08 May 2009

Catch'em All

If you love books, you hope that one day you get to walk into a room and someone tells you to take what you want. Visions of Supermarket Sweep probably run through your head. Let's say you had only ten minutes to canvas your local bookstore with a shopping cart and whatever you get is free. What's the strategy here? Do you go to your favorite section and just start clearing the shelves? Run over to graphic novels and sweep entire series into your cart? Do you head to the hardcover section and get things you can resell at a higher price (to fund future purchases)? Or do you head straight to those big picture books and art books and grab all the amazing things you wish you could buy but never do because really, what are you going to do with a thousand page book on architecture anyway?

Map out your strategy because one day this might happen and you better know what your game plan is. I'd definitely run straight to the comic book section and take anything superhero related. It's hard to justify paying for comics when a book has so much more time vs price value but I'd love to have full sets of things for my house so that I can read, re-read, and just gloat and show off my collection to all the neighbors.

Actually, I'd love to just have a house. Or neighbors who talk to me.

Last summer, when I was in New York for a few weeks, I got a chance to swing into my publisher's offices and visit this amazing room they had filled top to bottom full of books. My editor and her assistant proceeded to pull books off the shelves at a furious pace. "You've got to read this, you'll like this, you should really take this one and this one and this one." A few minutes later, I had more books than I could carry and I felt like I had just walked out of a dream.

I've been told that attending BEA (Book Expo America) is kind of like that. You walk in with a pass and walk out with books that are coming out over the next year. I've heard stories of people filling up bags, getting in a taxi to drop the books off at their hotel, and then coming back for more. Rinse and repeat. I think I'd faint from the sheer excitement of getting so many books. Or definitely faint from the weight of carrying so many books. My arms can only take so much. I'd have to hire somebody to carry my bags. It would be totally worth it though.

One of the books I was given during that romp through Penguin's book room was "When It Happens," by Susane Colasanti [blog]. Huge understatement but it was great. I loved her writing, loved the total believability of her characters, and was just taken with the relationship between Sara and Tobey. Well, Susane's got a new book coming out called "Waiting for You," and it's definitely on my to-read list.

Right now she's on blog tour for her book and doing a Ten Myths of High School theme. The myths she's putting to rest are fantastic and include:

There's four more myths to be debunked, culminating in the release of her book next Thursday (the same day as my release!). So pick it up yeah?