from graphic novel guest blogger Francisca Goldsmith (with our second starred review of the week!): Russ Kick is not your typical comics geek, college prof, or earnest publisher who wants to show the uninitiated that sequential art is “real reading.” Instead, he does have some tendencies toward all three character types, but is an iconoclast [...]
Kris D’Agonstino’s debut is an example of that rare animal, the funny, smart, well-written novel about family that will even appeal to boys. There is a short piece on the ReadingGroupGuides website in which the author discusses how much of his book is autobiographical. Here is a relevant excerpt, “The wackiest and thereby most vexing period [...]
Ron Rash’s new novel is a mysterious story of forbidden love in which much of the story is told from a teen girl’s point of view. Rash once again showcases his beautiful writing and a North Carolinian, Appalachian mountain setting, earning an AB4T starred review. Rash is best known for Serena (Ecco, 2008), which was [...]
This poetry collection has been a labor of love for its editor, Jeffrey Coleman. In an interview on the Tavis Smiley show in April, Coleman talked about searching for poems related to the Civil Rights movement for a paper he was assigned in graduate school. The project continued from there. The full contents are available [...]
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith: Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem won the Best Comic Book Award this year at Angoulème, the premier international comics festival. A Quebecois who now has his home in France but keeps on the move to such rarely touristed places as North Korea, Delisle is the perfect investigator into life on [...]
Jennifer Miller’s debut novel is funny and suspenseful, yet sad and hard to read at times. When a school’s secret society begins taking pranks way too far, students aren’t the only ones who get hurt. Iris Dupont, a brilliant loner, is in the middle of it all, using her investigative journalism skills (including advice from [...]
British author Rosamund Lupton’s much-anticipated second psychological thriller has even more potential teen appeal than her first. Lupton is a master at both plotting and characterization, using close family relationships to ratchet up the suspense. Her debut, Sister, made several “best of” lists last year; our own AB4T review was enthusiastic. The paperback cover (pictured here) [...]
Love, an Index is Rebecca Lindenberg’s first book, and the debut volume in the recently announced McSweeney’s Poetry Series. This series of poems traces her relationship with poet Craig Arnold. Lindenberg began the book while he was still alive, in fact started working on it three years before his disappearance. But after losing him, it [...]
The genesis of Austin Kleon’s new book began with an invitation to speak at a community college. In preparation for giving the talk he made a list of 10 things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out as a young artist. The talk became a hit and he expanded it into [...]
Seth Grahame-Smith first made a mash-up splash with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in 2009, and followed it with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer the following year. The movie version of the latter is set for release next month (check out the trailer). Grahame-Smith has been busy with screenplays lately, responsible for both his own novel [...]
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