How to Treat Books: Thoughts on Building Book Towers, Writing in Margins, and Cracking Spines

When I was in college I spent the night at a relative's house, and bored, after everyone had gone to bed, I perused a bookshelf filled with rows of pristine hardcover gold-tinged classics and pulled one out to read. Later, I set the book down, dangling it over the edge of an end table because I couldn't find a bookmark.

The next morning the relative, clearly upset, scolded me: "Don't you know how to treat a book?"

I stammered out an apology, not daring to mention that my Dangle over the Edge Method was me trying to show proper respect for her book. My usual strategy for saving a page was folding it over at the corner or simply setting the book down, splayed out.

I felt like a book barbarian. Here, I'd always thought that how you treat a book respectfully was by reading it.

Confession: as a kid I constructed high-rise apartment buildings for my barbie dolls out of books and blocks.

In school I took notes in the margins of my books.

When I open a new book, especially the pristine hardcover type, the first thing I do is crack the spine for easier reading.

More confessions: My cookbooks have food stains on the pages.

When my kids were little, I let them gnaw on their board books. My daughter ate all four corners of her Pat the Bunny book and I thought that was adorable.

A few years ago I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room reading and suddenly the ending of the book I was in the middle of writing scrolled out in my mind and I did the only logical thing: I scribbled it all out in the margins.

I've been thinking about books and how I treat them because I just read Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman.

If you are a fellow book lover, you will love this collection of essays about books and reading. Some fun topics covered: how to properly mingle your spouse's library collection with your own, (you're not truly married until you do), what it's like to grow up in a family of compulsive proofreaders, (you will find yourselves out to dinner with each other correcting the menus), the joys of browsing in used bookstores (Fadiman and her husband once purchased 19 pounds of books in an afternoon that they then had to tote home on a train), and the respectful treatment of books (Fadiman, when she was a child, I am happy to note, built towers out of her father's books and had no qualms about letting her children eat the corners).

Unlike Fadiman, I did not grow up with many books in my home, save for the ones I made block high rises out of-- a handful of Reader's Digest books and a set of World Book Encyclopedias, 1975 edition. My mother was a big proponent of the public library and she gave me quarters to buy a paperback every now and then from the Scholastic Book Fair. My prized book possessions were the complete set off Trixie Belden, #1 through #16. Also, a book on Greek mythology, a book called The Best Loved Poems, and a book on astrology, Love Signs by Linda Goodman.

Interesting fact: the only book that I still own from the time is Love Signs by Linda Goodman.

Today I am a compulsive collector of books.

Walk into my house and here's what you will find--

In the living room:

(My husband, God love him, built these bookshelves
and the shelves in every house we've lived in) 

In the kitchen:

(note the torn up Joy of Cooking, center, courtesy of the dog)

In my office:

 Next to my bed:

Years ago, still mourning the loss of my Trixie Belden books, I came upon the complete set in a used bookstore and promptly bought them.

They sit on my office bookshelf, spines cracked, tattered, written in, and possibly gnawed on by somebody.

I promise you: I know how to treat books.

Camping Stories from Hell (also known as A Review of My Friend Natalie's Book)

It must be said that I have a love/hate relationship with camping.

Okay, mostly hate. When I was a kid, my family went camping. A lot. The summer I turned six, we lived in a tent at a campground. On sunny days my younger brothers and I went swimming in the lake and played on the playground. I think?

Mostly, I remember the never-ending, boring rainy days, sitting at the picnic table under a tarp, coloring in damp coloring books. The nights in the tent, my sleeping bag bunched up and slipping off the inflatable raft I used as a mattress.

Skunks. The constant terror of tics. Flies dive bombing my Kool-Aid, their drowned bodies drifting around on the orange surface. The middle of the night stumbling up the road to the bathroom.

After my father died, my mother joined a single parent support group and the fun family activity was spending weekends at campgrounds. And then, after she married again, my stepfather bought a pop-up trailer, and later, a much nicer camper with all of the bells and whistles—stove and sink and TV and even a bathroom, which seemed like a real upgrade from the middle of the night stumbling. But for whatever weirdo reason, we were never allowed to use the bathroom, so. Yeah.  Fun times in the middle of the night.

Now I am trying to remember where the love part comes into it. Oh, um, I liked the campfires. Also, the roasting of hotdogs and marshmallows. Boat rides and floating on my raft mattress on the lake. The loveliness of the woods.

My point, and I do have one, is that while I’ve never gone camping as an adult, I do like hiking, and the allure of being in the woods was slowly coming back to me…

until I read my best friend Natalie D. Richards' book, ONE WAS LOST.

This book, which I have read four times (as Natalie’s critique partner), has viscerally reminded me of every damp day of my tent-living youth, the droney buzz of mosquitos, the peeling off of wet socks, the dripping moldy-smelling tent canvas, the fear of stumbling through the dark woods to find the bathroom…

And yet-- yet-- YET--  I couldn’t put the book down ALL FOUR TIMES that I read it.

So here’s the premise: a group of teens with lots of angsty baggage reluctantly sign up for a camping trip as a type of school-bonding-trip activity. A couple of nights in and it’s already turned horror show. Non-stop rain and the bickering stress that comes from hanging around people you don’t want to hang around with. And then a bridge washes out, and four students are separated from the main group. With no food. Wet, reeking tents. A teacher who seems cool but who knows.

The next morning they wake to find that it’s much later than it should be, their backpacks and phones have been destroyed, their teacher has been drugged... THEY’VE been drugged. And as they crawl out of their drippy tents groggily, they find that they’ve each been marked. 

Words written in sharpies on their arms:

DANGEROUS 

DAMAGED

DECEPTIVE

And on our bristly heroine’s arm: DARLING

The next 300 pages are non-stop Whodunnit/what the heck happened/how do we get the hell out of the woods. Because this is a Natalie D. Richards' book there's also a bit of romance and a thought-provoking exploration of teen stereotypes and identity.

