Niger. 54 pages in and not a single white person has been mentioned. There does happen to be a rather negative portrayal of what could be interpreted as Islam in it, which isn't exactly cool, but at 54 pages I'm not ready to pass judgment.

In other good news, I'm supposed to be meeting Billy for lunch today. We've been trying to get together since Monday but it keeps not happening. Is today the day?

I don't know whether to be amused or frustrated when I finish a book that is so awesome/crazy/frustrating that I'm incoherent at the end of it.

Billy can predict when I'm going to be this way, because apparently I turn the pages of really awesome/crazy/frustrating books differently than I turn the pages of other books.

Latest book to turn me incoherent? The Knife of Never Letting Go. And it's another awesome/crazy/frustrating book with a cliffhanger ending (I'm assuming it's the start of a trilogy, because that's just how authors are writing their YA books these days, but for all I know it could just be a two-shot. Or there could be a fourth book lurking out there).

I have a lot of book blogging to catch up on, thanks to the wedding and the new job sapping my desire/energy to do coherent blogging (since I put the book blog on my professional resume, I like to keep it slightly more coherent than my IJ), but you can be sure there will be a review of this one soon.

Fucking book.

Had my second interview with American Book Company today. Lasted twice as long as the first one, lol, with a lot more substance about the job. There's a possibility this could become a full time position, which would be sweet (though if I get it I could be working as much as 35 hours a week, so it doesn't sound like it'd be a huge difference).

I find out...sometime soon whether I get it or not. They said Thursday or Friday, but considering one person was leaving to go out of town for a few days, I'm really not sure if that's this Thursday/Friday or next Thursday/Friday.

Received five more RSVPs today. Slowly but surely they're still trickling in. Maybe I'll hold off until next week to frantically call people?

In the mean time, off to request the 2009 ALA's youth media award winners from the library. Looking over the list, the only honorees I've read were three of the Printz honorees - Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which was definitely one of my favorite books of 2008, Nation and Tender Morsels. I read the book that came before Octavian Nothing and was unimpressed, so I think I'm going to leave the sequel off my list. I've also read all of Laurie Halse Anderson's work (because what woman of my generation hasn't?), so it's exciting to see her win the Edwards award. I wasn't a huge fan of Chains (it's good, I'll definitely read the sequel, but I don't think it was her strongest work), but I absolutely can't wait to get my hands on her next book, Wintergirls.

Starting January 24th, the local branch of my library is going to be closed for five months.

There's another branch two subway stops away (and that branch actually has a YA section), but still!

This is going to throw off all of my pending inter-library loan requests.

~sigh~

Still feeling ill, but we went to visit the diner this afternoon and I had some beef barley soup (and a grilled cheese sandwich) which helped (well, the cheese sandwich didn't so much, but it was still pretty yummy).

Spent today catching my book blog up on the books I've read recently. I read a couple of really short books (read one so fast I didn't even have a chance to add it to my Goodreads profile until after the fact) and then last night I finished the pretty awesome Little Brother.

Next up I'm reading Susan Faludi's Terror Dream. I've wanted to read this one for awhile, so I'm glad I've finally got it!

Every other post on my flist is about people finishing their exams. I MISS HAVING EXAMS. All I have to look forward to now is working for more than a week without a day off (which is, granted, my own fault: I volunteered to take four hours of someone's shift on Sunday. But that's four hours where I'll be getting paid, rather than being tempted to spend money, and money is something we need pretty desperately right now).

Life is nothing but work and reading right now. Wedding invitations are on hiatus until I can actually get ahold of my mother again and just confirm some details over the ceremony time. Also I would like to confirm the time with our officiant, who I haven't heard from since I met with her in August. I e-mailed her on Wednesday and haven't heard back yet, which is rather worrisome, because she's always been very prompt before. I'm going to e-mail her again tonight or tomorrow, and then I'm calling her on Monday. I am days away from freaking out, OMG.

I set up that book blog I was talking about earlier this week. It's over on Blogger (I hate signing in and out of journal services, hence why it's not on IJ): Bookish Blather. So far it only has one review, but whatever, I've been busy. I'm not going to cross-post here on a regular basis, 'cause that's too much for me to remember, but if I read another life-changing book like Hunger Games, then I'll make some sort of post here linking to it.

