Bored. Bored bored bored. Bored.

Sunrise today was at 5:32 a.m., sunrise will be at 8:40 p.m.! Last Monday night, when I got home from bookgroup at about 9:45, the sky was still ruddy over the Olympic mountains to the west. Long twilights are a true joy.  

View from the window where my computer is living this week

Today is a quiet, wet, late spring day, highs in the mid-60s; yesterday was blue skies, mid-80s, sweaty weather.  We are having our downstairs bathroom remodeled and D and I are hunkering in our upstairs rooms for the next 5 days.  We've both taken vacation time to be here for this so we can let the workers in and out, but it doesn't feel very vacationy. It was really a sudden decision - dry rot under the toilet dictates when something like this happens - so I still have a rep appointment on Wednesday and book deliveries to schools for the Northwest Literacy Foundation. I've been in contact with work a couple of times. Sigh,

I've set up my laptop in the bedroom on a tv tray, radio in the background, to work on book orders for the fall season.  But, truly, looking at all that data, scrolling through book after book can be daunting.  One publisher has almost a thousand titles! I don't have to look at them all in depth, but most take three different key strokes and a lot of track ball moves. My butt hurts and I really want to weed the path that runs along the west side of the house.  But it's raining.

And with a house full of unread books, and uncleared shelves and closets,  I shouldn't be bored.  But I am.  

So, I guess I am going to drag that stack of books on the bedside table onto the bed and see what screams, "READ ME!!!".  I saw a new book in the store the other day and ordered it up from the library:  Luna: New Moon (Ballantine), by Ian McDonald.  The first few pages were gripping and maybe if I read it when I'm trying not to go to sleep, I will have better luck with the rest of it.  It should be good; any book that starts with a moon run (out in the airless atmosphere, 10 seconds, unprotected) ought to be. 

There are six other books in that stack including Maggie Stiefvater's Raven King (Scholastic) which I have been hoarding for a day just like this one.  It's like saving that last piece of chocolate for the perfect moment.  Will that moment ever come?  Will the chocolate just go stale? Am I just afraid that this really will be the last book in the series so I don't want to read it because then it really will be over?

New to the stack, as of last Thursday, is the third book in the Jackaby series, Ghostly Echoes (Algonquin), by Springfield, Oregon middle school teacher, William Ritter. This series is so much fun and so funny this book might just be the perfect diversion for a gray and cold afternoon.

Well, when I finally make that decision to spend the next few hours submerged in a completely world, I'll let you know how it went.

Sunrise was at 5:13 am, sunset will be at 9:03pm.  I got home last night at 10 pm and the sky was still light.  I LOVE this time of year.

Cool, cloudy, massively green out there, this morning.  The view from our dining room is full of blackberry bushes, trees and birds.  A chickadee has been hovering over the blackberries like a hummingbird and plucking petals off the blossoms and carrying them away - decorating a nest?  I don't know, but it's pretty interesting.

Lexington Ave. On my way to see Peter Sis!

I just got back from New York for the big book show.  I like New York, I like books, I like most of the people attached to the show, I have a hard time with crowds, kind of a conundrum when every aisle in the building is packed with (mostly) younger readers, bloggers, waiting in long lines for signed books.

Those of us who had work to do could only look at what was being handed over and yearn for the time to wait for that book.  That book for me was  Sinner,
Maggie Stiefvater's new book, but I didn't have the time to wait.

Ambassador Eoin Colfer and me at BEA

I did, however, make the time to wait in a line the next day with very excited bloggers (the very first person in line was hyperventilating; he kept saying, Oh, my God, I'm so excited!) to meet Eoin Colfer.  I am going to tell you now just how thrilled I was when Eoin caught my eye and then waved at me standing there in the line.  Sigh.  So, I waited through all the pictures and hugs and babbling of all those bloggers and a few librarians until it was my turn and, yes, I did the exact same thing.  I'm sure I babbled a little but I demanded a picture of the two of us AND a hug.  I love me some Eoin Colfer.  (Here signing The Reluctant Assassin, book 1 in the W.A.R.P. series.)

Book Love:  I did find some things I can't wait to read - they are still on their continental drift from that coast to this - but I had to make lists of the things I didn't pick up for immediate consumption so I can remember to look for them later.

Ember in the Ashes Manuscript

One of the books I picked up and then packed up to share with the staff is by a new author, Sabaa Tahir, who on her own has an amazing story to tell, but the one she's written, Ember in the Ashes, is a fast-paced adventure story that feels as if it's placed somewhere on this earth, somewhen in the far future, and is a not-so-gentle mix of mythologies from all the hot places, Rome, the Middle East, the Mojave.  The military is a harsh bunch trained from youth who feel it is their right to take what they want, when they want.  Our heroine, Laia, has lost the last person in her family to this brutal bunch.  She knows he is imprisoned somewhere and she joins the underground to find him.  Unfortunately, circumstances put her in the ultimate danger, in the home of the head of the military, vicious woman, the mother of one of the soldiers.  This is a tough, unforgiving life for the people living, and dying, here.  The book is packed with action and danger, but it isn't without hope and courage (and a big helping of romance!). 

I can't wait to start selling this book to our customers.  It was SO good and I am hoping there will be another one SOON!  I don't know when it's coming, I don't know the price...It's so new and exciting! I know it's published by Penguin Young Readers Group and everyone should put it on order at their Indie bookshops, like Eagle Harbor Book Company!   (Ages 13+)

(No Recompense Received for this Post.)

Summer means BOOKS!

Sunrise was at 5:11, sunset will be at 9:11.  Sunrise is early.  And the lightening of the sky? Earlier.  The birds, especially if the flight path is especially low?  Earliest.  I swear they (the birds and the planes) start at 2:30 am in and over our neighborhood.  I wonder if they get confused by the streetlights- Do the trees shake when the planes rumble over?  Who knows.  They are just awake and noisy.

Solstice is tomorrow.  I just checked the sunrise/sunset calendar and it shows that we have 4 extra seconds of daylight today, less than a second tomorrow, and 5 whole SECONDS LESS on Saturday!  Wow!  Not even a day to get used to the idea that winter is on its way.

