Inappropriate, maybe. But HOW can you not laugh at this one??

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I call it the single most divisive children's book ever written: Love You Forever, written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Sheila McGraw. I haven't met a single person who DOESN'T feel strongly about this book. Either it moves you to tears and you love it, or it makes your skin crawl and you detest it (as seems to be the case with several of the commenters on last week's post about books loved by everyone but you). I myself have been known to JOKE (and, truly I'm ju...Read More

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Not sure what to do with those books you didn't like? Here's an entertaining suggestion.

Our AMAZING gift buyer Alexa Crowe is part of a book group in which its members don't all read the same book -- they individually read whatever books they want to then come together, talk about what they've read, and swap books if one person wants to read the book recommended by someone else. In their group, when someone hasn't liked a book, they make the book sit in the corner, LITERALLY. They walk the book over to the corner, set it on the floor "facing" the corner, and the...Read More

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Since so many people appear to have enjoyed confessing to the books they've never read and/or their tendencies to peek ahead, I thought I'd continue this Post Secret-esque theme and invite you to confess something else -- the books you know you were "supposed" to love but didn't. You know -- the books EVERYONE loved, EVERYONE thought were the best of the year, EVERYONE told you you "had" to read, so you DID and then wondered what the heck all the fuss was about.

I've been thinking about doing a post on this subject for months now -- at least since last September, which I heard a great piece on Pub...Read More

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Next time you need a fix, come to me.

(Click on the image for more info.)

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Normally when a box of galleys arrives in my office, I don't have to be too concerned about who's got first dibs on any one title. As the buyer I generally believe that I've got them. End of story. As an absurdly busy buyer, though, I've lately been offering up the "first read" opportunity on almost everything to other people, knowing I've got too little reading time these days and that others should therefore get to read the hottest titles without having to wait several months for me to get around to them. I'd rather have the ARCs in people's hands than at my house collecting dust.

Typically I know just who on our staff will be the most enthusiastic about the arrival of any one ARC, and I immediately offer it up to that particu...Read More

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Inspired by my "Baby Got Books" t-shirt post of last Friday, Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Scholastic's Arthur A. Levine Books, penned her own lyrics to the Sir-Mix-A-Lot hit and posted them on her terrific blog, Brooklyn Arden. With Cheryl's permission I'm reprinting them for you here, with Cheryl's original links included.

While I can't say these lyrics are quite as brilliant as the The Book of Everything or ...Read More

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Thank you, Obsession Design at Café Press, for this laugh.

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A confession: I rarely read reviews of books I haven't already read myself. Kirkus recently gave Gareth's new Merchant of Venice graphic novel a glowing, starred review and the celebration of that news at our house got us talking with other book world friends about various review sources and the question of who reads them and how much it influences their purchasing.

As you know if you read my post about peeking, I don't like to have key details of a book given away to me in advance. On a more practical note, though, as a buyer I have the incredible luxury of...Read More

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What do you consider art? That's what the producers of the clever program Creature Comforts apparently asked random folks before putting their thoughts together in this VERY clever bit that should appeal to all writers, illustrators, and artists by any other name. (My favorite character is the dog who talks about print-making.)

Originally a five-minute film by Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame, Creature Comforts became a British television series by ...Read More

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Last year around this time I posted photos of the Boston Marathon as it made tracks past our bookstore. Unfortunately I was stuck in our windowless basement buyers' office today when the runners went by (too much work to do!!), but thanks to the microchip on her shoe I was at least able to track the path of our bookseller-turned-librarian (and self-professed "peeker"), Sarah Nixon, whom I blogged about in last year's Marathon post.

Today Sarah is feature...Read More

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Last month when I posted about my most recent trip to Montpelier, Vt., and my visit to The Flying Pig, I didn't mention that there had been one other book-related stop on my brief Vermont tour: Linda Urban's house! Before spring gives way to summer and the content of my photos looks like a metereological impossibility, I want to show you where the author of A Crooked Kind of Perfect spends he...Read More

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