It’s Blair Witch Project meets the Breakfast Club, a breathless page turner with a super-charged warning:

Do Not Read at Night and for God’s sake, DO NOT READ IT ON A CAMPING TRIP!

Fun fact: Nat will be signing the book (and all her books) at Cover to Cover Bookstore in Columbus, Ohio, this Thursday, October 13 from 6:00-8:00. Come meet her!

For more on Nat and her books, see: NatalieDRichards.com

Maybe I Knew Italian In Another Life...

Or maybe the words are familiar through some kind of osmosis. A stray word here and there lodged in my brain, after visits with my Italian grandmother a million years ago or from the roommate I had in college who was taking Italian 101 and constantly muttering vocabulary words under her breath.

Maybe the words seem familiar because they're closely related to Spanish (a language I sorta sorta know).

bambini, bella, libro, lingua, famiglia 

The words jump out at me from the pages of the book I'm reading. They ping around in my mind. I know them. I want to know more.

The book, in case you are wondering, is called In Other Words. It's a memoir by one of my favorite writers, Jhumpa Lahiri. I've read and loved all of Lahiri's books and scooped up this latest without knowing exactly what it was--

basically a musing on Lahiri's obsession with the Italian language, which leads her to move to Rome with her kids and painstakingly teach herself to speak and write only in Italian.

In Other Words is her fifth book, her first memoir, and her first book written entirely in Italian. It was translated into English by someone else but Lahiri's original Italian text appears on every other page.

Every time I turn a page, I begin to read, out of habit, the words at the top of the page, which are in Italian.

It's disconcerting and familiar all at once-- for me as a person who is intrigued by the very idea of immersing oneself in a foreign language as an adult--

and as a writer, amazed and fascinated by Lahiri's quest to let go of the language she knows in order to think and read and write in a different one.

Lahiri is considered one of the best authors in America. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her first book, Interpreter of Maladies; her later books have won both critical awards and landed her on best seller lists. And here she is, in her own description of her process, struggling in this new medium.

Maybe not completely surprising though.

There's lots in Lahari's novels and stories about the immigrant experience, displacement, belonging. Many of her themes are rooted in her own life. She grew up in America speaking Bengali with her Indian parents and speaking (and writing and reading) English everywhere else. Both Bengali and English feel as if they are imposed on her, whereas Italian is a new way to define herself.

Plus, it's a challenge.

It helps her rediscover her joy of reading. And gives her a new understanding of herself as a writer.

"What does it mean," she asks, "for a writer, to write without her own authority? Can I call myself an author, if I don't feel authoritative?

How is it possible that when I write in Italian I feel both freer and confined, constricted? Maybe because in Italian I have the freedom to be imperfect."

I'm not sure, exactly, why this book is resonating with me. I won't be moving to Rome any time soon or immersing myself in another language. My writing is nowhere near the level of Jhumpa Lahiri's, but still, her words-- in Italian, in English-- tumble around in my head.

They confirm what I know about the creative process, which involves, by definition, risk and discomfort,

the balancing of discipline with taking leaps off cliffs,

the striving toward perfection and the letting go of it,

a rooting around for words that are both familiar

and magical.

Magical Realism & Breathing Life into Settings--Guest Post by Holly Schindler

Once more I am thrilled to host Holly Schindler on my blog. Holly is the fearless leader of YA Outside the Lines, the author of multiple books for young adults, and my lovely, long time writer friend.--Jody

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And here's Holly:

My work has run the gamut in terms of age categories and genres: I’ve tackled YAs, MGs, adult fiction, contemporary realism, romance, psychological thrillers, humor…and in ’16, two of my releases delve into magical realism.

One thing both of my magical realism releases have in common is that the “magical” elements of both allow the settings to literally come to life.

Actually, I’ve long been a fan of works that depict settings with such detail and vibrancy that the setting itself feels like a main character (think: Elin Hilderbrand’s BLUE BISTRO—a story that made me mourn for the loss of a restaurant the same way I would mourn for the tragic end to a character I’d grown to know and love), but the magical realism element allows me to take this to an entirely new level:

SPARK, my fourth YA (HarperTeen), focuses on the dilapidated Avery Theater—the site of a ‘40s-era tragedy. In order to depict the revival of the old theater, I depicted it as a living, breathing entity. When the MC, Quin, and her two friends come to the Avery, the theater comes back to life; its heart begins to beat again: 

SPARK TRAILER: 







My independently-released FOREVER FINLEY is using magical realism in order to bring the small town of Finley to life. In my indie work, I wanted to experiment with formats that most publishers don’t often explore—specifically, this time around, I really wanted to get back to shorter fiction (a format I love but hadn’t written in much since my days as a master’s student). “Come December” was initially going to be a stand-alone short story. But I was so surprised by the response (I moved 19K copies during the holiday season) that I wanted to propel the story forward.


FOREVER FINLEY is a short story cycle, meaning each story is a stand-alone and can be read in any order; on their own, each story creates one picture of the town of Finley—when read together, they create another. People find themselves drawn to Finley for reasons they can’t explain; meanwhile, legends regarding the Hargroves, Finley’s founding family, swirl through the town. I don’t want to give too much away, because the tale is still ongoing! Once a month, I release a new short story—each titled for the month of its release. And I’ve got a big finale planned for this December!

FOREVER FINLEY TRAILER:



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Holly Schindler Bio: I’m a hybrid author of critically concession acclaimed traditionally published and Amazon bestselling independently published works for readers of all ages. My previous YAs (A BLUE SO DARK, PLAYING HURT, and FERAL) have received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, won silver and gold medals from ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and the IPPY Awards, respectively, been featured on Booklist’s First Novels for Youth, School Library Journal’s “What’s Hot in YA,” and been selected as a PW Pick. Kirkus praised by latest YA, SPARK, for “crisp prose [that] flows easily between the past and present,” and Booklist claimed the novel casts “a shimmering spell.”