So, with summer on the doorstep, here are three fun young adult books for those looking for getaway reads.

The Summer of No Regrets, by Katherine Grace Bond (Sourcebooks).  The perfect summer read for younger young adults. There's romance, mystery, and cougar cubs.  What could be better than that?  Brigitta, a secret celebrity blogger (although she's pretty snarky about them), is not having a good year.  She's been dumped, her dad's changed toward her, and she has to spend the summer helping her parents promote their spiritual retreat. When her handsome new neighbor, Luke, is attacked by a cougar, she saves his life and her summer suddenly takes a different turn.  Luke (a dead ringer for bad boy star Trent Yves) and the cougar cubs they find and then care for become her secret from everyone, especially her star-crazed best friend, Natalie.

Brigitta's relationship with Luke is a little rocky-she's not sure if everything he's told her isn't all a lie.  But she likes him, he's funny and caring, and she's tired of being the good and reliable Brigitta of the past.

Summer of No Regrets has plenty of issues to make it a meaty read with a healthy dose of romance and tension, knotty problems with friends and family. It's a good one for ages 12 and up. (Available now, $8.99.)

Perry's Killer Playlist, by Joe Schreiber (Houghton Mifflin).  This is the sequel to Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick and you really NEED to read the first one first.  Hysterically funny, perfect for summer reading.  ARCEC is all about crazy spies and assassinations and fast cars, music and bands and being yanked out of anything at all resembling your normal life.  PKP is what happens later!  Perry has gotten into college, he's on a European tour with his band, and no one's tried to kill him in months.  Unfortunately, Gobi is still in his life.  Showing up in a shower of bullets and screaming tires, the two of them are OFF in a flurry of international murder plots, love and torture. All of that makes for an exciting and funny book.  I love recommending these books to teens who really just want something fun to read, nothing too cerebral.  There is sexual content so ages 13 and older.  (Both books are available now.  $16.99 each.)

The Moon and More, by Sarah Dessen (Viking).  Well, it just isn't summer without a new book by Sarah Dessen and I get so very excited about every single one of them.  There was some discussion at the store about her books, 11 so far, and how alike they all are and could there really be anything new?  My response was YES!  I LOVE her characters, I love that the conflicts are real ones that most girls have to deal with (attempted rape, abuse, family dysfunction, money...).  Her main characters are smart, funny, intense, able.  They study, they aim high, they rely on themselves to get where they want to be.  They are the girls at 17 that WE were at 17:  Bookish teenagers who know the world is so much bigger than the ones we're in and that we are going to take it by storm, so go on and get out of the way.

Okay, so The Moon and More is standard SD fare:  Girl in small town, happy with her boyfriend, the summer before college, when big city boy with big dreams comes and recruits her (Emaline) to work on his documentary film about a reclusive local artist.  A look at how her future could unroll leads to questions about her comfortable feelings about the life she leads now.  Loved it.  This may be the summer I re-read all her books.  (Available now. Ages 12 and up.  $19.99.)

Okay, I hope your summer unfurls in a flurry of paper and words and the time to enjoy them all.  Come on by Eagle Harbor Books (you get to take the FERRY!) and see me!  It's a nice little vacation from the big city.


(No recompense received for reviews.)

Rift, by Andrea Cremer, and a New View!

Monday, July 2, 2012.  The sun rose at 5:17 and it will set at 9:10.

The day is cool, so far, and the air feels wet.  It's overcast, but D went off to work without an outercovering saying, "It's Summer."  Yes, it is.  It's been muggy, colder inside than out, and I am REALLY not complaining, not after hearing about the rest of the nation's woes.  A friend in D.C. lost her porch when a tree fell in her backyard during the tornado strength storms over the weekend.

After a month and some odd days, it will be 2 months on July 5, we are finally putting up my birthday present!  During one of the last wind storms we awoke to the back screen door in pieces, dangling from its hinges and screws.  The wind caught it and slammed it back and forth against the house until it was limp and splintery.

We bought a new screen door on May 5, picked it up a week or two later.  I went out, got it securely packed in the jeep and received a short tutorial on how to finish a door.  I've spent the last 2 weeks or so sanding, wiping, oiling and staining.  The door is gorgeous and feels as soft as buttah.  Sliding my hands over the varnish, it's like glass, so smooth and silky.  The door guy is coming today.

We'd do it ourselves but the last time we did doors, we got into the worst fights!  Go to your left, no, your OTHER left! Lift, not that high! No, higher! Oh, my god, it was worse than learning how to drive a stick shift together.  Never again; it is so much more worth having someone else do it for me.  I did it once.  I know I can do it again.  I don't need to do it again.  And if I have to do it again, I may well have to do it with someone other than the husband.  Too easy to yell at the husband.

I just finished reading Rift, by Andrea Cremer.  It's the prequel to the Nightshade series, that really fun series of books about packs of werewolves with a very strong female presence.  Andrea Cremer is an early modern history professor at Macalester College.  Filled with allusions to sexual politics and the rights of women to make decisions about themselves and their lives, they are eye-opening and  empowering reads for young adults.  Okay, I read them long before realizing the self-empowerment parts - I just thought they were really good and the main character was so COOL!  Talk about a butt-kicking hero!

Rift takes place in Britain, after the Knights Templar, during the middle ages.  Ember is the younger daughter of a wealthy lord.  She was promised to the Conatus when her mother was saved from death during Ember's birth.  She's 16, now, and the Conatus, a secret group battling evil and demons throughout the land, have come to claim their due and train her as a warrior. 

Ember finds herself adapting easily to this world of warriors except for dealing with her tutor, Barrow.  She's finding life with Barrow to be particularly unnerving as she's not quite sure what the feelings she has for him are or if she is allowed to even have them. She's a quick study, strong, able with her weapons, but unsure as to what he feels for her.

When one of the group goes rogue, tempted into the dark magics to save her convent from a greedy abbot, convincing her order that the only way to survive is to join up with the demons, Ember has to decide whether to follow her or to leave the order and hunt down the knights she's grown to love.

