We have 10 copies of The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom to give away to 10 Riot readers.
Here’s what it’s all about:
Taken meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Bourne Identity in this action-packed debut thriller (optioned for film by Jerry Bruckheimer) about a girl who must train as an assassin to deal with the gangsters who have kidnapped her father.
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the cover image below. Good luck!
Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by The Girl Who Lied by Sue Fortin.
Sometimes the perfect friend tells the perfect lies… In Sue Fortin’s thrilling USA TODAY bestseller, Erin and Roisin were once friends until a fatal accident ruined both their lives. Now, Roisin has discovered a secret—one Erin has kept for over a decade—and she’s determined to make Erin pay for her lies. When Roisin suddenly disappears, suspicion soon lands on Erin. She would do anything to protect her family, but just how far is she willing to go when time is running out?
Folks, I’m not gonna lie. These are some weird times. And I’ve got no advice or solace to offer, save $250 to spend on Amazon for books or movies or music or gigantic gummy bears. I know I could use one.
So if you are interested in winning 250 smackers to blow on whatever, go here for your chance. Or just click on the absurdly large gummy bear below.
Welcome to the pre-first installment of Behind the Scenes! I’m your host Jenn Northington, of Get Booked and various other projects, and I am here to tell you that answering recommendation requests is NO SMALL TASK.
While I have read a whole lot of books in my life (no really, like so many), when the questions coming in are as specific as the ones we get there’s not often an obvious answer. Which means my weekly prep for Get Booked goes something like:
1. Look at questions, selected by Amanda.
2. Laugh and then cry.
3. Fill in all the answers to ones I’ve actually got good reads for.
4. Start diving into Google and Goodreads lists for ideas for the others, and pray they’re available digitally from the library.
5. Download 3-5 books from Overdrive and start reading!
I don’t always finish every book, but if it seems like a good pick I’ll read enough to get an idea and then go review-hunting for further details. Every now and then I just can’t get any good books on my own shelf or don’t have time to do background reading, so I’ll ask an outside expert to recommend and do my best to represent the book well.
What I’m reading right now, just for funsies: The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan.
And now, whimsy! This is Petra, my step-cat, i.e. the cat of my college best friend, who will be coming to live with me this summer. She is just as snuggly as you might expect from this photo, and likes to spend her time napping and chirping at birds from the window.
Hello hello, fellow nonfiction lovers! This week, I want to start out with a question: Are you a new release reader? Are you someone who is always on top of the latest books, or someone more comfortable diving into older titles? I’m a little of both, I think. I love finding out what books are coming out soon, but I am rarely a reader that picks up a title right on the publication date because I always have so many backlist books calling my name.
Knowing that, I urge you to take my new release recommendations with a grain of salt. Think of them as books that have piqued my interest and that I think other readers might be curious about too, rather than books I’ve read and can unequivocally recommend. Ok, on with the books!
New Books On My Radar
Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee (Feb. 14 from Ecco) – When she was just 33 years old, Christine Hyung-Oak Lee suffered a stroke, turning her world upside down. For a period after, Lee collected her memories in a notebook, which she has since used to construct her memoir. This reminds me of another reconstructed medical memoir that I loved, Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire, but with a little more meditation on the way memory and identity work together.
Bonus Read: This memoir is based on a 2014 essay published on BuzzFeed, a good place to start.
Traveling with Ghosts by Shannon Leone Fowler (Feb. 21 from Simon & Schuster) – In 2002, 28-year-old Shannon Leon Fowler, a marine biologist, was on a backpacking trip with her fiancé, Sean, when tragedy struck. During a visit to Thailand, Sean was killed by a boy jellyfish, the most venomous creature in the world. After bringing Sean’s body home, Fowler continued their trek around the world while trying to grapple with the fact that the thing she loved most, the ocean, could also be the cause of her deep pain.
Bonus Read: Fowler wrote an essay for Real Simple about how losing Sean helped her learn how to ask for and accept help.