Readers can get in touch at
HollySchindler.com
Facebook
Twitter @Holly_Schindler

On Reading Harder Better Smarter Wider Gentler

Many of my friends are competitive readers.

I'm not sure if this is actually a Thing, but let's just say if there was an Olympic sport category for number of books read/time spent reading, these people would be on the team.

A writer/blogger friend recently posted about having read 300 books this year. Another friend is painstakingly reading his way through a Top 100 Book list. (Side note: he quickly realized that there are many Top 100 lists--ranging from the Goodreads Top 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die to the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels and many other lists in between. So, he is doing what any competitive reader would do: he is reading the books on ALL of the lists.)

There was a time in my life when I would've wanted to be on this team. When I was a kid, I read constantly, checking as many books out of the library as was allowed in one checkout. I didn't own many books but the ones I did own, I read and reread. In college I was an English major and loved the idea that reading books was my homework.

Maybe ten years ago, I began keeping a notebook of books I'd read, and when I started this blog, I recorded the yearly lists here and here and here and analyzed the ones that stuck with me.

I dutifully recorded titles on Goodreads (until I learned that being on Goodreads, as a writer, doesn't feel so great) and then I moved my book list over to Booklikes where I have no friends and there's no judgment but there's a lovely bookshelf feature where you can display your titles.

Something I noticed this year is that I didn't read as many books as I usually do. For the first time in my life, I put books down that I didn't connect with (my rule was: give it five chapters and then quit). I quit on a lot and I am happy to say that I felt only small twinges of guilt.  For maybe four or five months when I was writing like a maniac, I barely read at all. A chapter, at most, a night, of the same book, until I nodded off to sleep.

Still, I kept buying books and checking them out of the library. Books sat on my bedside table and piled up in my office. (Side note #2. I did, however, create a lovely Book Tree out of some:

This year-- I just counted-- I read 38 books, the smallest number I've recorded since I began keeping stats.

Ah well. It's not as if it is a competition.

And yet, I do love the idea of challenging myself to read more, to read better. I can't imagine reading 300 books though (I mean, WHAT??? HOW???) And my new-found Put-a-Book-Down-When-I-Don't-Connect-With-It rule would make a Top 100 List quest impossible.

Which brings me to what just may be the perfect challenge for me: the Book Riot blog's 2016 Read Harder. 

Basically, it's a list of 24 categories. (24! Not so many!) And the titles are left up to you, which means lots of choice and wiggle room and the ability to set a book (or many) down if you don't connect. BUT, and here's the challenge part-- there is enough specificity in the categories (Read a food memoir. Read a play. Read a collection of essays.) to make you feel like you're on a competitive reading team.

Anyone want to join me?

In Which I Do a Social Media Detox, Quit Reading Books, and Rediscover My Loathing for My Dining Room Table

Week Four of The Artist's Way is a killer.

You're not allowed to read. 

No books. No newspapers. No magazines. No backs of cereal boxes. Nothing. For someone who is pretty much a reading addict, this particular assignment fills me with horror. I make a living --(and I use the word "living" in a metaphorical sense) by writing books. So, reading books is my job. And telling me not to read books is like telling me not to breathe air. 

Side note: I am doing this course called The Artist's Way, a twelve week set of exercises that is supposed to help you rediscover your creative self. I went through the course seven years ago and as loony-tunes as it seemed to me at the time, IT WORKED. See here. 

The first time I went through Week Four, I thought I was going to die not being allowed to read for a week. But funny thing: back then I was not on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram. I did not spend hours answering emails and reading blog posts and scrolling around online. Social media did not exist when Julia Cameron designed the exercises for The Artist's Way, but I have to think that when she says No Reading, she also means No Tweeting or Facebooking or emailing. 

The whole point of Reading Deprivation is to take a break from consuming other people's words, to control what we allow in. "Our reward," Julia Cameron says, "will be a new outflow. Our own art, our own thoughts and feelings will begin to nudge aside the sludge of blockage, to loosen it and move it upward and outward until once again our well is running freely."

Yeah yeah, whatever, Julia. Bring it. 

Last Sunday night I signed off all of my accounts. Goodbye Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and Instagram. Adios blog posts and Yahoo news. So long BOOKS.  My husband was out of town. When I talked to him on the phone, I told him I was ready for my week of reading deprivation. My prediction was that without my constant farting around online, I'd get a ton of work done on my latest writing project, which honestly, I had been slogging through and not enjoying all that much anymore.   

Also, I would clean the house.

Day One: 

Because I don't check email or read the crap news of the day, I feel peaceful and happy and oblivious. I clean the breakfast dishes directly after breakfast. I walk the dog. I write for most of the day. When my daughter gets home from school, she is greeted by the enticing smell of freshly baked chocolate chip scones. Yay! This is fun! I am Miss Productivity! 

I don't miss reading until I get into bed. It's my habit to read a book at night and to scroll once more through all of my various forms of social media. I am stricken. What do I do? 

I solve this problem by rereading the chapter about Not Reading in The Artist's Way and go to sleep happily. 

Day Two:

I have no idea what's going on in the world or what my friends on Facebook or on Twitter are doing and I am okay with that because after I finish my day's writing, I'll be busy cleaning my office. 

Later, as I am taking books off the bookshelves, I realize that I don't want all of these books. Some are books that I read and didn't like and never plan to read again. Some are books that I haven't read and admit I never will. 

And come to think of it, what about the books on the bookshelves in other parts of my house? The ones gathering dust in my bedroom? The ones on the shelves in the living room? The ones piled in the bathrooms and next to my bed?

I don't want some of those either. 

I make a vat of homemade lentil soup. My daughter informs me that she does not like lentil soup.

The aromatic sofrito base of my lentil soup

Day Three:

My dining table is covered with books.

My office is a disaster area. Thinking about what books I really want and don't really want has made me question everything in the room. Why do I have these curtains? These beads hanging in the closet that my daughter hung when this was her bedroom annoy the hell out of me. And I never liked this rug. It's ugly. 