Filled with action and weaponry and romance, Rift is a worthy addition to the Nightshade books.  It tells the beginning of the tale of the Keepers and the Searchers, the two groups represented in the Nightshade series.

I would have loved a pronunciation key for the names.  I played with all the possibilities until I just gave up and hummed them in my head as I ran across them.  Fionn=Finn?  Cian=Sean?  Shawn?  Does it matter?  Only if doesn't bother you to stop and figure them out each time they come up.  Eira=?

I really enjoy Andrea's books because the girls aren't afraid to get dirty.  They are strong and able, secure in their abilities to fight and win, a little arrogant, and will wade in to defend those they feel are on the right side of the battle.  They are sexual beings and comfortable with it.  The women in her books are warriors and proud of it.

And there are horses! 

(Ages 14 and up.  Philomel. $18.99.  Available August, 2012.




(No recompense received for the review of this book.)

Three by Natalie Standiford

Sunrise was at 5:12, sunset will be at 9:05!  Already twilight, that extraordinary purple light we get here after the sun goes down, lasts until almost 10. It's cold today, the air is full of water but it isn't raining.  Yet.  There are patches of blue through the clouds and it's hard to believe that we're just a couple of weeks from summer. 

I recently got to be a part of a telephone roundtable with Natalie Standiford, her editor David Levithan, and a whole slew of booksellers from across the country!  We dialed in and were introduced to each other and then just started to talk.

We were gathered together to talk about Natalie's new book, The Secret Tree, published by Scholastic.  Well, it turns out that we are all big fans of The Secret Tree, one of those great summer books for middle grades.  It's filled with intrigue and mystery, growing up and growing away, learning what it's like to be a person all by yourself.

The Secret Tree is about Minty, a girl heading into 6th grade, and the summer everything changes.  She and her best friend, Paz, want to be roller derby skaters and they spend a lot of their time trying on new names and practicing their moves.  Both girls have older sisters, great parents, and live in a neighborhood with woods and a haunted house and everyone knows who they are.

One day, there's a flash of light in the woods.  Minty, against the wishes of everyone she knows, chases the flashmaker through the woods.  Worries about the Man-Bat and the witch in the house on the other side notwithstanding, Minty charges after the boy, losing him in the trees.  When she stops and looks around, she is standing next to a big tree with a huge hole in it.  In the hole is a piece of paper.  On the paper is a secret.  No one loves me except my goldfish.

Minty follows the flashes to a boy named Raymond who lives in a model house in an unfinished cul de sac on the other side of the woods and, drawn together by the secrets left in the tree, they become friends.

Through the summer, Minty and Raymond spy on their neighbors, matching secrets to people, all the while navigating the rough world of growing up.  Raymond has secrets he shouldn't have to keep on his own, Minty's friend Paz is growing away from her, and Minty's sister, Thea, has become the epitome of what a true teenager is:  moody, scary, unpredictable.

Their little neighborhood has too many secrets and something's going to go drastically wrong.

The Secret Tree was GREAT!  It's a cross between Harriet the Spy and Post Secret.  I love the idea that if you can put your fears, your secrets, out into the world they won't be festering in your mind. By making them solid and then releasing them, perhaps they lose their power.  I like that, by confessing this way, the secret keepers also take the chance that the secrets will become public, that maybe they can be absolved and forgiven for what they perceive as sins. The confessional, after all, is just a hole in a tree, lots of people have secrets in there!  The secret's been told, now they can go on.

Minty is just a really well-written character.  She is at that tipping point between being a part of an amorphous body of a child-filled mob, between that point of just being and loving what and who you are and wondering how others see you and worrying about the things to come.  Her best friend is growing up ahead of her, the teenagers in their families are awful, and the secrets people hold are tearing them apart. 

This is a good read for ages 9 and up.  A couple of people on the roundtable were reading it to their younger children and it can certainly extend into the early teen years. There's so much more to the book than the surface jacket copy.  It would be a good choice for an all-school read, and I think any teacher who is still reading aloud to a classroom should move it to the top of the pile, lots and lots of very discussable points.  (Scholastic.  $16.99.  Available now.)

And so I had to read all the other young adult books Natalie's written:

How to Say Goodbye in Robot is one of those books that you'll remember for a very long time.  Bea is a new girl in town and the seating chart in school has put her next to Jonah, a boy everyone calls Ghost Boy (he gets this name via a cruel joke in middle school).  Jonah, not a big fan of people in general, makes an exception for Bea and the two of them soon find themselves inseparable.  It's a love story but not one you'd expect.

I still have a tender spot in my chest where my heart hurt while reading Goodbye.  It's a story of loneliness and love and how much people really do need each other and how far they'll go to help someone they care for.  There's a community of late night radio listeners who are each others' family, there's great betrayal, great redemption, and great love.  I carried this book in my bag for days after I finished it.  Just didn't want it to end.  Ages 14 and up.  (Scholastic.  Published in 2009.)


Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters was a hoot!  On Christmas morning, a wealthy Baltimore dowager lets her family know just how offended she is by something one of the family did.  She will disown them all and leave them penniless unless they, the children of the family, confess, in writing, to the sin.  But who did it?  It turns out the sisters all have secrets that could have been the reason for being Almighty's dissatisfaction with them.

Confessions is a little heartbreaking, a story of discovery, really funny, and it is a great look at how families work (or don't).  Like Standiford's other books, it's filled with secrets that will eat at one's soul, secrets best lit up like paper lanterns and let go to burn to ash in the air.  Ages 14 and up.  (Scholastic.  Published in 2010).


(No recompense was received for books reviewed in this blog.)

It's A Galahad Book! Four more from Dom Testa

Sunrise was at 5:55, sunset will be at 8:20.  I am so happy the days are longer now.  Even if it is gray and supposed to rain (so much for the sun we were supposed to get at some point today), it's so much easier to deal with when it's light outside.

