"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event courtesy of Breaking the Spine that showcases much anticipated upcoming releases.

from goodreads: 01/22/2013

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

 Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous—it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da's death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall. 

 Somehow Victoria Schwab has a way with words, not only stringing together the most beautiful and perfectly-chosen ones, but also creating them into a story that no one else would have dared to step into and create. I absolutely adored The Near Witch (r), and so when more and more snippets of what this new series would be about made their way into the world I was ecstatic.  Librarians, books, living and breathing and the people who guard their stories. There is no way that The Archived will be anything less than stunning and imaginative, and it's a journey I cannot wait to go on.

So recently you've been browsing Twitter and Tumblr, clicking away, and adding books to your ever-increasing TBR list on Goodreads. Liking a book isn't mathematical, but there is definitely a certain something that stands out to make you add the book to your list. What are two qualities about a book (anything from the cover to the typography or a random sentence you flip to skimming over it in a store) will make you pick it up? Similarly, what two things will make you put a book back on the shelf?

This is as close to math as I'll get, but the equations will be interesting to see as they vary from person to person!

I'll give it a go:

For picking up, it will definitely be cover and the initial first couple sentences of the book (especially if I've never read a book by that author before). If I like the cover enough to pick it up then I'll read the first chapter, generally, to see what I think. This is the reason that it took me so long to buy (then read, but not to love - that was immediate) Anna and the French Kiss - that cover paired with that title just threw me off every single time. But at BEA, it's why I picked up Summer and Bird.

  

Due to the increasing trend of faceless girls (many of Sarah Dessen's books suffer from this phenomenon) and girls in dresses (simply incalculable), I'm almost more hesitant to pick a book up if I see it fitting into one of these categories. This isn't to say that I don't love these books or their covers, because that's simply not true and some are beautifully designed (Lizzie Bromley does a consistently amazing job in this), and some of the dresses directly connect to the plot. Yet seeing that kind of female archetype puts me in a place to wonder why such a strong, descriptive female character has to be featured in a dress on the cover for marketing purposes in order to do well.

                                  

What do you think?                            

In My Mailbox, hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren, allows us to share our

current reads, and books we've received/checked out/purchased over the course of the week.

I apologise in advance for the quality of the photos - by the time I got home today from work to take them I lost all natural light and had to bring a lamp around as I took them, but it was hard to juggle my DSLR (plus focus) and the lamp, so some of them are super saturated and washed out.

This is also not everything that I picked up at BEA; my mum has a pile, and there's also a bag of adult fiction and another bag of things I got at the blogger's convention. There's also a few scattered in other places, depending on where I sit to read.

I said in my last BEA-related post that the bloggers are the best thing about the whole week, and many of these books would not be possible without their assistance. Aliya, Heidi, Grace, Olivia, Jenna - the list is limitless, and you guys seriously made my week (and the lines, the crowds, the everything worth it). Thank you! :)

Warning: This post is extraordinarily image heavy.

The Dark Unwinding, Sharon Cameron

The Blessed, Tonya Hurley

Entice, Jessica Shirvington

Because It Is My Blood, Gabrielle Zevin 

Summer and Bird, Katherine Catmull

Shadows, Ilsa J. Bick (next on my TBR!)

Glass Heart, Amy Garvey (Amy is so nice)

Origin, Jessica Khoury

Carnival of Souls, Melissa Marr

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (with Days of Blood and Starlight chapters!!)

Passion Blue, Victoria Strauss

Masque of the Red Death, Bethany Griffin

Destined, Aprilynne Pike

Unraveling, Elizabeth Norris

The Vicious Deep, Zoraida Cordova

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, Sonia Monzano

Level 2, Lenore Appelhans (Hi, Lenore! <3)

Return to Me, Justina Chen

The Darkest Minds, Alexandra Bracken

Out of the Easy, Ruta Sepetys 

Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys (We had a John Green moment. It was fabulous.)

Fall to Pieces, Vahini Naidoo

Son, Lois Lowry (!!)

