Week 7

Assignment 1- Check! The chart was fun.

Week 7: Assignment 2
Read any two of the following short articles. Post comments on your blog, and make comments on two colleagues’ blogs.

I read "New Adult" and "Not Just for Teens". New Adult is not a sub-genre I think I've find myself thinking about. I still find myself thinking about the "Teen" section as "Young Adult", which in my opinion, covers many more readers than "Teen" and "New Adult".

As for the article, "Not Just for Teens", I liked how they quoted David Levithan and Libba Bray. Levithan was quoted as saying that when he writes, he's usually writing for his friends, not a specific audience. Bray was quoted as trying to write as honestly as possible and when she starts thinking about how her books will appeal to different audiences, she's no longer in the story. I'm also glad the article mentioned that a lot of adult writers are doing genre cross-overs. I read a lot of teen books because they are by authors that I enjoy in General Fiction, Romance, or Sc-Fi/Fantasy and I know that I like the writing style and the story development already. Where it's located in a book store or library doesn't impact my selection process.

I commented on Tina P. and


week 7: Assignment 3
As a fan of the Mortal Instruments series, I folled Cassandra Clare. She contributes to the site and right now, it is full of promos for the upcoming movie, photos of the cast on a re-movie tour, and fan artwork. Fans of her Shadow Hunter world are her intended audience and I think that, yes, the site is successful because some posts have 2000+ notes!

I also followed Forever Young Adult which kind ouf wound up being a trap that ate a lot of time, but I enjoyed every second of being lost in there. It's geared to Young Adult readers who are a little more Adult and a little less young. Quoted straight from their "about FYA" page: FYA is a place where you can let your inner Lady Nerd loose and swoon over fictional characters without shame (while sipping on a cocktail). From book reviews to TV crushes to movie drinking games, it's basically a non-stop internet slumber party, and you're totally invited! They have a "New Fake Boyriend" link, a "Literary Mysterious Dude Hall of Fame" link, and lots and lots of chatter about upcoming projects. It's where I found out Lifetime is making another movie of "Flowers in the Attic"! Basically, I am the intended audience and I find the site successful enough that I am going to check in on this site often of my own volition! :-)


Week 7: Assignment 4:

Browsing a little through Harlequin Teen, Harper Teen and Little/Brown Books for Teens, the trend I see is that 90% of the upcoming teen titles are dystopian or paranormal. Again, I am adding to my "to read" list. :-)

I'm not going to lie: This week's assignment took the longest and was finished last because there was LOTS of stuff goingon in this week. Not a bad thing, mind you, but just time consuming.

Week 9

Assignment One- Check!

Assignment 2-
Romance writers have been using book trailers for a few years, so they're not as foreign to me as to some other people. Very rarely do I find a book trailer that captures the essence of a book. Some are too long, some are just shots of the book cover with music in the background and someone reading the blurb, and some show content that isn't related to the book at all. One of the few that I found when I randomly searched "book trailer" on youtube that actually fits the book is one for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. (video here)

Insofar as using book trailers, I don't think that I would ever use a book trailer when doing reader's advisory, because if the trailer mis-represented a book, I could loose a customer before I even had them.

Assignment 3-
I really enjoyed the BMB training, but I would recommend that in the future, something with so many assignments and links to explore should be given a longer time period to complete. To thoroughly explore the links and various sites, you need to spend more than two minutes on each site page. And if not an initial extended time period, then access to the assignments from outside of work would help.

Overall, even though I am not a blogger nor do I have the passion for blogging,  BMB provided a lot of information and sites and links that I wouldn't have stumbled across on my own and I think that some of the will be useful in the future. I can also admit that through all of my "thorough exploration" of all the links and sites, I have added 10+ titles to me "to read" list. :-)

Week 8

Assignment 1: Check!

Assignment 2:  Check!

Assignment 3/Assignment 4:
History-930 to 999
America the Beautiful by Ben Carson (973 C)

Travel- 910 to 919
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed (917.9 S)
At 22 years old, Cheryl Strayed lost her mother. Shortly thereafter, her family scattered and her marriage fell apart. With nothing left to lose, she decides on a whim to hike the Pacific Crest Trail all by herself. One-thousand+ miles later, she finished and along the way, she found herself. Not having personally read it, I would give this to someone who likes memoirs about people rediscovering themselves.

Food-600's
Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (641.5 P)

Crime- mostly 364's, but some dispersed in the 900's depending on subject
Devil in the White City byErik Larson (364.1523 L)
Erik Larson intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining in-depth research and great story-telling skills, Larson has written a true-crime book that reads like it should be a movie (or at least a prime-time tv show). I would give this to anyone who likes crime tv-shows or mysteries.