Look at this bank of lilacs alongside our house!  It's a truly bumper crop.  I got in there last summer and fall and just cut and hacked at it, pushing it back off the yard and the sidewalk and it just reveled in the pain.  We had some warm, wet weather last week and the air was thick with the scent of lilacs.  I've found some broken leaves around the bottom of the hill so I know the neighbors are enjoying them, too.

I went to the library yesterday to pick up the books I ordered up a week ago:  The rest of the Galahad series by Dom Testa are in my hands!  Kalloo Kallay!  I am really looking forward to reading straight through the series!  I love these science fiction books for teens.  251 teenagers put on a ship and headed off into space 5 years from Earth, hopefully to roll in close to an Earth-like planet they will be able to colonize.

They're pretty exciting, lots of gossip and intrigue, lots of chances to lose a life or a friend, plenty of action and descriptions of space, and they're pretty well thought out.  There is a girl as captain, there's someone in charge of exercise and socializing, a botanist, kids with a penchant for nursing or medicine, lots of engineers.  And, in the second book, a ship's cat named Iris.

I think they'd be great for ages 11 and up, lots of romantic intrigue (it makes sense, it's part of life and they're trying to keep life as close to normal as possible as it can be out past Saturn and the Kuiper Belt) but there's nothing that an 11 year-old wouldn't know about.  It certainly doesn't take away from the sheer excitement and adventure of any other space opera.

The titles in the series are, in chronological order, The Comet's Curse; The Web of Titan; The Cassini Code; The Dark Zone; Cosmic Storm; and The Galaxy Legacy.  They are all published by Tor Teen, the first three are in paper for $8.99, the next are only in hardcover right now: $17.99 and $18.99.

Code Name Verity

Sunrise was at 6:31, Sunset will be at 7:51.

It's been so long since it's been warm. It is supposed to be up in the high 60's today! It's sit out on the porch without a hoodie weather; it's take your book and your drink out to the stoop weather; it's open all the windows wide weather. The skies are blue, there is a haze way up where jets leave the opposite of contrails - there's a razor's slice through the haze, an emptiness where the jet has gone.

I'm heading into the second month of unemployment and I am patting myself on the back for getting up relatively early every day, working out, taking a shower and not getting back into my pajamas. I make the bed, pick up the stuff that needs to go somewhere else, and then eat a meal. And then the day has headed into the afternoon. I look for a job, I answer email, I look for a job, I look at facebook. And repeat.

The being unemployed part isn't so bad, it's the walking in circles part that gets me. I find myself getting up to go do something and then thinking, oh, not yet, I need to do this first, and turning around, forgetting what that was supposed to be. Going back to where I was, remembering, changing my mind and going back again. And repeat. It's hard to stay organized and focused when there's nothing obvious to pin it to.

So, I turn around one more time, grab a book off the pile, and eat lunch.

And, oh, the books!

I recently read Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein, an amazingly adventurous story about two young women during WWII.

Best friends Maddie and Verity were shot down in German-occupied France. Verity is captured behind enemy lines and arrested.

She is imprisoned by the Gestapo and given the choice of confessing to everything, codes, airports, names, or being shot. She is only alive as long as she has something to confess to, so, slowly, day by day, Verity weaves her confession into the story of how she and Maddie became friends, hoping that someone might find her notes and know what happened to her.

Days pass in her prison as she writes herself one scrap piece of paper at a time closer to her death, vividly remembering how they met and how they trained to become spies and pilots. When she finally reaches the present, a different life and death struggle ensues.

I absolutely loved this book. Like Mal Peet's Tamar and Mary Ann Schaffer's Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Ms. Wein has written a book about a bit of WWII history that not everyone will be familiar with. She shows us how the people in the small towns and the countryside of England lived and worked during the time, really getting into the details of how civilians got involved in keeping their country safe. It's filled with worry, fear, airplane parts, radio transmissions, and the best descriptions of what an air raid is like. And all from a girl's point of view.

Verity's confession is often very difficult to read. It's written on music paper, prescription pads, scraps of what is available, and she reflects on where the Jewish composer and doctor are and what might have happened to them. She writes about her handler's abuse of her, the flicking of lit matches at her face, the torture she endures before she agrees to write her confession, soiling her panties, casual slaps and pinches and cigarette burns.

I think I liked Code Name Verity best because it isn't a book for girls about World War II. It's a book filled with adventure and war, bravery, friendship and death, love and indifference, big machines and air fights, it isn't a girl's book by any means with the "right ending for a jolly girl's adventure story". It's a book about young people doing amazing and daring things all while still having crushes and staying out past curfew. It's funny and harrowing and tear jerking.

Adults will love this book, girls will be inspired by it, and I think most boys, once they get started reading, will not be able to put it down.

Kiss me quick, Hardy!

(Ages 14 and up. Hyperion. Available May, 2012. $16.99.)


(No remuneration was received in exchange for the books mentioned in this blog. However, hardy thanks go out to Lauren Mayer for sharing Code Name Verity with me.)

Lament, and a Late Night's Reading

I have my first library card in years.

What?! I've worked in bookstores forever! I've read books before they were even ready for the shelf! Books not even bound sometimes, just pages wrapped with a rubber band. I haven't even needed a card from a library for a very long while. But this new stage of my life requires one. And a PIN! Who knew?

So, I went to the Douglass-Truth Library just up the hill from where I live and found a copy of Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception, by Maggie Stiefvater. Holding it in my lap, I wonder who else has read this book? What caused the discolored upper right hand side warping? Jostled tea cup? Dropped and then caught just inside the suds in the bathtub? Why was the page turned down at chapter 4? How could the reader stop right there? Was s/he just marking a good spot? or was s/he (okay, probably a she, but, still, there is a GREAT male buddy character in here) really just ready to move on, no piece of grass or matchbook cover (my mom used those) to slide in as a memory cue? Time for a sandwich?

This book is well-read. It's covered in bends and scratches. I can feel the reader's additions to it, the backpack shove, encounters with a pen, the page edges softened where all those hands held it. There is an impression of words on the cover where someone used it as a flat spot to write a note.

The other thing I've noticed is that the spine is intact, smooth, no creases. It's as if it's always read in a single day, quickly, in one long rush of words and breath. Probably the same way I'm reading it: in bed, propped up by pillows, hoping that morning doesn't come too soon.
(Ages 12 and up. Flux. $9.95. Available now.)