Beta, Rachel Cohn

Eve & Adam, Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate

The Turning, Francine Prose

Magisterium, Jeff Hirsch (The cover on this is hypnotising!)

Feedback, Robison Wells (Ahhh, this book!)

Who I Kissed, Janet Gurtler

Crewel, Gennifer Albin

Sanctum: Guards of the Shadowlands, Sarah Fine

Venom, Fiona Paul

Time Between Us, Tamara Ireland Stone

Can I have a moment for Tamara? Because she was amazingly sweet, and in our

discussion she not only signed a bookmark for my copy, but put a little heart

around the page number with her favorite passage. And her book is fabulous.

The Wishing Spell, Chris Colfer

Princess Academy (#2, Palace of Stone), Shannon Hale

Beautiful Lies, Jessica Warman

The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker

Point of Origin, Amanda Harvard (Lovely lady!)

Fathomless, Jackson Pearce (Who is awesome.)

The Paladin Prophecy, Mark Frost

Eternally Yours, Cate Tiernan

Becoming Holmes, Shane Peacock (Anything vaguely ACD? Yes, please.)

Chosen Ones, Tiffany Truitt

The Lifeguard, Deborah Blumenthal

Keep Holding On, Susane Colasanti

Black City, Elizabeth Richards

Endangered, Eliot Schrefer

The fact that a book exists with this topic makes me incredibly hopeful and happy.

Skinny, Donna Cooner

Cursed, Jennifer L. Armentrout

In A Glass Grimmly, Adam Gidwitz

The Spindlers, Lauren Oliver

The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater (The book I wanted most to get!)

Prodigy, Marie Lu

What's Left of Me, Kat Zhang (The book I wanted second most!)

Every Day, David Levithan (Lost my tongue the moment I saw him.)

Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Mass (Great debut fantasy.)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, William Joyce/Joe Blum (Fabulous fabulous children's book. I cried.)

The Curiosities, Maggie Stiefvater/Tessa Gratton/Brenna Yovanoff (Maggie remembered me from the Raven Boys signing; we all discussed our drawings.)

An Abundance of Katherines, John Green

Nerdfighter designed cover. DFTBA!

I have to mention that I also met the incredibly lovely and even more adorable in person Victoria Schwab, who signed a copy of The Near Witch. I was really hoping I'd get a chance to run into her. This also applies to Aimée Carter (so sweet)!

Purchased/Gifted/Won:

Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein (20% off coupon. Thanks, B&N!)

Dreamless, Josephine Angelini

Trafficked, Kim Purcell

The Immortal Rules, Julie Kagawa

Rapture, Lauren Kate (Thank you, Random House!)

From the publisher:

Outpost, Ann Aguirre

My Book of Life by Angel, Martine Leavitt (Especially looking forward to this.)

Thank you so much, Macmillan! :) I'm pretty consistently impressed with their titles, so this should be good.

If you made it to the bottom, I think you get a gold star. And a nap. Thanks for visiting, everyone! And I have a handful of these reviews written already, and scheduled for closer to the publication date so keep checking back for them. Have a great weekend, friends!

I've been looking for a way to incorporate writing into this blog without seeming too heavy handed, and I think this may be the right way to do it. Once a month I'm aiming to have a list of songs available for you to choose from. The song with the most votes will be song that I will then write a 200-500 word drabble around. I take liberties with song interpretations, so though the link may not be blatantly obvious it will be there, and when I post the drabble I will explain in a sentence or two how the piece came about.

The songs will not always be in English, they will not always have lyrics - but just choose the one that speaks to you the most. 

For the inaugural post, I've chosen to use the following parameters:

• Time period: 2000-2005
• Male musicians
• Acoustic performance

To get to the YouTube links, add "www.youtube.com/watch?v=" before the code in the poll.

Song prompt choices: (YouTube link included for listening.)
	Running, Jason Mraz (Zi9YCOVEuvY)
	Weight Of It All, Matt Nathanson (3wgVLlRF2xU)
	Ghost / Beams of Light, Howie Day (LCZIRLsM6lo)
	Belief, Gavin DeGraw (duE9Di-_z30)
	Cinco Ojos / Starry Night, Zox (XhLDuaaWD28)
pollcode.com free polls

Incidentally, I've either seen all of these musicians live, worked for them on tour, or both. They are fantastic. I hope you enjoy and thanks for participating!