Day Four:

I sneak a peek at email and realize that I am not as important as I thought I was. I suspect the worlds of Twitter and Facebook are rolling along just fine without me too. I am both saddened and relieved. 

My daughter's home sick from school. She's watching a Dance Moms Marathon. I have never watched this show and immediately begin to mock it. Three hours later I am still mocking it, while my ailing daughter snoozes on the couch beside me. 

I pull down the curtains in my office. I throw out the closet beads. I roll up the rug. I eat the hell out of leftover lentil soup.

I write my ass off. 

Day Five:

Daughter's home sick again and I am secretly happy so I can watch Dance Moms with her. I eye the cluttered dining room table with despair. In addition to books, I've now added pictures I've always hated, clunky bookends that I refuse to put back on my pristine organized bookshelves, various ceramic cats from that time in my life when I thought it would be fun to collect ceramic cats, stupid plastic plants that exist only to gather dust, and a bunch of shoes I haven't worn in years.

I don't want these cats.

I eat leftover lentil soup.

I realize that I don't like a lot of the things I have in my house. Some stuff's kinda neutral and pointless. A gift that's not my style. A thing that has no meaning or purpose. Other stuff has a halo of negative connotation surrounding it. Gifts with strings attached. Or worse, guilt. Ugly things I used to like but can't remember what the hell I was thinking. Plastic fruit covered with beads? Why do I have these things? 

That's it. They're going on the dining room table. 

I write and write and write. 

Day Six:

I don't like the dining room table. Truth be told, I loathe it. There. I said it. 

I have an epiphany. What has been blocking me in my writing project is that I have been holding onto an earlier version of the story. Once I decide that I can let it go, I feel a surge of energy and excitement. I know what to do now. 

The entire dining room is filled with things to give away, including the dining room furniture. 

My daughter and I are watching Dance Moms when my husband calls from the airport on his way home. 

"How was your week?" he asks.

"Pretty good," I tell him. 

Day Seven:

My husband and I walk around the house together expressing our loathing and love for a quarter century's worth of accumulated stuff. I head up to my office to tackle a file cabinet. My husband begins to excavate the basement. 

I work a bit more on my book. I love it again. 

What Makes You Pick up a Book? (Also, a warning about sociopaths)

As a compulsive reader I am interested in the answer to this question because I have a crazy number of books teetering in stacks around my house and sometimes I am paralyzed by the choices.

As a writer I am curious about the answer too, because what I am really thinking is: what is going to make a person-- a stranger somewhere out in the world-- pick up MY book? -- especially when there are so many other books and entertainment options (in addition to books) competing for his or her attention.

(example: Binge-watching a TV show
as my husband and I are presently doing
with the compelling series House of Cards)

Yeah, I know. There is an entire industry built around the question of what makes a person buy/read a book.

Marketing.

I've learned quite a bit about marketing over the past few years as I attempted to promote my book Thin Space. I had a publishing house behind me doing their Thing. Stuff like designing a book cover and ensuring that the book made it into the hands of professional reviewers, setting up blog interviews and author tours, figuring out bookstore placement.

Not being an expert in marketing, but wanting to do everything I possibly could to help, I helped. But I never knew if what I was doing was working. I had a Throw the Spaghetti on the Wall and Let's See If It Sticks approach to marketing and promotion. If someone asked me to do something, 99% of the time (because of the lessons I learned from my writer friend Mike Mullin), I said Yes. 

Interviews, guest blog posts, school and library visits, book festivals, bookstore signings? YES

TV and radio programs? Gulp. Okay. Yes.

Book tours? HELL YES.

Do some of this stuff for free? Um, yeah. okay.

Let us pay you? SURE

Did any of these translate into book sales? Yeah, but how many and which ones were most effective? Uh. No idea.

Or I guess I should say, Some idea. But it's not something you can control or count on. Someone likes the book and tells someone else. That's at the heart of it.

And the key seems to be if that Someone is in a position to tell MANY others. Example: a bookstore owner. A librarian who happens to be the president of a librarian association. A librarian who sits on a committee to choose books for a state's reading list.

It's Word of Mouth many times over and it all comes down to what makes a person pick up a book in the first place. What makes her READ it. Like it. Like it so much she wants to tell another person. 

Which brings me back to my teetering stacks of books.

For the sake of analysis, here are the last few books I picked up and why I read them:
                                                                            
1. (Reading now) The Outlander, Diana Galbadon. Why? My book club chose it.

2. Perfectly Good White Boy, Carrie Mesrobian. Why? I read her book Sex & Violence and loved it. Plus, I was interviewing her for a group blog.

3. Gone Too Far, Natalie D. Richards. Why? Natalie is my friend and I loved her other book.

4. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt. Why? Book club chose the book.

5. Behind the Scenes, Dahlia Adler. Why? I know the author from online interactions.

6. Kiss, Kill, Vanish, Jessica Martinez. Why? Did a joint book-talk/signing with the author.

7. The Walls Around Us, Nova Ren Suma. Why? I know the author, read and loved all of her other books.

8. The Living, Matt de la Pena. Why? The book is on the Florida Teens Read list and I heard the author speak at a conference.

9. Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia, Jenny Torres Sanchez. Why? I knew I was going to meet the author at a book event.

10. Burning Blue, Paul Griffin. Why? The book is on the Florida Teens Read list and I knew I would meet the author at a conference.

11. The Killing Woods, Lucy Christopher. Why? Natalie Richards told me to read it.

12. The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout. Why? Someone was tweeting about the book and it seemed like it would be interesting. (it was)
                                                                         
13. Wicked Lovely, Marissa Marr. Why? Another author suggested it because she thought it sounded like a comparable for a book I am working on. (it's not)

14. The Journey that Saved Curious George, Louis Borden. Why? Met the author at a conference and the book sounded interesting. (it was)

15. Ghosting, Edith Pattou. Why? The author is a new friend.

16. David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell. Why? The book was a gift from my brother, plus I've read several other books by the author.