Divergent for Spring

Sunrise is at 7:35, sunset will be at 5:12. The Olympic mountains are ghostly this morning. The snow glows against the graying skies and the snow-cleared rock is the same shade of sky - the peaks float above the Sound. And now they are pink as the sun has finally risen high enough to illuminate that side of the landscape.

It's sunny and COLD. It isn't back east or Texas cold but it's still cold. Had to cover the daphne again last night so it might have even a few buds open in late February. The lilac buds are beginning to plump up and I heard a bird at 5 am the other day. I guess Punxsatawney Phil is right: Spring must be right around the corner.

I was up until 1 last night, this morning, whatever, reading Divergent, by Veronica Roth, a first-time author. What a book! One of the things we did at Winter Institute was a Speed Dating thing: authors spent 15 minutes speaking to us about their favorite books and then they'd move on to the next table and keep spreading the good news. I would say that at least every presenter had at least one book they compared to Hunger Games. Hunger Games meets Twilight, Hunger Games goes feral....I remember talking to someone about that: what if there was no Hunger Games? How would you describe these books then?

Divergent takes place well into the future, in a degrading Chicago, and is the story of a girl who lives in one of five Factions. In the bad days, it was decided that evil, poverty, violence, all these things could be lessened or gone if the world was divided into groups that were the essence of certain virtues. Beatrice is born into the Abnegators, one who gives selflessly, thinks only of others, and is able to think clearly because they have nothing above anyone else. They are also the people in charge of the government because they only think about what would be best for everyone.

At the age of 16, the children are able to choose where they would like to spend the rest of their lives, to switch factions, if they are unhappy, to one that more closely reflects who they are. The other factions are Erudite, the scholarly, research laden, Dauntless, brave and exciting, the ones in charge of training for battle (just in case), Amity, balanced and happy, and Candor, the ones who see through the crap and see things only in black and white, truth tellers.

This one choice can change everything they have ever known, can take them from their families and friends, change who they will ever be.

Beatrice and her brother, Caleb, are 16 and the story begins as they are being tested to see which faction they would best be suited for. Beatrice has begun to really question who she is, she has realized that she is not suited for selfless giving, she feels selfish and questioning, not an Abnegator. When she decides, she chooses the most opposite faction she can: Dauntless.

This is an amazingly compelling read. Filled with exciting action, evil people, great romance, big ideas and massive fallibility- I truly could not put it down, and neither could Annie, one of my co-workers at Third Place. I started it last night at 9:30 and was truly concerned that I would not finish before midnight. I didn't, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't know how this first part ended.

This book will be garnering a ton of buzz and press, so order it up from your local, independent bookstore.

I probably should have finished the rest of the first chapter of Getting Things Done that I have to have done by tomorrow before I picked up Ms. Roth's novel. I can read a 487 page book like Divergent in a single bedtime reading and it takes me days to get through 53 pages of a business book. Hmmm. (Divergent will be available in May, 2011. Age14 and up. $17.99.)

Happy Solstice!

It's Solstice! Sunrise just occurred at 7:55, the Seattle skyline is glowing in the sun (yes, no rain and some clear skies). It is the shortest day of the year and sunrise will be at 4:20.

Were you up last night watching the lunar eclipse? So very, very cool.

Check out www.starhustler.com to see a little video about the eclipse. Well, you should take a look at the site anyway because it is so darned great. Lots of the "naked eye astronomy" videos that play on PBS are on the site, and they are fabulous. D and I have stayed up late most nights since we discovered the show in '94, just to catch the 1-5 minute star and planet lessons on one of our local PBS stations (KBTC). I know the winter constellations and that the brightest light we can see in the sky toward the south is Jupiter.

Our childrens' book staff presented our favorite books of the season at a little store book talk last week and one of mine is Nightshade, by Andrea Cremer.

Nightshade is the story of Calla, a leader of a pack of werewolves who knows that her future is fairly well set. When she graduates from the Mountain School she will be the mate of the other major pack forming a large and very strong pack, ruling together, and guarding all of the sacred sites of the pack. This has been the plan for most of her life and she has been happy with it. It doesn't hurt that her future mate is extremely sexy and strong himself! When Calla saves a human boy and brings him into their lives, she sets into motion a number of things that cause her to question her life and the world she has always known.

Ooh, this was so good! Great romance, great, strong female character, history, it has it all. Oh, and it will be a series- Gotta tell you that the next one will be at the top of my to read pile!

One of the things that is really cool about being a bookseller is that we often get to go to dinner with the authors of new books and talk to them, listen to what they have to say, and catch up with the other booksellers in town. We get to eat some really great food and drink some pretty good drinks and talk to other people who love books. The lists we compile at these events are pretty good ones; someone ought to be writing them down!

Anyway, dinner with Andrea was amazing. Not only does she write really good young adult books (this is her first but she'll write more) but she is a history professor at Macalester College and used her research for writing about sex, violence, religion and power in history to write Nightshade. It's not only a good book, it will make you think!

And the cover is exquisite. Age 14 and up. (Philomel. $17.99. Available now.)

This is Andrea's blog site: www.blurredhistory.blogspot.com.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

Sunrise is at 7:53, sunset will be at 4:19.

Blue skies today, Rainier and the cradle of mountains surrounding us are out in all their glory, the few clouds I can see are held back by the ranges. I just fed the birds and they discovered it in seconds. We've had hummingbirds in the fountain and the maple tree all morning. The ones in the fountain seemed to be playing with the water (when they weren't trying to impale each other) by ducking in and out of the bubbler and then perching at the top and sliding to the edge, flapping back to the top, sliding back down, over and over. Beautiful, bright red throats, shimmering green backs, quick little flicks back into the trees.

