Transitive Verve

I got to see John Green (and Hank!!!) for the TATWD book tour! I've been SUPER excited about this for WEEKS, if you couldn't tell by my uber-capitalization and excessive use of exclamation points!!!! The only bummer about this was that there wasn't actually a signing where we could've met the Green brothers, but hey, we all got a signed copy of the book (and swag) included with admission, so... I'm not complaining all that much. You guys, you have to know how much this means to me to even be in the same room as John Green. He's not just the author of my #4 favorite book of all time (TFIOS); he's one of my favorite HUMAN BEINGS (that I don't personally know). I know it's dangerous to put people on pedestals, but he's one of the few famous people in the world I would feel even remotely comfortable nudging in the general direction of the proverbial pedestal. As a book lover, as a media consumer, and as a teacher, I am so heavily influenced...

Last week was kind of a fantastic week for bookish fangirling: First, on Tuesday, I got to see/talk to Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff for the second time, and also got to meet Stacey Lee, whose book Under the Painted Sky  has been on my TBR list for a while. Second, on Wednesday, I got to meet MY QUEEN. (More on that in a sec.) And then on Saturday, I WENT TO WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER. (I'll post on that soon.) So yeah, it's been a pretty major week for me, in terms of books!

If you've read my recent review  of Illuminae , you should not be surprised that I was super excited about authors Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman coming to my area on tour to promote the book. It was great! They are funny and charming and Australian  (which is cool, because yes, I'm an American who likes hearing accents other than mine!), and it's easy to see how their partnership and friendship led to the creation of such an amazing story. The copy that I read for review was an ARC that wasn't in its final stages, so something that actually surprised me when I heard them speak was that in addition to the casualty list that is in the book (that's all I'll say, because spoilers), there were also photos. I immediately checked my actual purchased copy, and yes - there was a "gallery" of people who died in the [redacted] and it actually brought tears to my eyes. As if this book didn't make me cry enough the first time around. If I didn't lo...

Cassie Clare and Holly Black were at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park tonight to talk about their Magisterium series (which I hadn't even heard about, until I heard about this event). The second book just came out, so they were on hand to tell us about the process of co-writing, writing for middle readers (that's the group just younger than YAF, for those of you who don't know), and just anything we wanted to ask. And also to sign books! My dreadful admission is that I've had Holly Black's The Darkest Part of the Forest  on my shelf for quite some time, and I still haven't gotten to it, but now having met her, I think I'm going to have to bump that one to the top of my list, as well as her previous books. Her books sound right up my alley. Both of them were really nice and really funny, and THEY BOTH COMPLIMENTED MY HAIR. (Yessss.) During the Q&A portion, I asked them how they go about researching things like mythology and folklore for their boo...