17. The Likeness, Tana French. Why? I read the author's other books and liked them.

Hmm. So, some of this is "work-related." I know I am going to be on a panel with a particular author or I am going to meet him or her at an event.

Some is friend-related. Over the past few years I've gotten to know other authors-- writers who live in the area, writers I've met on the road, as well as writers I've interacted with online. I want to read their books, and I take their book suggestions seriously.

(Books by Ohio authors featured at Cover to Cover Bookstore
for a Support Local Writers' Display.
I've read many of these books
and the ones I haven't yet, are on my TBR list.) 

The others on the list are books that are written by authors I've read before and/or books selected by my book club.

The only outlier is The Sociopath Next Door, which was a book I'd never heard of, by an author I'd never read, and suggested by a person I do not know, on social media.

The book was fascinating.

It's non-fiction, written by a psychiatrist who started noticing a pattern in her patients' experiences--many of whom had been hurt (sometimes had their lives ruined) by sociopaths. Turns out 1 in 25 people are sociopaths and they're not the people you'd expect. ie Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, but often a seemingly normal person-- who happens to lack a conscience. I could not put the book down and the idea of it-- that we might interact with and be manipulated by sociopaths without realizing what's happening, is truly creepy.

It's also made me look at House of Cards through a whole other lens.

Take it from me--writer, reader, blogger, friend-- pick it up and read it.

PS: What makes YOU pick up a book?

My TBR List Expands by a Million. (Also, THE scariest/most gruesome/and somehow most gorgeously written book I've ever read)

Revising a book--at least the way I work, with 8+hour days broken into chunks and interspersed with multiple dog-walkings--tends to leave me with less time for reading. There's also the factor that my brain is pretty much fried when I shut my computer down at the end of the day. Over the past few months, I've read some good stuff, but not nearly as many books as I usually read. One or two chapters and I'm conked out on my pillow.

But all of this is about to change (I hope) in the next day or two, when I FINISH this draft and send it off to my critique partner. (OH DEAR GOD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let this book that I have been struggling with on and off since 2009 not be an unreadable/unfixable mess.)

I will have lots to read while I (anxiously) wait for my lovely critique partner's response. As you may remember, I have stacks of books teetering in rickety piles around my house. But those piles are going to be pushed aside for the time being to make room for more books:

1. Holly Schindler, YA Outside the Lines administrator and writer friend, asked me if I'd like to take a look at the ARC of her newest novel, Feral. (Like I needed to think even two seconds about that request. Um, heck yeah, I'll read it!)

2. Some extremely cool news that I still can't quite believe: Simon & Schuster invited me to go on a group YA author 6-city book tour through California. The tour is called The Summer Lovin' 2.0 Tour. (When I heard this, I had to laugh. Thin Space could not be more opposite of "summer" or "lovin," but I have decided to keep this on the down low.) A perk of the tour is a box of books authored by my fellow tour-ers. (See here for dates/cities/event sites) And here's a sample of what will be in the box:

3. The other bit of cool news is that librarians in Florida chose Thin Space to be on the Florida Teens Read list. How this works, I think, is Florida teens read and vote on their favorite of the books. I don't have a chance in hell of winning, but just to be on this list is something. I've read 3 of the books (Eleanor & Park!! The Fifth Wave!! The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight!!) but now I am eager to check out the others.

Okay, last but not least, and probably what you have been waiting for--the scary, gruesome and gorgeous book.

It's called Scowler by Daniel Kraus and it came on my radar a few months ago when it won the prestigious Odyssey Award --given to the best audio book of the year. I scrolled around on Goodreads and saw blurbs like this:

"Horrifically gory and intense"

"This book is true horror. Not horror in the sense that EEK! something might jump out at you, but horror in a deep, visceral, cerebral way...Pervasive terrifyingness based on the fact that everything you thought was safe and comfortable is monstrous -- including your own being."

"This book almost made me throw up. Seriously."

"Fair to say I had to put down my sandwich a couple of times while reading this, and I have a cast-iron stomach." 

So, yeah. I checked out the audio.

Here's the teaser: A desolate farm in the middle of nowhere. A teen boy lives there with his chatty younger sister and single mom. The dad's not around and we know something REALLY bad happened like ten years ago that got the dad thrown in prison and messed this boy up in ways that are still messing him up in the present. Also, a meteor is about to crash on the farm. One day a stranger comes to town. Turns out he's an escaped convict. He knows the father. The father may or may not be on the loose too and heading in their direction...

I made it maybe two cds into the audio and I realized something about audio books: you cannot stop listening to them. You cannot look away. The words, the images just keep assaulting you. My teeth were gritted together and my heart was racing as I was driving. The story is riveting and I was dying to know what was going to happen to these people, but I had to give up on the audio and head for the relative safety of the book.

Gruesome stuff aside, this is a powerful novel about abuse and family relationships. Highly recommend--if you have a strong stomach.

Apologies in Advance as I Briefly Rant about School Testing.

In a few weeks kids around the country will be taking standardized tests. I've got some thoughts on the subject that could probably fill up a book. I used to be a teacher--but I was fortunate to be teaching at a time when the stakes weren't quite as high as they are now in the standardized testing game. 

I'm a parent too, and I got to witness firsthand what it was like when things started to go off the deep end in my kids' schools. 

Example: when my daughter was in third grade, to encourage the students to get a particular score on a writing test, the teachers gave many many practice tests and posted the model essays on the classroom walls. For further encouragement the kids were given glass beads to wear on a bracelet whenever they got the desired score. 

My daughter didn't get many beads and was heartbroken. She honestly had no idea how to go about achieving the approved score.

Example 2: Right before the testing period, the school held a pep rally with popcorn and balloons and music. The kids who'd done well the year before were paraded around and allowed to eat the popcorn. The kids who hadn't done as well, were allowed to watch. This was a fun way to encourage kids to do their best, said the principal. 