With all the heavy rains and high winds, there've been some real problems and trouble, but beauty, too. I was driving to work on Wednesday, heading north towards the U on I-5, and saw a brilliant rainbow that stretched from the U district, across I-5 and down towards Lake Union in front of Gasworks park ending in the lake-what was so very cool, though, was seeing the houses through the rainbow and they were all shaded in the colors of the rainbow! I have never seen that before! And it was morning! Rainbows are pretty rare in the mornings but there it was! It wasn't long before I was no longer between the sun and the rain and it was gone. So cool.

One of the best books this season, and one that's on my top ten list for winter, is Hold Me Closer Necromancer, by Lish McBride. Took me a while to get to it but I am so glad I did! Funny, funny, funny, set in Seattle in and around U Village and campus, it's the story of a slacker burger flipper, Sam (short for Samhain), who runs afoul of a powerful necromancer who reveals that there is something very wrong with Sam's life, or maybe very right- it kind of depends on whether you really want to raise the dead.

Sam has been protected by an herbal pouch his mom made him when he was born. When it accidentally comes off, just after he dents a fancy car with a potato, the man who owns the car recognizes him for what he truly is. Unfortunately, Sam doesn't have any idea about what that means. Due to the lack of convo between Sam and his mother about why he needs this pouch, many awful things start to happen to the people he loves to convince him to take this change in his life seriously. One of those is the death of his friend, Brooke. Brooke's body is found in her apartment but her head ends up with Sam, still alive, kind of. She can talk, cry, think, and she is not happy! They have to carry her around in a bowling bag.

Did you know that you have to petition the Council and register to live in Seattle if you are Were, a 'mancer of any stripe, or any kind of paranormal "person"?

It's a really fun book, good for either sex, and it shows us a new side to life in Seattle where the underground scene may be much different from what we thought. Great for age 13 and up. (Henry Holt. $16.99. Available now.)

Books, Rain, Sun, Rain, Sun, Wind, Sun.......

Sunrise was at 7:45, sunset will be at 4:18.

I just looked ahead to the next few days of sunrises and sunsets and noticed that while the morning times continue to get later, the sunsets read 4:18 for days! Without checking the details it looks like the earth just doesn’t tip any deeper for awhile. The details off to the side of the times show the difference in daylight between one day and the next; tomorrow’s light will be 5 seconds shorter than today’s, Friday’s daylight will be 6 seconds shorter than tomorrow’s…. Solstice is on its way and I can’t wait to watch the distancing between these numbers as we head into February, the single most difficult month to get through.

We had a real emergency broadcast today! Massive thunderstorms in Snohomish county, winds up to 60 miles per hour. In Seattle, we had a little breeziness before the sun came up, pewter gray skies over Beacon Hill, houses and buildings glowing against the dark, and, through a slip of sky in the south, watery sunlight turning the windows on the hill a silvery pale blue.

By the time the first thunder in Seattle hit, we had downpours of rain that actually hurt when it hit. It was much like driving through a carwash, rain bouncing as high as bumpers, the streets became 3 inch deep rivers, nowhere for the rain to go, and I saw a man in a camel colored jacket and no hat at the corner of Boren and Jefferson skipping across the street in the rain.

I grew up where it rains really hard but I was pretty surprised by the intensity of this rainfall. I wish I’d had a rain collector set up today.

Now, half an hour later, big swathes of blue sky, no rain, and the little birds are taking advantage of the break to scavenge for seed in the shelter of the bushes. Wow! We have real sunshine!

I finished She’s Gone Country, by Jane Porter, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything went the way I wanted it to. Sometimes, I just want to read happy stuff. I listen to the radio too much to want to spend my leisure time feeling bad while doing something I like. If any of you have sisters or friends who like to read a little fluff, books about women who are often like us, women who do stupid things and then have to deal with the repercussions, then Jane Porter is a good choice. And she’s FUNNY! (Hachette. $13.99. Available now.)

I went from She’s Gone Country to Torment, by Lauren Kate, the sequel to Fallen, a teen paranormal romance between an angel and the girl he has found and loved through millennia. Very much a good way to spend some hours. (Delacorte. $17.99. Available now.)

And from Torment I dove right into The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May and June, by Robin Benway who wrote another one of my favorite books, Audrey, Wait!. I think Robin Benway has an amazing flair for dialogue. Her banter between the sisters, the sarcasm, the humor, she gets it so right. TESofAM&J is the story of three sisters who, all of a sudden, develop powers that they are unsure how to use. There is mind reading, seeing the future and invisibility and no way of learning from anyone how to deal with them. Add to the mix a few boys and new relationships, a newly divorced set of parents and all the stress that comes with those things and you have a pretty good backdrop for a grand story. I laughed out loud a lot during the reading of this book, I remember being taken by surprise and snorting. Once. I just unearthed the book from a forgotten pile of books in the hall and I am so sorry I didn’t read it long ago. Or maybe not-With all the time away from work, the weather, the hectic time of year, this may have been exactly the perfect time for a book that lightened my mood and got the endorphins flowing! (Razorbill. $16.99. Available now.)

I am a quarter of an inch from finishing Rick Riordan’s Lost Hero, a kind of sideways continuation of the Percy Jackson books featuring Roman gods and goddesses. It’s really good but it’s the book I read in bed or pick up between finishing and starting something else.

I have just started reading Gail Caldwell’s Let’s Take the Long Way Home and it is so beautiful. It’s the memoir of a friendship and I am looking forward to reading more of it. I’ll let you know more when I get farther along than the first couple of chapters.

The Unidentified, Rae Mariz.

Friday, November 19. Sunrise was at 7:22, sunset will be at 4:28.

Still sick. Not contagious, I don't think, but congested and hacky deep in the lung-al area. It makes me cough to talk, have to push air through my throat to go across the vocal cords to make sounds. Awful. I spent most of yesterday in bed, most of today up, though.

We have family in town; Cousin Ann, from Minneapolis, is here. She came for our niece's opera debut on Wednesday, as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and we had taken Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off so we could all spend time together, and we are sick. We were able to go to lunch with everyone today (Friday) but are still too tired and achy to spend the weekend in Tacoma with the fambly.

I spent all day and most of the evening in bed, TV on the Design Channel, quilting a quilt for my bro-in-law (last year's Christmas present), and reading when it finally got late enough. I read The Unidentified last night (staying up really late to finish it). Man, what a book!

