10 Interesting Upcoming Books At BEA 2016

BEA really surprised me in how many books they had that I'd never heard of. I consider myself someone who tries to stay pretty up to date with what's going on in bookland, but clearly I am NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It was truly a delight to be surprised by the list of galleys beforehand and then surprised again by a number of titles on the exhibit floor. I went ahead and sorted these ten interesting books by release date, so you can know how soon to pull out your wallets. These upcoming books sound SO GOOD.

Autumn Princess, Dragon Child by Lian Hearn
June 7, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

Book two in the Tales of Shikanoko series. FSG has been doing interesting fast-tracked publishing (the Area X trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer, for example), and I'm intrigued. All of the 4 books in this historical fantasy series will be published before 2016 is done. I'm reading the first book, Emperor of the Eight Islands now and it's a complicated tale set in a mythical, medieval Japan. I'm pretty down for that. We'll see if it gives me the Game of Thrones-y dramatic saga I'm craving.

So Much For That Winter by Dorthe Nors
June 21, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

I'm obsessed with Dorthe Nors. Her writing blew me away in her short story collection, Karate Chop. So Much For That Winter is two novellas, and I'm excited to see what she does in a slightly longer format. Though this is still a tiny-ass book. In one, a woman records her life in a series of lists. The other is told in headlines, telling us the story of a performer after they're dumped via text message. "So Much for That Winter explores how we shape and understand experience, and the disconnection and dislocation that define our twenty-first-century lives, with Nors's unique wit and humor." SIGN ME UP.

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
July 5, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

"It is the present-day, and the world is as we know it: smartphones, social networking and Happy Meals. Save for one thing: the Civil War never occurred." Whoa. So this could either be really good or really bad. There are 4 states in the US that still have slavery in this alternate reality, which is absolutely horrifying. This might be sort of a thriller or mystery, and I'm already having panic attacks about categorizing it at the bookstore.

The Devourers by Indra Das
July 12, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

I totally happened upon this SF/Fantasy novel by accident and I'm so glad I did. It's based in Indian folklore, is werewolf-y (not specifically my thing, but we'll see how it goes), and it touches on gender, LGBTQ issues, and sexual violence. HI. Everybody who's read it seems to love it. And it's "For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Mieville, and David Mitchell." Pretty sure that's me, hi again.

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
August 9, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

This book had by far the most interesting format out of all the books at BEA. If you flip through it, it really doesn't make any sense. It's sort of memoir-y, but split into categories like a textbook, but also there's an interactive texting element. I'm super excited to play around with this book more, and I don't think I've ever said that sentence before.

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal
August 16, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

This isn't something I'd typically pick up, but I'm very interested in Mary Robinette Kowal and I'm generally down for ghosts. Another historical fantasy/scifi, in World War I there's a Spirit Corps that uses mediums to pass intelligence from dead troops back to the living. HARDCORE.

Children of the New World: Stories by Alexander Weinstein
September 13, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

This sounds like the show Black Mirror except in short story form, so I was pretty immediately sold. "Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots." Hello, yes. There's a story about virtual children and the support groups that exist for when they glitch and get erased?? Dark, I like it.

Sun Moon Earth by Tyler Nordgren
September 13, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

Ok, here's the rest of the title: The History of Solar Eclipses from Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets. One of my many niche book interests is astronomical history. It's a new one, you could have blinked and missed it. Basically it's the history of eclipses and how cultures perceived them over time. They used to be super spooky, then they turned into tourist attractions. I'm sure there's some more depth to it than that. WE'LL HAVE TO READ TO FIND OUT.

Shelter in Place by Alexander Maksik
September 13, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

I feel as if I know very little about this book, because nobody actually talked to me about it AND it wasn't actually there. But it was supposed to be, so that counts for something. It's a novel sit in the Pacific Northwest in the 90s. A 20-year-old kid, Joe, starts to deal with symptoms of bipolar disorder and, soon afterward, the incarceration of his mother who just killed a rando with a hammer. Joe starts to hang out with his dad and his new girlf Tess all the time at the bar and at home, while his mother, Anne-Marie, is transformed into a folk hero of sorts. AND THEN "Spurred on by Anne-Marie's example, Tess enlists Joe in a secret, violent plan that will forever change their lives." Sounds like some gritty, raw human stuff.

The Terranauts by T.C. Boyle
October 25, 2016

ADD TO GOODREADS

I've never read T.C. Boyle before, so I don't have that like brand loyalty excitement. This novel just sounds so good. Set in the 1990s, climate change is threatening the earth and scientists are trying to work on potential off earth colonies. So a group of scientists are selected to live in a prototype of this fake bubble world with five different biomes. Nothing and nobody is allowed in or out. Obviously some shit is going to go down. Are all of his books this interesting??

What BEA pick do you find most interesting? Anything that wasn't on this list?

BookExpo America 2016

Whoa! It's been ten days since my last post. I expected a blogging break while I was at BEA, but right after returning home I got really debilitatingly sick. Like can't read, can't write, can't do anything sick. I'm on the mend now, so here I am with a very delayed update on my time in Chicago!

If you follow me on Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram, you undoubtedly saw many many BEA updates. But in case that wasn't enough, here's a quick rundown of my three days at this bonkers book event.

