Winners and Thoughts Inspired by Other Bloggers
by Jenners • 08/16/2009 • Book Talk • 14 Comments
Giveaway Winners
Yeah, I know, I know. I was supposed to announce the winners of The Ridiculous Race and You Suck yesterday, but I’ve been either sick or on vacation for the past two weeks and I’m totally out of my blogging groove and well, I forgot! But the results are in and the winners are:
If you can’t read my ridiculously witty and hilarious doctored photos, the winners are:
- The Ridiculous Race goes to Heather from A Day In the Life. (Hey Heather! Didn’t you just post about how you’ve been getting ripped off in giveaways and I told you how great I am at coming through for my winners? Well, now I can prove it to you!!! Awesome! I was super happy when your name was picked by Random.org!!! Woo hoo!)
- You Suck goes to Valerie from The Near Family.
If you guys will e-mail me your mailing addresses, I’ll get the books out to you sometime this week.
My Reading Diet Is Better Than My Eating Diet
Natalie over at Book, Line and Sinker had a great little post the other day about her literary diet — equating the different food groups in the food pyramid with different genres of books. For example, she listed celebrity bios/tell-alls, trashy novels as “Sweets” (eat sparingly) and classic literature, poetry, drama, contemporary prose as “Bread and Grains” (the base of the pyramid with multiple daily servings). I thought this was such a clever idea, and I realized my reading diet is much much healthier than my actual eating diet. At least in reading, I get regular servings of vegetables (nonfiction, non-celebrity bios and memoirs)! Head on over and tell her about your literary diet! Do you “read” better than you “eat”?
A Little Giggle For You … Unless You Owe Your Library Lots of Money
Quite some time ago (well, in June), I saw this post over at Rebecca’s blog Just One More Page about excuses that people gave for why they didn’t return library books. It was quite amusing and I thought you might enjoy it too if you didn’t see it before … unless of course your library fines are in the triple digits or something, in which case you might want to steal one of the excuses for yourself.
A Book Is A Book Is A Book
In my recent review of John Green’s Looking for Alaska, I fretted over the fact that perhaps I wasn’t a huge fan of the book because it was a Young Adult (YA) book and perhaps I was too old for it. In my review, I talked about how the YA label confuses and confounds me. Who are these books for? What does YA mean exactly?
Well, Amy over at My Friend Amy gave a wonderful answer to this question in her post the other day. In her post, she confesses to her love at YA books and talks about what makes a YA book fall into that category. Allow me to quote:
What I didn’t understand then and what has taken me awhile to figure out is that YA is not a genre, it’s a marketing technique.
What makes a book a young adult book? Lack of violence? No. Lack of profanity? No. Lack of sex? No. All of those things can be found and at times in abundance in young adult novels.
Simplified language? No. A dumbed down plot-line? No. Young Adult novels contain some of the most beautiful language I’ve read as well some of the most riveting heart-wrenching plots.
What makes a book a young adult book? One simple thing. A teenage protagonist.
I really liked Amy’s thought process in this post, and it helped to clarify some things for me. Perhaps a book is just a book — regardless of how it is marketed or what “genre” it is classified as. The bottom line is: I just didn’t love Looking for Alaska — just like I don’t love every book I read. And that is OK. So now I won’t worry about being too old for YA books or feel that any specific “genre” isn’t for me. If it sounds like a book I’d enjoy, I’ll read it and review it and treat it like any other book. What a novel (pun so intended!) concept!
Stay tuned next week when I review … Baby’s First Book of ABCs. It’s a new Young Toddler (YT) book that’s been getting raves!
thanks for the nod! you're too sweet!!!
Thank you for discussing YA books and posting Amy's explanation about why a book is labeled "YA". I felt similar to you and thought I was too old to be reading/enjoying/understanding YA books. My thought process wasn't helped by the fact that almost any YA book I read was about young girls and their cattiness and the boys they like who don't like them etc. I had difficulty understanding why people over 25 were fans of YA books. But now it all makes sense and I understand why some books I wouldn't consider YA are YA.
I just read a YA book that was very good and really made me think : "undiscovered gyrl" by Allison Bennett.
Congrats winners! I know my reading diet is out of whack, so I won't be posting my stats. Oh well, time for more sweets.
Good post.
Hey that Ridiculous Race picture is from a street in NC, where I am from! That is in the mountains, of course, and I live in the Piedmont, which is smack in the middle of the state. But it was cool to see that. Congrats to the winners!
Congrats to the winners!
NIce post — lots to think about.
YA — I've been reading YA for years and just didn't know it.
I was talking in circles in our emails about YA books, then Amy really summed it up for me. If I look at YA through her eyes, I think I'll have a much easier time reviewing them (I've been trying to put myself in the shoes of a younger person, not easy for me to do!)
I love the thoughts on "reading diet" … that's a fun metaphor.
Yea, for me! I love winning and knowing that the giver will actually send me the goods!
I love the road sign, very cleaver.
Congratulations Heather and Valerie!
Wow, are you ever clever!! Technologically savvy and witty. Kudos to you my friend. I would no more know how to do that than I would know how to build a rocket ship. Thanks for the links. I'm heading over to read "excuses"
I love how you altered that sign – good stuff!
Looking forward to appearing here next week, Jenners.
L. Diane Wolfe “Spunk On A Stick”
http://www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
http://www.spunkonastick.net
http://www.thecircleoffriends.net
Great collection of links and references! I love YA books – the only problem I have is how to rate them. Like is a 5 for a great YA book equivalent to a 5 for, you know, War and Peace or something?
Sometimes the YA books are mixed with the adult books at the library. Or sometimes there's copies in both sections. Like you mentioned it's just a target, not for either/or.
Congrats to the winners! Jenners, thanks for the links. I'm looking forward to reading the post about overdue library book excuses. I've noticed how a number of bloggers are fond of YA books. Maybe I should give them a try too.