Billy has an internet radio station on. It's apparently playing The Worf Song (a corollary to the badass Picard Song). I like it.

And now I'm going to go finish making dinner. Mm, food.

Remember my book problem?

Well, I may have discovered why the library puts a limit on holds. Because without them, I'm sure days like today where I go in and pick up eight books would be a lot more common.

Granted, eight books at a time used to be nothing for me. I would stagger out of my middle school library with at least that many, easily, never mind in the summer in high school when I did BBYA. By then I was using my car to transport my books, so I wasn't limited by pesky things like a weight limit (back in the day I walked to/from school, which could make carrying a billion books painful on my poor little shoulders).

So now I have a fair-sized stack of books I need to get through within the next three weeks (on top of more books that are arriving any day now, and finishing up those damn wedding invitations. I know I keep talking about them, but I'm a terrible procrastinator and thus haven't made much real progress). What to start with first?

• Exodus (after re-reading the synopsis, I think I might want to hold onto this and read it at the same time that Nation comes in. Sounds like they might be good companion books)
  
• The World is Flat (been wanting to read this one for ages)
  
• Audrey Wait
  
• Unraveling
  
• Little Brother
  
• The Terror Dream
  
• Living Dead Girl
  
• Ashes of Roses (read this back in high school and remember loving it then. I'm holding on to this until I get Margaret Peterson Haddix's new book Uprising)
  

And now I need to go get dressed, and actually pick a book to read so I won't be bored to tears on the subway and on my break at work

I have maxed out the number of books I can request at the library. Turns out you can't have more than 20 on hold at a time. I found this out because last night, after realizing that my hold list was dwindling and in desperate need of some reading material, I started requesting books off of the 2008 BBYA nominees list. It didn't take me long to hit the limit, lol.

In positive news, though, I finally got a copy of What I Saw and How I Lied, which won the National Book Award for young people's literature. This will be the third of the five NBA nominees I've read, so let's see if I agree with the experts' opinions, shall we?

Also, I've been considering starting up a completely separate blog for reviewing books, so I can share that blog with people I don't necessarily want reading about some of my other exploits. Should I cross post my reviews here?

So, remember my incoherent ramble last night about how "The Hunger Games" is probably the best thing since sliced bread?

The author is going to be in New York tomorrow. And I don't have to work (and honestly, if I did, I would probably be coming down with some sort of mystery flu right now).

So I'm going to see Suzanne Collins, along with Justine Larbalestier (who wrote "How to Ditch Your Fairy" which I read a few weeks ago and also enjoyed. She's also married to Scott Westerfeld, who wrote the "Uglies" books that I wrote my final college paper on) and Robin Wasserman (who wrote "Skinned," another awesome post-apocalyptic YA novel I recently read and loved) and 7 other YA SF/Fantasy authors that I don't know (yet!) at Books of Wonder in NYC.

You have no idea how stoked I am right now. NO IDEA.

Oh, I'm also going to be finishing the day by hanging out with bridesmaid Rachel, helping her find a bra to go under her bridesmaid dress and then subjecting the poor woman to shoe shopping for the afore-mentioned dress. She really hates shoe shopping, the poor thing. But I also think me taking her shopping was originally her idea? I don't know. Either way, I get awesome YA books, my twin, shopping, and A SATURDAY OFF FROM WORK (the first of what will be two in a row!) all in one day!

Seriously. Stoked.

I'm hardly coherent right now. I just finished reading the most amazing book I've read in ages. Ages.

The Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collins. I first heard about it at a BBYA meeting in August, and it was one of the first books I requested from the library at the beginning of September. I only got it yesterday (demand has been very high - when I requested it I was 36th in line, and at one point there were 43 total people requesting it). I read it in fits and starts for the first third (thank you, work), but today I got to the point where the hunger games actually started and peeled through it in one sitting (I got up once to take a bathroom break, and Billy took the opportunity to "hide" the book because he was tired of my verbal reactions).