There was a lot of this.

BOOK BAES

I'm going to come right out and say it, this super overwhelming event would have been kind of miserable had I not had a lot of book friends who were able to make it to Chicago. Even though I can definitely act confident and take care of business during big things, that doesn't mean that I'm having any fun. And I can 100% say I had a blast for all three days and it's all due to running around the booths with people I had been dying to meet/had met previously.

From left to right: Me, Rachel, Kerry, Emily

From left to right, top to bottom (excluding me): Sweet Shaina, Shannon, Liberty Hardy, Marisa, Kim

I met so many more people that were not pictured, and they were all great (Katie, Heather, Julie, Jessica, Catherine, Kristen, Beth, and more). I was lucky to go to several happy hours/dinner with these bad book bitches, as well as have lunch with Liberty Hardy and Amanda Nelson of Book Riot.

BOOKS & BOOTHS

Ok, enough gushing about the book baes. I wasn't hardcore enough to make a spreadsheet beforehand, but I did write some things on a piece of paper. I thought the amount of overlap of some of these signings and galley drops would definitely leave me missing out on some of the things I'd wanted to get in on. And I had prepared myself for that. But, surprisingly, I don't think I missed anything I had wanted to do. The size of BEA was kind of deceptive. Like it was absolutely huge, but after a certain point in one direction, it was just kids books, books in languages I didn't know, university presses, and remainders for bookstores to buy. So after checking it out once, there isn't really any reason to go back over there, narrowing the area in which you hang out significantly.

Every publisher I talked to was super super nice and accommodating. They were all excited to talk about their books and wanted to help get books to you if they were out of them. I was most impressed by the Graywolf booth (not just because they're Minnesotan). SUCH COOL PEOPLE.

I was also impressed by the in booth signings. At first when I heard people like Jonathan Safran Foer and George Saunders were doing their signings in booth instead of in the area specifically for signings, I was frightened. I had heard horror stories about this how wrong it went at Javits. But there was a pretty good amount of extra room near the bigger booths like Penguin Random House that allowed for the large lines. I didn't have to wait very long for anything.

Here's a photo of my explaining literature to George Saunders

There were a bunch of heavy hitters there as far as books go. Saunders' first novel Lincoln on the Bardo, Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad, Alan Moore's (creator of Watchmen) first (enormous) novel Jerusalem. Etc. Etc. I came home with 30 books total, I think. Every day was fucking rough on my shoulders. Luckily beautiful Jenna of JMill Wanders drove me home, so I didn't have to worry about how much I was bringing home. But I also didn't want a million books, so I mostly controlled myself.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

- Shaina and I drank champagne that was probably not for us. They didn't fence it off and we didn't get yelled at sooooo it was probably fine. But we also looked very, very professional.

- Book speed dating! A fun idea that I was highly looking forward to, but kind of a clusterfuck. The idea is that you sit in groups at tables with a bunch of ARCs on them. Publisher reps come around and pitch books to you. After the publisher is done, you can take ARCs. OBVIOUSLY that is not what actually went down. Randos were showing up without having signed up then getting real mad about there not being enough chairs or books. A lot of publishers didn't actually have books there, because they didn't ship properly or something? Either the books didn't get there on time, or NY people didn't want to deal with shipping books to Chicago, so whatever. And elderly librarians are GRABBY. Pretty much everyone I knew at this event had some greedy mother fuckers at their table who didn't want to play by the rules. And my question is just like... why? You'd think these people never see books. Unreal. I also wasn't really interested in any of the books. OH WELL.

- I was given a sign to hold as I stood in a line. I was confused as to why I was holding it and what I was supposed to do with it after a while. But I do like having a false sense of power, so.

- Deep dish pizza. And seeing my friends. If you didn't know, I lived in Chicago for four years, so it was nice visiting a place I consider home.



I'm not going to say anything about the galley "scandal" and the rights of bloggers or whatever, because I'm already bored.


Tomorrow I'll be sharing some of the exciting new books I didn't know about before planning for BEA. GET PUMPED.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? [May 9, 2016]

Oh, hey. So I've been working pretty much every moment of every day for the past week, because I'm going out of town this week. Know why I'm going out of town? Because it's BookExpo America, bitches!! And I'm so unprepared. Everybody has spreadsheets of where they need to be and when, and I'm just over here like I've got my megabus ticket to Chicago, so maybe I'll show up the day I intend to??

I'm thinking about doing some coverage of this very large and supposedly very important book conference, if anybody's interested in hearing about it from the point of view of a very unprepared and very boisterous girl who doesn't have time for any sort of bullshit like "lines" or "maps." Let me know. Otherwise I'll be snapchatting (uulianne) and tweeting about it surely.

THIS WEEK I READ:

• Tender by Belinda McKeon

CURRENTLY READING: 

Does it really count as currently reading if you're just 3 chapters into a book? Let's say yes, just for the sake of this post. Zero K by Don DeLillo is good so far I guess, but it's been 20 pages or so. I imagine I'll read more on the bus tomorrow and maybe I'll actually have something to say about it at that point. You are all really good sports for allowing me to call this an "It's Monday, What Are You Reading?" post.

What are you reading this week?