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event courtesy of Breaking the Spine that showcases much anticipated upcoming releases.

from Robison Wells' official website (expected October 2012 release):

Benson Fisher escaped from Maxfield Academy's deadly rules and brutal gangs.

Or so he thought.

But now Benson is trapped in a different kind of prison: a town filled with hauntingly familiar faces. People from Maxfield he saw die. Friends he was afraid he had killed.

They are all pawns in the school's twisted experiment, held captive and controlled by an unseen force. As he searches for answers, Benson discovers that Maxfield Academy's plans are more sinister than anything he imagined - and they may be impossible to stop.

I have no idea what to expect from this series, and I mean that in the best possible way. The blurb for Variant only skimmed the surface of the adventures between the pages and I'm looking forward to experiencing the unexpected again with Feedback. A lot of books can do without being part of series, but these are not those books. Also, the cover perfectly highlights where we're starting off. Ah, this one is going to be so much fun!

Note: You can find my review for Variant here.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. If you love lists

and wracking your brain for answers, then this is the meme for you!

Top Ten Books I'd Recommend As Good Beach Reads

01. Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson: This book is absolutely perfect for the beach, because to get there you'll have had to make some journey and perhaps won't be as envious of the one that Amy and Roger embark on. A really superb contemporary. (And, really, anything by Morgan is worth reading!)

02. Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone: I know this one hasn't been released yet, but you'll definitely see this in many a beach tote next year, or perhaps this autumn on the West Coast. Interesting characters, a gripping premise - this is one you won't be able to put down.

03. Moonglass by Jessi Kirby: Though this is a perfect summer read, the story offers so much more than that. Anna and her father move to the beach where her parents met, the place where she lost her mother. Her journey for information is moving and makes for a fast read.

04. Starcrossed (or Dreamless) by Josephine Angelini: I have to admit, this is probably my favorite of all the Greek mythology inspired stories out there. That said, there were some Delos family moments that seemed Cullen-esque to me. Nothing that made me dislike the story at all, nor want to stop reading the series. Angelini's writing here does the trick and keeps you wanting more.

05. Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina García: I don't think this will be a book for everyone, but I think that everyone who makes it to the end will be able to find something inside for them.

06. Blood Red Road by Moira Young: Being that the majority of this world is a desert landscape, it seems like a fitting summer story. Perfect for those looking for something a little different.

07. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson: Shocking confession time - I haven't read anything by Maureen Johnson yet. But I've heard so much about this one that I somewhat feel that I have. It's a book that I'll be reading sometime this summer.

08. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: Okay. This is a book that fits on so many list, but really, even if you're on vacation already this book will take you that extra step to someplace magical.

09. Crossed by Ally Condie: Another book that I think will work as a summer read because of the world building involved, and well, the story is (for me) the best yet of the series. Apparently if a book is set anywhere near hot weather or a desert, it is a summer read for me. The things I find out creating these lists.

10. The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Córdova: I was lucky enough to be one of the tables to have breakfast with her at BEA and she is completely lovely and when I found out that her book is about mermaids I immediately added it to my TBR. I haven't read one before, and this one is set here in NY so I'm a bit biased. (She was also sweet enough to sign my copy!) Sounds like it should be a fun book for the summer.

What are your summer reads?

Ever since the deluge of BEA-related posts took over blogs, Twitter, and Facebook last year I made the promise to myself that I would be able to attend this year, since it's right in my backyard. And so from June 4-7 I attended both the Blogger's Conference and Book Expo America.

It was one of the best weeks of my life.

This isn't because of the books, but because of the people. Everyone in that building shared such a depth of love for books that was so raw and beautiful that for the first couple hours of each day I could do little but grin stupidly and let my brain tell my feet what to do. Book bloggers, you are why I do this. Of course I have a blog about books because I love them, but it's the interactions that make everything worthwhile. The discussion, the excitement, the creativity - it's seriously unparalleled and I'm so incredibly grateful to be a part of it.