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (Feb. 21 from Harper) – Now that humans have, mostly, managed to address some of the species most pressing concerns for survival – famine, plague, and war – what comes next? That’s the big question in Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari’s follow up/companion to his first book, Sapiens. I’ve had this one floating on my radar for quite some time but I’ll admit, I’m a little intimidated! It feels like one of those I aspire to read but may never actually get to because it seems over my head. But boy, does it sound interesting!
Bonus Watch: For a quick take on Harari’s first book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, check out his 2015 TED Talk on the rise of humanity.
Drama High on the Small Screen
NBC has ordered a drama pilot based on Michael Sokolove’s wonderful book Drama High, which I called out in my first newsletter. The show is being developed by Jason Katims (creator of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood) and Jeffrey Seller (producer of Hamilton), which makes me awfully confident it will be great. I am bouncing in my seat thinking about seeing the stoic wisdom of Coach Taylor brought to a story about the arts.
Nonfiction in Your Earbuds
The finalists for the 2017 Audie Awards were released last week. They offer awards in a huge number of categories, which can be fun to peruse. For nonfiction lovers, take a peek at the finalists in Autobiography/Memoir, Business/Personal Development, History/Biography, and Humor. Rioter Rachel Smalter Hall also highlighted some of her favorites in the most recent edition of Audiobooks! More used to podcasts than audiobooks? This list (which features essay collections and humor heavily) is a great resource if you want to try getting into audio.
On My Nightstand
I am finally getting around to one of last year’s big nonfiction reads, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, the story of how black, female mathematicians made their mark at NASA during the Space Race despite being segregated by Virginia’s pervasive Jim Crow laws.
I went to see the movie – starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae – several weeks ago, and enjoyed it quite a bit, but the book is much richer and more interesting than the pared down version of the story you can see on screen. The book is also reinvigorating my latent passion for space nonfiction – I’ll definitely be checking out these recommendations from Swapna Krishna over at Tor.
And that’s all for this week. As always, suggestions, recommendations, and feedback are welcome. You can reach me at kim@riotnewmedia.com or on Twitter at @kimthedork. Happy reading!
Good Monday, YA Readers!
This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak.
Until May 1987, fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, is a decidedly happy nerd.
Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, and programming video games on his Commodore 64. Then Playboy publishes photos of Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes.
A love letter to the 1980s, to the dawn of the computer age, and to adolescence, The Impossible Fortress will make you laugh, cry, and remember in exquisite detail what it feels like to love something—or someone—for the very first time.
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Let’s take a moment or two to catch up with the latest happenings around ye old YA land. There is a lot of adaptation news, for sure.
A round-up of what we’ve been talking about when it comes to YA on Book Riot:
Thanks for hanging out! We’ll see you again next week. In the meantime, hope you’re reading something excellent.
Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by A Tragic Kind Of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom.
For Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to conceal her diagnosis by keeping everyone at arm’s length. But when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to upend her shaky equilibrium.
As the walls of Mel’s compartmentalized world crumble, she fears that no one will accept her if they discover what she’s been hiding. But would her friends really abandon her if they learned the truth? More importantly, can Mel risk everything to find out?
Whether you’re heading to campus, the office, or out on an adventure, travel in style! Just 2 days left to buy any tote and get a pouch for just $4!
We have 10 copies each of Angel Catbird, Volumes 1 and 2 by Margaret Atwood to give away to 10 Riot readers.
Here’s what the series is about:
The catcentric adventure continues, in the all-ages follow-up to best-selling novelist Margaret Atwood’s debut graphic novel. Genetic engineer Strig Feleedus, also known as Angel Catbird, and his band of half-cats head to Castle Catula to seek allies as the war between cats and rats escalates.
Volume 1 was on the top 10 list for Best Fall Graphic Novels by Publishers Weekly and debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List!
Foreword by G. Willow Wilson.
Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the cover image below. Good luck!
Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by Fierce Reads.
Taken meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Bourne Identity in this action-packed debut thriller (optioned for film by Jerry Bruckheimer) about a girl who must train as an assassin to deal with the gangsters who have kidnapped her father.