Jan 25, 2012

Deadlines approaching for World Book Night and The International Readers Book Awards. The Alex Awards honoring adult books perfect for teens. We share our love of Defending Jacob by William Landay and Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward.

Books Around the World

January 31 and February 1 are two dates to circle on your calendar. February 1 is the deadline to sign up to be a volunteer book-giver for World Book Night. I've already signed up and Ann is narrowing down the selection of which book she'd like to pass out. Join us!

January 31 is the deadline to nominate books for the shortlist of The International Readers Book Awards, put on by our friends Simon and Gav at The Readers podcast. If a book was published somewhere in the world in 2011, it's eligible, so nominate your favorites!

The Alex Awards (5:38)

The American Library Association just awarded The Alex Award to ten adult books that have "special appeal to young adults." It's a wonderful list that includes a few of our favorites:

• Big Girl Small, by Rachel DeWoskin
• In Zanesville, by Jo Ann Beard
• The Lover’s Dictionary, by David Levithan
• The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens, by Brooke Hauser
• The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
• Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
• Robopocalypse, by Daniel H. Wilson
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures, by Caroline Preston
• The Talk-Funny Girl, by Roland Merullo

Two Books We Can't Wait For You to Read (9:12)

Defending Jacob by William Landay is the story of a lawyer dealing with a murder in his town; a murder for which his own fourteen-year-old son Jacob has been accused. This is a book that I read in huge gulps, turning pages frantically until the end, when my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. We're thrilled that Bill Landay will be joining us in Manchester for Booktopia VT.

Ann was thrilled to see Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward on the list of Alex Award recipients. It also won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction. It's a book she read last year, but hadn't had a chance to talk about yet. Set in a fictional Mississippi town in the ten days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, this novel follows Esch, a fourteen-year-old who has just found out she's pregnant, and her family. Poetic, literary, and many-layered, it's a book that you don't want to miss.