For everyone I met: thank you. And I cannot wait to see you next year and until then in comments and tweets and vlogs. For everyone that was there that I saw in passing: I wish I had more time to spend with you, and I hope to remedy this next year now that I know more of what to expect. To the authors who were so gracious in their signings and photos and heartfelt discussion to the publishers who were unfailingly kind despite the craziness of the days and everything in between.

You made BEA an unforgettable experience. And now, BEA in pictures:

My first view of anything BEA: registration. Thankfully I got this done on the morning of the blogger's conference so it wasn't mayhem the first official day of BEA.





The Autographing Area reminded me a bit of a horse race. It's...pretty clear as to why. For the most part it worked pretty well, except when some authors' lines were so long that they started intermingling with each other. Close quarters. :)








Little Brown's display for Laini Taylor! I had to stop and stare for a minute. The excitement for Days of Blood and Starlight was palpable. And the artwork is absolutely stunning enlarged and up close.

Booths: Penguin, DK, and Random House. The little station you see is the Young Adult signing booth where I was lucky enough to meet Ruta Sepetys! It was our first BEA and we chatted a little about being overwhelmed by everything. Ruta mentioned that she just saw John Green (as did I while in line) and that she couldn't believe that he was here, too. We had a bit of a moment. Absolutely sweet, and definitely worth meeting if she comes anywhere near you!

They had this ginormous mock-up of Reached in the lobby outside the exhibition floor and I walked by just in time to see Ally Condie posing inside it. Kat Zhang and Aimée Carter also linked to funny photos on Twitter from inside. I wanted to take one myself, but never seemed to have the time! But this photo was worth it. I can't wait to read Reached!

Meet... (a fraction of) the Apocalypsies! (And Aliya, hiding in the back. I see you!) They were all so nice and this was one of the best panels offered, for me, just to be able to casually mingle and chat. :)

        My first (and only) post-BEA event. There were tons throughout the city every day, but I was so knackered from carrying about bags and bags of books that I opted for sleep. And so I apologise for ducking out early, ladies! But, seriously - look at all of the amazing authors there!

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event courtesy of Breaking the Spine that showcases much anticipated upcoming releases.

from goodreads: 08/28/2012

Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa — and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp — people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens while simultaneously providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but also expand to the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished.

Cam is a product of unwinding; made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds, he is a teen who does not technically exist. A futuristic Frankenstein, Cam struggles with a search for identity and meaning and wonders if a rewound being can have a soul. And when the actions of a sadistic bounty hunter cause Cam’s fate to become inextricably bound with the fates of Connor, Risa, and Lev, he’ll have to question humanity itself.

Rife with action and suspense, this riveting companion to the perennially popular Unwind challenges assumptions about where life begins and ends—and what it means to live.

If this were just about any other series, I would probably say that it should have stopped at Unwind. That the story was complete and that any further exploration will hamper its genius and impact. This is not any other series, and this is not any other author. If you've read Unwind (and also Bruiser) then you know that Shusterman isn't creating a second book just to do so - it's because there is still a story to tell.

Unwind is one of my very favorite books, and this isn't even a book that I can pre-order online because I need to have it release day. I'm so grateful for this series and the potential it has for far-reaching discussion. Is it August yet?

Note: You can find my review for Unwind here.

In My Mailbox, hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren, allows us to share our

current reads, and books we've received/checked out/purchased over the course of the week.

Paper Towns, John Green (how did I not have a copy before?)

The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi

Annnd, I got lucky! Look at this:

A signed copy, right off of the shelf! (On the bottom, in the back.)

I'm so, so excited for this one.

That's all for this week, folks! Time to go see Benedict Cumberbatch in Frankenstein with Sherlock NYC! And what a gorgeous day it is to be brunching, discussing and watching a fabulous theatre adaptation of such a classic novel. BEA TOMORROW! :)