See, kids, maybe next year, you too can eat popcorn and be in the parade.

Then there was the year they didn't teach science because it wasn't on the test. 

What killed me about all of this is I know that everyone's hearts were in the right place. The kids really wanted to please their teachers and do well. The teachers wanted to teach the kids. The principals wanted the best for their students. 

Something was obviously going wrong, though. 

The thing that made it very clear to me was the day the school decided to let the librarian go. This was a woman who knew every child by name, who knew what the kids' reading choices were, and who had books picked out and waiting for kids when they came into the library. 

But dropping the librarian position freed up the money to hire a reading specialist. All of that testing required a full time person to analyze the data and plot out how to improve the reading tests scores.

I have never done a study. I don't know if there is such a study. But here's a question I've always wondered: you know those kids who always have their noses in a book--I don't know, um, let's call them READERS--those kids--

What do you think their reading test scores look like? 

Okay. Getting off my soap box now. 

Good luck, kids, on your standardized tests!

When you have finished the test sections for the day--after you have carefully checked your answers--I hope you attend a school where you are allowed to open up a book and read for a while. 

Books that Sucked Me in and Blew My Mind

Lately, I have been a good book reading roll, which is a nice roll to be on when you are NOT on a good writing roll. During the day I (mostly) struggle to meet my writing goals, but at night, I know I can curl up with a great book and all is right again in the world. You would think it would not be satisfying to read a good book during the time you fear you are writing a bad one, but you would be wrong.

It's actually the opposite.

Reading "bad" books makes me tired. Each page is a chore. I was reading a book that shall not be named for my book club. The first night I picked it up, read two pages, and fell asleep. The next few nights the same thing happened. I think I got up to ten pages and finally set it aside.

Compare that to how I felt when I was reading Courtney Summers' This is Not a Test.

From the very first page, I was sucked in, and then I was turning pages--but not so fast that I would miss anything. Here's the premise: it's the end of the world. Zombies are attacking the town and the few kids who've managed to evade death/zombiehood hole up together in the local high school. Now, I know what you're thinking: zombies? another end of the world book? Bleh. But this is the brilliant Courtney Summers we are talking about. Turns out the main character had been planning to kill herself that morning and the end of the world feels like a relief.

There is nothing cooler than a thought-provoking page turner and this one had me thinking long after I closed the book: What's the point of living? How do you fight for survival when you don't want to survive? Can a damaged girl on the verge of giving up, find hope in the worst of circumstances? Read a book like this and you are reminded why you write in the first place.

I am not a big graphic novel fan. I should amend that to say I haven't read many graphic novels. If you are new to the genre too, here is a good one to try: Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang.

It takes place during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1898. It's actually two books, companions, that tell the same story from characters on the opposite side of the war. First, we meet Bao in Boxers and sympathize quickly with his plight. He is one of the Chinese peasants who rises up against the foreigners, many of whom happen to be Christian missionaries. In Saints we see the struggle from the other point of view, a girl named Four Girl, who is drawn to Christianity, but not for reasons you'd expect. When the two meet, it is a moment of horror and heartbreak that I don't think I have ever experienced before while reading a book.

I have been a big fan of David Levithan ever since I read Everyday. His latest, Two Boys Kissing, is stunning and ground breaking.

The main story is two boys decide to break the record for the world's longest kiss. But there are other stories too, of boys going on their first date and a boy who is repulsed by his own sexual identity and contemplating ending his life. The narrator is a Greek chorus of men who have died from AIDs, looking down at the events with sympathy and pity and fear and joy.

I've seen many reviews of this book, but none have discussed the thing that stood out most to me: the most perfect bit of writing I've ever seen--that should be given to any human who ever contemplates ending his own life:

"Sometimes perspective comes far too late. You cannot trust yourself....you cannot live for anyone else's sake. ...you cannot stay alive for your parents. You cannot stay alive for your friends. And you have no responsibility to stay alive for them. You have no responsibility to anyone but yourself to live. 
But I'm dead, he would say to us. I'm already dead.
No, we'd argue. No, you are not. ...your future self is still alive. You have a responsibility to your future self, who is someone you might not even know, might not even understand yet. Because until you die, that future self has as much life as you do."

This book will stay with you long after you close it.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness is KILLING me.

I've been listening to it on audio and let me say here that audio books are art forms in and of themselves. Whoever is reading this one is awesome. He does various voices, including a dog, and has me alternately laughing and almost crying. Confession: I have not finished listening to this book. I can't think of a time when this has ever happened to me--that I love a book and am completely caught up in it and yet I cannot bear to pick it up again because I am so invested in the characters and so worried about what is going to happen to them.

Brief synopsis: it's a weird world where there's a small town populated only by men. All the women died after some kind of alien virus and the men caught what they call The Noise, the ability to hear each other's thoughts. It's driven most of them to suicide, but the few who are left, are struggling, and this is the world that Todd Hewitt has been born into. When we meet Todd, he's walking around with his dog Manchee, annoyed and bored and so tired of listened to the noise. He can hear the dog's thoughts too but that's not very exciting. The dog mostly says stuff like, "Pooh, Todd, pooh."

Everything changes for Todd when he meets a girl, a girl whose thoughts he can't hear, and that pretty much starts Todd (and Manchee) off on a non-stop nail-biting journey where Todd realizes fairly quickly that everything he's been told about himself and his world is a lie.

Oh my God, I love this dog. Anyone who has read this book, please please please tell me that nothing happens to him. (Shoot. I know something bad is going to happen to him. Which is why I am afraid to keep listening.)

And last, but definitely not least:

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian.

This novel was one of the finalists for the Morris, (the award given to best YA debut novel), and deservedly so. I finished reading it a few weeks ago and I still can't stop thinking about it. It's the main character Evan--how real and tormented and complex and floundery he is, but it's also the world, this small town in Minnesota, a lake with an island that no one is allowed to visit, and the group of kids that become Evan's first friends.

