Graveyard Praise

This morning, via Neil Gaiman himself (on Twitter), I learned that The Graveyard Book won the 2009 Newbery Medal for outstanding children’s fiction from the American Library Association. That’s fucking awesome. In the world of children’s book publishing, that’s like winning an Oscar. Libraries and the librarians that run them are the most influential people in terms of what books children read, and what books parents buy their children. If the American Library Association thinks a book is great for kids, expect sales of said book to increase dramatically, as more libraries will purchase the book for their collections and more parents will want their kids to read it.

I’m ecstatic that The Graveyard Book was chosen as the winner this year. It’s a spectacular piece of fiction that’s great for any age group, really. I’m 26 and I loved it. It’s an homage to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, except the main character, Nobody (Bod) Owens, is raised by ghosts in a graveyard, instead of animals in a jungle. I had never read any Gaiman before, and I think this book is a great introduction to his writing. If you don’t have time to read the book, you can listen to Gaiman read the entire thing on his website (for free, even).

Edited: January 26th, 2009

The Strand

With today being the third day this week that I’ve had absolutely nothing of great importance to do (work didn’t schedule me until Sunday, and I only had class last night), I decided to actually leave my dorm for more than 20 minutes. Because I’m working my way into book-related fields, I found it fitting to visit some of the independent bookstores here in the city (rather than just going to the closest B&N). Unfortunately, I only made it to one of the two I was planning on going to today, and that’s because I bought too many books there and I didn’t want to lug them all around the city.

The bookstore I went to, The Strand, claims to have 18 miles of books on its shelves, and I’m sure that’s an understatement. This store has three floors jam-packed with new, used, rare, and discounted books; I only visited the main floor, which contained the fiction section, along with various other categories of books. The gaps between the shelves are narrow, and there are tables and carts galore. You seriously have to be a size 0 in order to fit between everything with ease. It didn’t help that it was super busy, and I heard one employee say that they had really slowed down in the new year. Slowed down?! People were everywhere! I’d hate to see that place on a “busy” day. Here’s what the shelf situation is like:

I spent about half an hour in there; if I hadn’t been wearing a bulky sweater and a winter coat, I could’ve easily spent the rest of the afternoon, but it was sweltering in there, what with all the people and the closeness and the fact that it was like 50 degrees outside and I had already been warm before going inside.

I bought 7 novels for the low price of 50 dollars. Oh, I also went into Forbidden Planet, which is a store for “alternative hobbies” (i.e. a nerd’s superstore), but I didn’t purchase anything, and it was also crowded in there. Next bookstore on the list: Books of Wonder.

P.S. I just saw this bibliochase in my Paste Magazine, and I want it. Now.

Edited: January 23rd, 2009

#inaug09

I watched today’s events on my laptop, on CNN.com, which was partnered with Facebook, and made watching it more interactive, I suppose. Realtime status updates from my friends? Oh joy. Oddly, though, we had CNN on in our room, but I preferred listening with my headphones. At least on the web version, Wolf Blitzer wasn’t talking during the “Air and Simple Gifts” performance.

I was particularly struck by this line of Obama’s address:

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Obama is such a powerful writer and orator, and that line just invokes such amazing imagery. I’m also quite excited about the new white house website. It has a BLOG! And you can follow the white house on Twitter? God Bless Obama for embracing technology.

Edited: January 20th, 2009

lessons learned

Ten Things I learned on Winter ’09 voyage:

1. Pies made out of sour patch kids aren’t good.
2. The snow-covered beach at Grand Haven, while gorgeous, probably isn’t the best place to go in a snow storm.
3. Buying a playstation 3 will make my life better
4. Boots by Blowfish are amazing (seriously, check out the pic)

5. Ice skating is just as fun as I remembered it being
6. Mom’s cooking tastes better when yr diet consists mostly of fast food
7. Corpus Christi has just as fickle weather as Grand Rapids, only, ya know, without the snow
8. I need to meet more people in NYC
9. Being away for 4 months changes things, but also doesn’t
10. Friends are awesome

(bonus #11: When yr suitcase is already over-filled, don’t buy clothes on yr vacation)

Check out my flickr for pics of the trip.

Edited: January 18th, 2009

Corpus Christi

Being on vacation feels great, except for having to take four flights in a 24 hour span, waking up at 2AM one day and 3AM the next, just to get to the airports on time, and the general fatigue associated with such a crazy sleep schedule. (It didn’t help that the two previous nights, I had gotten maybe 4 hours of sleep each, thanks mostly to alcohol consumption.) But, here I am now, in Corpus Christi, Texas, home to Selena (or her memorial, anyway), Whataburger, and the USS Lexington. Oh, and Amanda, my favorite younger sister. I took some not-very-good pictures, which I can’t upload cuz I didn’t bring the correct cable, so I’ll just give you this picture instead.

Edited: January 4th, 2009