The absolute coolest thing about attending the Book Expo last weekend was walking (crawling...) away with bags of free books!
The absolute worst thing about attending the Book Expo was...see above answer.
Why, you ask? That sounds ideal, like a dream come true. Free books. Advance reader copies.
Because I already have a HUGE stack of books at home that I still haven't tackled. You'd assume that since I write books, I would be reading them all the time. After all, I teach ballet, so I take a lot of ballet classes and when I wrote screenplays, I watched a lot of movies. The problem is that I try very, very hard not to read anything at all similar to what I write when I'm writing something new. When I'm editing or just in the thinking stage, then yes, I devour books both similar to and dissimilar from, my own.
As I mentioned last week, I finished a new draft of a book so now I'm in rewrite mode. Therefore, it's perfectly acceptable for me to read something that isn't mine. The question is what.
Here are some (just some) of the books on my pile...
--Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci
--Sucks to be Me by Kimberly Pauley
--Bliss by Lauren Myracle
--The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes
--Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godsister by Liz Kessler
--Goth by Otsuichi
--Chasing the Jaguar by Michele Dominguez Greene
--The Lucky Ones by Stephanie Greene
--The Gravity Keeper by Michael Reisman
--Millicent Min by Lisa Yee
I also have some more adult books on my list...
--Crime by Irvine Welsh
--Atonement by Ian McEwan
--The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
--Babylon Rolling by Amanda Boyden
--I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass
--The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
--Catch a Mate by Gena Showalter
I can start reading any one of these books or I can chuck all of 'em and start the Stephenie Meyers books. Opinions, anyone?
Soon, very soon, perhaps during my next trip to the east coast, I will devise a clever contest to give away some of these amazing books I have in my possession. I just have to figure out how to do it!