If you've heard about this book, what you've probably heard about is the edgy topic at the core: the um, sex and violence. It's true. The book is edgy and dark and kind of in your face about it. When we meet Evan, he's settling into yet another school (his single dad--who reminds me of the single dad in September Girls, another great book--moves around a lot, and so Evan never gets to stay in any place too long.) Evan's coping mechanism is to not get too close to anyone, unless you count hooking up with a string of  "easy" girls.

This strategy backfires in a big way when Evan is beaten up by a conquest's ex-boyfriend, beaten up so badly he ends up in the hospital. His dad takes him back to Minnesota, the dad's childhood home, to recuperate, and it is a long period of recuperation for Evan--grappling with a physical recovery and post traumatic stress, but also struggling with guilt and the role he may have played in the events leading up to his attack. There's more here too about father and son relationships, and relationships between men and women, and the true consequences of violence and of sex that may make some readers uncomfortable, but made me so very grateful that a book like this exists to ask the questions.

Highly recommend.

The Third Annual Jody-intz Awards (My Take on the Best Young Adult Books)

This year I almost didn't make a list of my favorite books. This year I'VE got a book out and I thought it might be weird to judge the um, competition.

But it doesn't feel weird. Maybe because I don't view other books as competition.

There's room for lots of good books out there. When I read a really good book, I'm thankful for it, inspired by it, grateful that I live in a world where good books are floating around. Now, with my own book floating around, the grateful feeling is exponentially amped up. I walk into a bookstore or a library, and I see my little book on a shelf next to books by writers I admire. (And I must say here that the shelf real estate in the C section is particularly fine. Rae Carson!! Kristin Cashore!! Jennifer Castle!!) I don't think I will ever get used to the idea that something I've written is parked next to books by these authors. And if I ever do, someone, please, slap me.)

Now without further ado--here are the books that I loved last year--the ones that got me thinking and feeling and swooning and sighing and crying--

1. In the nail biter/page turner category The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. Yikes is all I can say about this one. Aliens have taken over the world and gone all Invasion of the Body Snatchers on us. This book's got action and heart. Warning: clear your calendar. Once you open the first page, you will not be able to put the thing down until you reach the end.

2. Best Beginning of a Series. Tie between Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Okay, first--Divergent. (Yes, I have come late to this party. The book was released several years ago but for whatever reason it was not on my radar. If you haven't heard of it, you will soon. The movie's coming out in March.) The Raven Boys. Oh, Maggie Stiefvater, how I adore you and everything you have written. Just got back from a long car trip and listened to the second book in the series, The Dream Thieves. Adored that one too. For the uninitiated, this series has action and lush writing and moments that will stop your heart. I was hooked from the very first line: "Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love."

3. Best END to a Series. Hands down winner The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson. This trilogy blew me away. I'm not a fantasy fan, typically, but the strong female lead Elisa drew me in and the complex and non-stereotypical love interest Hector KEPT me in.

4. The Writer-I-Just-Discovered-and-Read-Every-Book-She-Wrote-in-a-Row Award goes to Courtney Summers. JEEZ is the word that sums up Summers. The woman knows how to worm her way into the mind of a tormented and tormenting teen girl. I've read criticism of Summers' books--that the female leads are unlikeable. Maybe. But oh man, you will be viscerally pulled into these girls' stories. My favorite was Some Girls Are. I stayed up half the night reading about how the tables are turned on a "mean" girl.

5.  The Double Punch of Brilliance and Heart Award is a three way tie between September Girls by Bennett Madison, 17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma, and Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos. These books made me FEEL and THINK and had the added bonus of making me forget I am a writer, by letting me simply fall into their stories.

6. I was going to mention Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell in that last category but I think it deserves a category all of its own. I rarely cry while reading books, but this one got me tearing up after reading the Dedication Page. (I'd write the line that made me cry, but if I did, I'd start crying again. So, sorry. You will have to pick this book up yourself and see what all the fuss is about.)

7. Best Twist: What I Was by Meg Rosoff. This book was written several years ago but seems to have fallen off the radar. The main character's a troubled boy at a remote boarding school who develops an intense friendship with another boy, an orphan who lives alone. Things--and people--are not what they seem.  I must mention here that Meg Rosoff's newest book Picture Me Gone is on my TBR stack and I keep hesitating to pick it up--not because I don't want to read it, but because I like knowing that I've got a Meg Rosoff book still to be opened and treasured.

8. Book That Flew Under the Radar and Deserves Wider Readership. The award goes to Jennifer Castle's You Look Different in Real Life, which also wins the coolest premise award. Here's the blurb I wrote on Goodreads:
"Five teens chosen to appear in a documentary film every five years... but it's the voice of the main character, Justine, that pushes this novel into what will surely be readers' Top Ten of the Year lists. Justine is insightful and brilliantly observant--mixed with a bit of biting snark. What's it like to grow up on film? To have your childhood memories edited and manipulated? Is it ethical to portray people's most intimate and heartbreaking moments for an audience's entertainment? Absorbing read that you'll be thinking about long after you finish."

9. And finally, last but not least, in the category of Book I Wish Existed When I Was a Kid Award: Gary D. Schmidt's Okay for Now. This book came out in 2011 and was one of the runners up for the National Book Award--deservedly so. Main character Doug's just moved to a new town, a dump, he thinks, and he's far from thrilled. He's far from thrilled about most things. His crappy family life. School. What looks like a dead end future. The narrative voice is funny, though, so all of this isn't too unbearable. Slowly, readers are sucked into Doug's new life in his new dumpy town, and slowly, he (and we) see that maybe the place isn't such a dump after all, and maybe too, it's how we view ourselves and others that makes all the difference.