I wanted something I could read that wasn't too heavy, too emotional, and science fiction often works for me when I am getting ready to go to sleep. It's far enough removed from my real life to be distracting but close enough to be entertaining. I love the aha! moments that come from science fiction, so, The Unidentified, by Rae Mariz was it.

It takes place in a time not too far from now, maybe 15, 20 years down the road. Things are recognizable, buses still run, parents still work, kids go to school. Ah, but the schools are vastly different: they are run by corporations and sponsors. Because there is no money for schools, corporations have stepped in to help out by renovating abandoned malls and turning them into schools called The Game. These corporations "brand" kids, they advance by playing games, they are the face of products marketed within the school, and becoming branded by a company is something many of the kids yearn for.

Katey, also known as Kid, a 15 year-old, is pretty average: she’s not wealthy, has only a few good friends, is a good student, and pretty much feels about school what most teens feel. But because she is observant and doesn’t spend a lot of time following trends and fads via her phone, she becomes aware of some changes in the atmosphere around the Game. She begins to realize that everything she does, everything EVERYone does, is being tracked and used by the Game to create buzz and excitement about certain products and people.

Because Kid doesn’t spend a lot of time on her phone, her mom works very hard to give her the minutes she does, she spends a lot of time watching real people and she sees the beginning of an anti-corporation movement called The Unidentified. Curious about the group, she searches them out, triggering notice by both the corporate sponsors and The Unidentified so becoming the poster child for both.

The Unidentified was really good, something you can actually see happening as education moves away from being publicly funded with tax dollars and major corporations start stepping in to shore up bits and pieces. Certain machines used in lunchrooms, corporations providing specific phones or computers for classroom use, you can see it happening now.

The Unidentified is also really smart, funny, and thought provoking. The characters were well-developed, I loved the slang and language. I loved how refined the societal changes are; since the book is only a few years in the future, there wouldn't be big jumps in language or life and I think she did a really great job illustrating that. Good for ages 13 and up. (Balzer&Bray. $16.99. Available now.)

book list for sick days

Really. No two people in a family should ever be sick at the same time. D and I have never, in 30 years of marriage, been sick at the same time, this is the first time and I hope it never happens again. It hasn't been awful but I am sure that I don't whine as much as he does. I think it's more that there isn't enough room in one day for all the whining we can both do, so I just stay quiet and in bed. Hacking and blowing and drinking and peeing....all the live long day.

I did have a nice hefty stack of books next to said bed: Saving Sky, by Diane Stanley, The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Marion Babson, Mindblind, by Jennifer Roy, Night Road, by Kristin Hannah, and Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, by Claire Dederer (I'm almost done with that last one-I'm going to bed in an hour to read until Glee comes on and then I'm going to sleep until the morning light. Man, I hope I sleep through the night).

The stack is all gone and I have refilled it. I am looking forward to seeing the same books in the same stack next week. I don't want to read the day away for a little while. It is time to get up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head...

I had pincushion hair: I have really long hair and it was in one big dread hanging to the back of my head for a day. I couldn't get a comb through it, couldn't put my fingers in it. It just sat there. And now my scalp aches at the roots.

Saving Sky was an amazing story about living off the grid, in a time not so far away, in a state not unlike Arizona, where people who aren't white are being ostracized for something they didn't do and other people are afraid to stand up to the bullies who are pushing them around. Until Sky steps forward to tell them they are wrong and this needs to end.

Sky and her family are great. They are not alarmists, they are just well-prepared for the end of gasoline and oil, the lack of fresh food and water, they live well off the grid, out in the desert, on a bit of property with a good sized garden. They trade for goods, don't watch t.v. or listen to the radio, and give blessings every night under the sky. They aren't particularly religious, they just treat everyone as they would like to be treated, which bites them in the butt when the new kid, who isn't white, is one of the targeted people in a round up of foreigners during a series of terrorist attacks on US soil.

Sky and her family hide him, protecting him even though their family is then roughed up some. I loved this book, yes, it's a liberal read, but it seems like a pretty realistic look at how things may go when the electricity goes out and the last can of tomatoes, box of tampons, and bag of diapers is gone. Ages 12 and up. (HarperCollins. $15.99. Available now.)

November 12, books for a sick day

Sunrise was at 7:10, sunset will be at 4:36. Lights will start snapping on outside at 3:30, the shadowed walks will be dark while streets facing the Sound will be bright

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, blue skies, mostly, temps in the high forties, and our heater is fixed. For now. Our Heater Guy said that it's time to start saving for a new one. Bummer. But the temperature in the house is now holding at a balmy 68 degrees.

I hate being sick on my weekend. It's just so unfair. I've probably just got a cold but it's the perfect weather for walking around the park, it's a good day for sorting and doing housework and I'm too tired and achy. And D is sick, too, so I can't lie in bed listening to my "stories". I could go downstairs and sleep on the couch but I really don't want to. So, I fell asleep in bed, reading, book still upright and held in both hands. I woke up and realized I'd been asleep so I took my glasses off and turned over, feet especially covered for warmth and then I was wide awake.

Yesterday was a good day for being sick: Rainy, wet, cold, the bed was warm and my throat was sore. I listened to the radio and read and slept, and then watched a NetFlix movie that I've had for four months. I am the perfect NetFlix customer. I knitted and watched the movie and drank tea and just thoroughly enjoyed being at home- I seldom get sick enough to call in but I truly couldn't talk to anyone yesterday and I felt pretty awful most of the day. 'Round about 5, I felt pretty good, but woke up this morning filled with gunk and aches.

I read a great YA road trip and music mix book while lying there in the gloom of a rainy day, Amy and Roger's Epic Detour, by Morgan Matson.

The book takes place a couple of months after Amy's dad dies, her brother has been sent to rehab, and her mom has moved to Connecticut to start a new home and life. The family home in California has been put up for sale and Amy just finished the school year so it's time for her to join her mom. Unfortunately, Amy doesn't drive. She can, she just doesn't, so her mom and a friend hatch a plan for Amy and the family car to be driven cross country by an old friend from her childhood, Roger. Roger is spending his summer with his dad in Philadelphia and this trip will take care of two birds with one stone.

