Angieville

Fire won the Cybils !! And, uh, several other extremely wonderful books and you should go check out the list of winners posted yesterday if you haven't yet. I served on the YA Fantasy & Science Fiction panel and pulled really hard for Fire . I'm so happy to see such a gorgeous book win such an awesome award. Congrats, Ms. Cashore and a big round of applause for the other nominated titles and authors, the hard-working panelists, judges, and organizers!

So I'm trolling around, minding my own business, when I stumble across the little detail that Kristin Cashore and Suzanne Collins will be doing a signing together at one of my favorite bookstores in the whole wide world-- Books of Wonder ! That's right, the author of Graceling and Fire and the author of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire will be double teaming the crowd on the evening of Tuesday, November 10th. Truly it is the height of injustice that I live so very far from New York City...Anyone out there going to be able to make it to this night of awesome? To cheer myself up, here's the fun Fire widget in which you can cast your favorite characters in a hypothetical movie of the book. Having browsed through the options, can I just say Gael Garcia Bernal as Brigan FTW!

So, first off, Diana Peterfreund is giving away two signed copies of Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore over on her blog today! The little minx had the opportunity to attend the last stop on Ms. Cashore's Fire book tour and snagged these lovely copies while there. Why, no, I'm not jealous at all... To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on her post telling her what your Grace would be (if you had one) or what color hair you'd have if you were a human-shaped monster like Fire. But she adds one additional way to enter that made me laugh out loud. She states that if you are Angie you can publicly admit that Po is the very nicest of nice guys and yet you love him madly...apparently my reputation for crushing on the bad boys precedes me! At first I thought she was referring to Poe-with-an-e and I was like, noooooo! I can't! I WON'T! My beloved Poe is not and will never be a Nice Guy. Bad Boy to the core. Though certainly the "good" kind of B...

I seem to be in the reading sequels to my favorite books of last year mode. For the record--a freaking awesome mode to be in. Graceling was one of my very favorite reads of 2008 and the year's best YA I would venture to say. And before you get all up in arms, let me assure you I enjoyed The Hunger Games as much as the next person. But Graceling was just the one, you know? And I have this feeling that Kristin Cashore is something special. I was positively thrumming with anticipation when I heard she had a second book to follow. And it's the one I chose to take home with me on the plane ride home from BEA . Fire is, in point of fact, a prequel to Graceling and takes place 30 years or so prior to Katsa and Poe's story. It is also set in an entirely different land, though definitely in the same world, and (as I am sure you have already heard) a certain terrifyingly familiar character from Graceling makes an appearance in Fire . Otherwise, it is its own story and it sta...

For the last several years I've been experiencing a more-than-passing longing to attend the legendary Book Expo America . It all started back when I used to frequent a lovely place known as Readerville . I met so many wonderful people there and a few of them used to regale us youngsters with tales of floors of bookish sorts, rows of publisher booths, stacks of free galleys, and line after line leading to authors willing to talk to you and smile at you and nod patiently while you tell them you love them. My longing grew. Soon I began plotting how to get around the minor obstacles of lack of funding and a location nowhere near New York City. Well, this year everything just fell into place. It should be noted that it helps to have a husband willing to keep the kids and garden alive while you go off gallivanting with a few thousand other hopeless bibliophiles. And every time you call to check in he tells you everything's under control, everyone's happy, and go back to enjoyin...