I can't coherently review it. Other than to say if you have the chance to get this book, you NEED TO DO IT NOW.

Edit: While waiting for dinner to finish cooking, I did some Googling to find out more about the book/the fandom/the author. I found people inexplicably comparing it to Twilight. Turns out SMeyer has recommended the book. Thank god I didn't know that when I first heard about it (and lol at people thinking that an author would only recommend books JUST LIKE her own. From what I've read of Twilight, this is about as far away from that as you can get. They both have female protagonists...and yeah. That's it.)

I had another day of orientation today. And you know what? It didn't suck. At all. We did things that were not only useful, but mildly entertaining. Like being given a customer scenario and then having to go pull together an outfit for the hypothetical customer.

Retail is totally not where I want to be with my life right now, but it seems like I could have chosen worse places (strike that: I know I could have chosen worse ~glares at Victoria's Secret~). Say what you will about Banana Republic, but they definitely know how to train their employees (so far I've had three days of training. I might have one more day since today we couldn't go as in depth as usual thanks to the usual trainer being out sick).

Yeah, that's pretty much all I've got. The library is finally starting to deliver on some of my holds, so I picked up five shiny new books after work:

• The Ghosts of Kerfol
  
• The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
  
• Hero
  
• Dirty Work
  
• The Dead and the Gone
  

Super excited to start reading them :-) I think I'm going to start with the Ghosts of Kerfol, simply because that one was actually recommended to me, and then figure it out from there. If I were working again this week I'd save the smaller books for the subway (since so far I've only been going to work during the morning rush and we get so packed into the subway sometimes there literally isn't room for me to hold a book), but since I don't work again, I'm free to do whatever I want :-)

In other news: poor Billy is sick today. And he stepped on Gopher's (our cat) tail this morning, so Gopher is sulking. And I think Cricket (another cat) is sick, too, because she keeps cowering in corners and won't even eat her treats. Hopefully she can get over whatever it is on her own - we can't afford to have a sick cat right now.

I've always loved libraries. In elementary school I volunteered to stay inside during lunch recess a couple of times a month to keep some library shelves organized. In fifth grade, when we visited the middle school at the end of the year so we wouldn't all feel completely overwhelmed, I about fainted when we entered the library (it was so big! Almost as big as the fiction section of the city library!!!). And then we were told there was no limit on how many books we could check out (in elementary school the limit was two, and we could only go once per week, even though it was very well known that I would finish those two books by the time I came back to school the next day).

At the end of middle school or the beginning of high school, a new branch of the city's library opened just a few minutes from my house. I spent almost every day of the summer there, riding my bike to the library filled with books to return or a new list of books to request, and taking advantage of the building's air conditioning.

In college, my library habit was kind of curbed. During the first few years of school all of my research could be completed online. It wasn't until my senior year (both of them, lol), that I really began cracking down on some serious research that required serious book reading time. If I wanted a fiction book to read, I just went to Borders and bought it; for the first time in my life I was making enough money that I had disposable income to buy my own books, so my book collection kind of exploded for awhile there (as evidenced by the two giant tubs of just my books that are currently in storage at my parents' house).

But now I'm poor again (who knows how much money I'll actually be making at Banana Republic, since it's part time and they can schedule me whenever the hell they want), so it was time to start going to the library again. Luckily I have one that's only about a ten minute walk from my apartment.

It's a nice day out here in Queens, sunny but breezy so it isn't oppressively hot and humid like it has been periodically over the last week. Beautiful day for a walk to pick up a bunch of books.

Unfortunately, this library is probably the worst one, in terms of usability, I've ever visited. For example, it's the first one I've ever visited that doesn't have a card catalog. No, seriously. They have about ten computers there, but they are all available only by appointment, nothing is set up just for searching their online catalog. And the place was packed, only twenty minutes after it opened, filled with people waiting for those ten computers.

I got very claustrophobic very fast. So I picked up some books that looked interesting (nothing from my list, sigh), and then ran home to get on the catalog at their website and look up all of the books I wanted! Most of them should start coming in soon, but for one I'm the 26th in line waiting for only 3 books. Sad face.