Unfortunately, the Mom-Mapped Trip gets thrown out the window as they both realize they have some unfinished business they'd like to take care of as they travel: Roger's been dumped by a girl who won't speak to him now and he'd like to confront her and Amy would like to visit the places and people of importance to her and to her father.

The trip they end up taking becomes more of a journey within as they make the long detour from California to Nevada, Nevada to Colorado, from Kentucky to Philadelphia, from despair to hope, from uncertainty to discovery.

Amy and Roger start off just being a couple of quirky kids trying to get home and end up really good friends able to help each other through some dark times in their lives. Along the way they meet good people, see some astonishing landscapes, share many memories and laughs, and find out that life continually changes and amazes as you go along.

As good as the journey can be, the detours are where you learn and live.

It was really good and I'm glad Rene H at work recommended it. A perfect read when you're housebound and cold. It also has music mix lists within. I'd love to reread it with the music playing along-it'd be really cool to understand why a particular piece of music was chosen for each leg of the trip.

Good for ages 14 and up.

(Simon and Schuster. $16.99. Available now.)

Pathfinder, by Orson Scott Card

Sunrise was at 7:07, sunset will be at 4:39.

Man, it's cold. Cold, cold, cold. Heater died on Monday. It happens every year on the day we finally decide we can't hold off turning it on any longer. Called the Furnace Man. He'll be here on Friday and I will sit with my feet on the heating vents, blankets tented over me. The cat will take up residence in front of the kitchen vent. Our bird is in D's office, warmest room in the house due to all the electronics. I can barely feel the keyboard.

I just finished reading Orson Scott Card's new book for young adults, Pathfinder. It was GOOD!

I have always been a fan of his books. I don't know much about him or his politics but I love the way he writes. Ender's Game is one of the few books I can re-read and still feel like I am reading it for the first time, and Lost Boys was one of my favorite "horror" books. Brilliant writing.

Rigg, is a young man with special powers, he can see the paths of past lives, who is thrust into an adventure against his wishes. His father's dying wish is for Rigg to search out the sister he's never met. When it's time to go, he goes to the woman who has been closest to them and she gives him jewels and clues as to what he will be looking for. Along the way he picks up exiled Umbo, a childhood friend who has tried to blame Rigg for the death of his little brother. Together, they travel far beyond the world they know, and begin to realize that they both have talents that no one else has and that, together, they can actually change the past.

Pathfinder was a really good story. Thought provoking, difficult, frustrating at times. Funny! I absolutely love science fiction because you can kind of trace how the future could happen from the now times and I like the solidness of that.

Pathfinder starts, and each chapter begins, with a side story, the one that makes it possible for Rigg's tale to happen: a boy, Ram, is on a ship heading into space, searching for a planet to settle. At a certain point in the journey, Ram and his ship will fold space and jump forward to a likely planet (he TESSERS! Like in A Wrinkle in Time!) where, eventually, the colonists will make a new life for the other earthlings to come. But, has something gone wrong? Are things going the way they should have gone?

I read this in a couple of late nights, cold arms, cold nose, frozen fingers holding this brick of a book aloft over all the quilts. It will be a good read for anyone who likes science fiction and long books. It reads quickly, it's just a lot of pages. I'd say ages 12 and up, especially good for someone who either "understands" time travel or who can read certain things without having to know all about it. I am sure it took me longer to read because I had to keep following the logic.
(Simon and Schuster. Available 11-23-10. Hardcover, $18.99.)

Day of the Dead and Blessed, by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Sunrise will be at 7:54, sunset will be at 5:52.

Gray and dark at this time of the morning. I am writing at 7:40 and the sky has just started to gray up, barely able to discern any hillside bulk; it feels like winter. Skies are pouring buckets of rain, more water coming out of the fountain than staying in-weird to think that I may have to put more water in to keep it filled.

Halloween was yesterday, no children to our house, but plenty of them tricking and treating at the store; clouds of fairy-winged princesses and storm troopers, their keepers wearing everything from ornate full body costumes to a single black hat in black velvet and tulle.

We gave out candy, had a Day of the Dead band play in the Commons with dancers in traditional garb, and then colored, pasted and got our faces painted. The band reminded us to remember our dead today and pay them honor and thought. So: Mom, Daddy, Grandma Pearl, Grandma Vi, Grandpa Frank, Grandpa Hi, Trace: I hold you in my heart and in my thoughts, you made the rest of us who we are.

I have a remembering the dead memory I want to share: I met Linda Barry at a bookseller's trade show once. After dinner I went to get my book signed and to tell her thanks for writing what she does and she commented on the pin I was wearing. It is a small, oval pin with a sunset design made out of butterfly wings. Very old, very un-PC, but special because it was my grandmother's. When I told her that it was my grandmother's pin, she asked, "What was your grandmother's name?" I told her, "Pearl Delilah", and she shouted into the room, "PEARL DELILAH!" looked at me and said, " Her name was heard and now will never die." Some wonderful woman, that Linda Barry. Grandma, too.

Time now for some sugar skulls.

An appropriate book for this time of year is the one I just finished: Blessed, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, the third and final book in a trilogy that includes Tantalize and Eternal.

Fun books about a girl, Quincie, who owns and runs a restaurant that becomes a very popular place when it becomes vampire-themed. But, is it only a theme? Of course not. Vampires abound, it turns out that were-people exist everywhere (were-possums. How useless is that?), and did you know that angels really do exist?

Quincie, her friends and possums work together trying to figure out what to do when their little town is overrun by the undead who are using her family's restaurant to take over the world.

I loved these and now, with the series finished, you can read them all in one long gulp during the wet, dark days of winter. Tantalize and Eternal are available now in paperback for $8.99, Blessed will be out in January, 2011, hardcover only, for $17.99. All are published by Candlewick Press which is doing a bang-up job of publishing extraordinary young adult books.

Visit Cynthia's website, Cynsations, here.