Categories
Giveaways

$250 Amazon giveaway

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.

Categories
Insiders

Behind the Scenes, Installment 0

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.

Jenn and Petra

 

Categories
True Story

Memory, Marine Biology, Modern Humans and Mathematics

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!

Categories
What's Up in YA

The EVERYTHING EVERYTHING Trailer, Writing As Activism, and More YA News

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.

____________________

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.

  • The first trailer for the Everything, Everything adaptation with Amandla Stenberg is out and it looks great.
  • The comic Lumberjanes is getting written as a book by Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer, Saving Montgomery Sole, and more). Awesome.

 

  • Have you heard of the Dead Girls Detective Agency? I haven’t, but I suspect I will since it’s being adapted, too. It looks like it might be one of those multi-platform projects. Huh.
  • The Carnegie long list — a UK honor — is out, and there are plenty of familiar YA titles among them. Though let’s take a moment to point out that the long lists are all white. Umm…
  • Speaking of awards, the CYBILS winners were announced last week. Check out the winners in the YA categories. I was a first-round judge for the middle grade and YA non-fiction category and think both of the winners are outstanding picks.

 

A round-up of what we’ve been talking about when it comes to YA on Book Riot:

  • A digital version of “blind date with a book” with YA reads. Try it!
  • And finally, a guide to get you started reading the work of award-winning author Sarah Dessen. My only note on this pathway would be that I think Dreamland is an essential Dessen read and shows how powerfully she can take on hard, heavy issues like relationship violence.

 

Thanks for hanging out! We’ll see you again next week. In the meantime, hope you’re reading something excellent. 

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Riot Rundown

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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?

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The Goods

Tote-Pouch Bundle

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!

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Giveaways

ANGEL CATBIRD Giveaway

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!

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Riot Rundown

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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.

Categories
New Books

Awkward Love Letters, Elvis’s Twin Brother, and More New Books!

It is winter here in Maine, winter with a capital “OMG THERE’S SO MUCH SNOW!” Luckily, I have a house full of books to keep me busy. (Not that I really leave the house when I’m not snowed in, LOL.) I have a few great books to tell you about today, and you can hear about more wonderful books on this week’s episode of the All the Books! Rebecca and I talked about a few awesome books we loved, such as Lincoln in the Bardo, Girls on Fire, and American Street. Also, I’m delighted the new Lissa Evans novel, Their Finest, is finally available in the US today. She’s so wonderful! (Did you read Crooked Heart? It’s AMAZING.)

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Age of Order by Julian North.

In a world where all people are not created equal, Daniela Machado is offered the rarest commodity: hope. For a girl from Bronx City, the opportunity to attend school in Manhattan is too tempting to turn down. There, among the highborn, Daniela discovers a world of unimaginable splendor. But her opportunity turns into peril as Daniela discovers that those at society’s apex will stop at nothing to keep power for themselves. She may have a chance to change the world, if it doesn’t change her first.

“Both YA and adult readers will be transfixed by this novel” — Kirkus (Starred Review)

SPECIAL $.99 NEW RELEASE OFFER.

shadowbahnShadowbahn by Steve Erickson

I am not even going to pretend the premise isn’t crazy. Twenty years after they fell, the Twin Towers reappear in South Dakota. They are as they were before 9/11…except they seem to be singing and they are also completely devoid of people, save one: Jesse Garon Presley, the twin brother of Elvis (who, in our reality, died at birth). I KNOW, RIGHT?! It’s bonkers. But more than just a bananapants premise, it’s a gorgeous novel of loss and alternate history deeply tied into American culture. I was transfixed.

Backlist bump: Zeroville by Steve Erickson (This has my favorite ending of any novel, ever.)

notes to boysNotes to Boys: And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public by Pamela Ribon

If you need cheering up or just need a reminder why you wouldn’t want to live your teenage years over, this book is for you! Ribon kept all the letters she wrote – and mostly delivered – to boys when she was young, and they are just as awkward and painful as you can imagine. But paired with her hilarious commentary, they make for a charming, thoughtful read. So cringe and laugh your way through her teen melodrama (while secretly being relieved that no one is publishing your teenage diary).

Backlist bump: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson

all back fullAll Back Full by Robert Lopez

Out from the fabulous indie Dzanc Books, this is an examination of a marriage over the course of a day, told in three acts. Lopez catches the details of unspoken words between sentences and the ways in which we hurt and help the ones we love, and how we sometimes sit by as our lives collapse.

Backlist bump: Good People by Robert Lopez.

gilded cageGilded Cage by Vic James

If you’re looking for a fun new dystopian series, this should do the trick! In an alternate modern England, people with magic powers are called Equals, and the rest of the country’s citizens must each spend a decade of their lives in their service. Teenage Abi is sent to the home of a family of infamous Equals, but her brother, Luke, must work in a brutal slave camp. Both will scheme to secure their freedom and keep their lives, and dark secrets and hidden powers will decide the fates of everyone involved. It’s great fun!

Backlist bump: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

all that's left to tellAll That’s Left to Tell by Daniel Lowe

Marc Laurent is a hostage in Afghanistan. Every night, he is blindfolded and tied up and then visited by Josephine, who asks him questions. At first their conversations are of a hostile nature, but soon Josephine and Marc are discussing more personal matters, such as his daughter back home, and their nightly ritual becomes something of a comfort for them both. All That’s Left to Tell is a powerfully unsettling, gripping novel.

Backlist bump: Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

YAY, BOOKS! That’s it for me today – time to get back to reading! (I know, like I do anything else, right?) You can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or Litsy under ‘Liberty’!

Be excellent to each other.

Liberty

Categories
Giveaways

Currie Giveaway

We have 10 copies each of The One-Eyed Man and Everything Matters by Ron Currie to give away to 10 Riot readers.

Here’s what The One-Eyed Man is about:

Meet K., a man whose tragic past has left him unable to grasp metaphors, plowing headlong through a life lived literally, until a surprising turn of events lands him a starring role in a new reality TV show. Together with Claire, a grocery store clerk with a sharp tongue and a yearning for celebrity, he travels the country ruffling feathers and gaining fame at the intersection of politics and entertainment—and finding out the hard way that the world will fight viciously to preserve its self-delusions.

Go here to enter the giveaway, or just click the image below. Good luck!