PS: Yesterday the American Library Association gave out the official Printz Award for Best Young Adult book of the year to a book I haven't read yet but undoubtedly will:

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

I Fail Spectacularly at my Attack the Stack Reading Challenge

It was a totally doable goal.

I thought.

Gather up the books around my house--books I'd been meaning to dip into for a while (sometimes, for years). Used books from library book sales. Brand new books piled next to my bed or in the bathroom. Books for work. Trashy books and high brow literature and skipped-along-the-way classics--gather ALL of these books together, stack them up, and, um, READ them over the course of the year.

Since I am a goal oriented person, a dutiful rule follower who delights in fun challenges, I thought I could easily "win."

Turns out I am a rule breaker with an anti-authoritarian streak. Yes, I am aware that the authority in the equation happens to be myself.

I did not read all the books in my stack. In fact, I ended up with another stack. And these stacks reproduced to create others.

Here are the books on my bedside table...

And look! Here are the books piled precariously next to my head as I am writing this blog post.

And the remainders of the other stacks, plus new arrivals.

Some stuff I learned about myself despite my spectacular failure:

1. I want to read what I want to read when I want to read it.
2. I still have a hard time putting a book down when I don't like it. I DID do this a few times, but I felt guilty. It's stupid and silly but there you go.
3. I am glad I attempted this challenge anyway. I read some books that were amazing, books I'm not sure I would've picked up if they hadn't been on my stack.
4. BUT, I also discovered new (or new to me) books that I didn't want to put off reading, and I like the freedom of being able to read those without feeling some weird self-imposed guilt.
5.  A side note here: I love reading YA books, but I think I need more of a mixture when it comes to genres and age groups. Some of my favorite books this year fell totally outside my comfort zone of reading taste.
5. I want to make another challenge for this year, something that gives me the challenge-y/goalish push that I kinda need, while at the same time providing the wiggle room/flexiness that I apparently need too.

So, without further ado I hereby introduce the 2014 FLEXY BOOK CATEGORY CHALLENGE!!!

Read at least one book per category. That's it. The only rule.

The Categories

1. YA contemporary
2. YA fantasy/Sci Fi/dystopian
3. YA historical
4. YA from a debut writer
5. YA from a writer I've missed along the way
6. Adult fiction
7. Adult non-fiction
8. A classic I'm ashamed to say I've never read
9. A re-read of an old favorite
10. Poetry
11. A short story collection
12. A graphic novel
13. A picture book
14. A middle grade book
15. A book on the craft of writing

PS. I am not giving up on my stack; there are lots of very cool-looking books that I suspect I will love if I pick them up.

For the record, here are the books I read in 2013 with a note if they were on the original stack and a link if I reviewed.

1. Altered, Jennifer Rush (stack)
2. Crown of Embers, Rae Carson (stack)
3. Send, Patty Blount
4. The Earth, My Butt, & Other Round Things, Carolyn Mackler (stack)
5. Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson (stack)
6. Divergent, Veronica Roth (stack)
7. Ask the Passengers, A. S. King (stack)
8. Try Not to Breathe, Jennifer R. Hubbard
9. Henry Franks, Peter Adam Solomon
10. Pushing the Limits, Katie McGarry
11. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
12. Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, Deb Caletti (stack)
13. The Arrival, Shawn Tan
14. Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shawn Tan
15. What I Was, Meg Rosoff (stack)
16. Insurgent, Veronica Roth
17. You Look Different in Real Life, Jennifer Castle
18. Tension of Opposites, Kristina McBride
19. The Fiction Class, Susan Breen (stack)
20. Raven Boys, Maggie Steifvater (stack)
21. A Trick of the Light, Lois Metzger
22. High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver (stack)
23. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
24. Being Henry David, Cal Armistead
25. Where I Want to Be, Adele Griffin (stack)
26. Picture Perfect, Alessandra Thomas
27. Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo (stack)
28. Pretty Girl, 13, Liz Coley
29. The Ward, Jordana Frankel
30. Soul of a Dog, Jon Katz (stack)
31. Many Stones, Carolyn Coman (stack)
32. Reboot, Amy Tintura
33. The Lucy Variations, Sara Zarr
34. 17 & Gone, Nova Ren Suma
35. How My Summer Went up in Flames, Jennifer Doktorski
36. Dear Life You Suck, Scott Blagdon
37. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets, Evan Roskos
38. Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
39. The Very Thought of You, Rosie Alison (stack)
40. Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham (stack)
41. Miss Peregrine's House for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
42. The Bitter Kingdom, Rae Carson
43. Insomnia, JR Johanson
44. Fat Kid Rules the World, KL Going
45. The Fifth Wave, Rick Yancey
46. The Ballad of Jessie Pearl, Shannon Hitchcock
47. Send Me a Sign, Tiffany Schmidt
48. The Sweet Dead Life, Joy Preble
49. The Beginning of Everything, Robyn Schneider
50. Rotten, Michael Northrop
51. Elsewhere, Richard Russo
52. Morning Girl, Michael Dorris
53. Rufus Goes to School, Kim Griswell
54. The Last Anniversary, Liane Moriarty
55. Burning, Elana K. Arnold
56. September Girls, Bennett Madison
57. Fall for Anything, Courtney Summers
58. If You Find Me, Emily Murdoch
59. The Sixes, Kate White
60. Until It Hurts to Stop, Jennifer R. Hubbard
61. Famous Last Words, Jennifer Doktorski
62. The Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Laini Taylor
63. Lonesome Road, Martha Bennett Stiles
64. Never Let You Go, Emma Carlson Berne
65. Okay For Now, Gary D. Schmidt  (stack)
66. Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
67. Bloom, Elizabeth Scott
68. Cracked up to Be, Courtney Summers
69. Some Girls Are, Courtney Summers
70. Writing Past Dark, Bonnie Freidman
71. Wired for Story, Lisa Cron
72. Loving Frank, Nancy Horan (stack)
73. This Is Not a Test, Courtney Summers
74. A Summons to Memphis, Peter Taylor