Haul & Goats

Aloha! It’s the end of my summer, so I thought I’d wrap it up with a haul of the books I managed to get over the last several months. The summer started out with a Haul of Excitement and Printer’s Row Lit Fest. I also began a subscription to Uppercase, which arrived in June, July, and August. Here are the rest of my summer books!

Firstly, the following books were gifted to me:

• Women Who Read are Dangerous by Stefan Bollmann – my mom bought this for me at a bookstore on her trip to Colorado; it is a book of paintings of women reading with snippets of historical viewpoints.
• The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor – my friend gave me the whole trilogy!
• Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card – from same friend
• Tove Jansson: Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen – a different friend got this for me because he knows how much I love Moomins
• The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell – from same friend, about the work of the infamous Tommy Wiseau

These two I got back in May when Barnes & Noble had the 2-YA books for $20 going on:

• The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

This book I bought from the library where I work (we have a pretty great used book shop):

• Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina by Michaela DePrince

THIS was extremely exciting; as part of my aforementioned Haul of Excitement, I won the Barnes & Noble B-Fest trivia contest, which got me First-In-Line (Penguin Random House) access to ARCs throughout the year. Be jealous:

• Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Then of course I got my copy of Cursed Child at the most awesomest release party, in which downtown Naperville, Illinois turned itself into Harry Potter world for the day. The businesses all had HP-themed decorations and specials; the library had really fun activities, as did the bookshop that hosted the release, Anderson’s, and the streets were basically shut down for people in costume to run amok. It was glorious. I’ve added a gallery so you can creep my pics of the awesomeness.

The streets are filled with wizards

Businesses on point

Costume contest finals

Program and map

Little wizards!

Snape “portrait”

We found Hogwarts!

Magical Me

Ravenclaw-themed make-over

Butterbeers

Green screen magic!

During the same event, I browsed through Anderson’s Bookshop and they had a “Blind Date with a Book” stand, which I had seen people do online, but I’d never seen one IRL. Of course, I had to get one.

• Tiger Lily by Jodi Alyyn Anderson – the blind date description read: “If you (like the creator of Blind Date with a Book) hate Tinker Bell because she is a malicious little fart who tries to kill Wendy like 12 times in the PP movie – this will make you like her!” I actually love Tinker Bell, but this description was so great, I had to get it!

Then this beautiful thing arrived in the mail, the first novel by one of my all-time favorite YouTubers, Carrie Hope Fletcher:

• On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher

And finally, my summer ended with a weekend trip to Door County, Wisconsin, which was absolutely lovely. I picked up 3 books there:

• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald – I bought this at one of Door County’s iconic restaurants, Al Johnson’s (a Swedish restaurant with goats on the roof. Yes, you read that correctly). I didn’t know this book was a Swedish translation, but it had been on my to-read list. It was a nice surprise!
• North of the Tension Line by J.F. Riordan – this is a novel written by a Door County author about Door County! It looks really good; it won an independent publishers award, so I’m looking forward to reading it! It is signed by the author as well.
• Book Crush by Nancy Pearl – if you know Book Lust, this is the children’s/YA version! I had no idea there was a children’s/YA version, so I was happy to stumble upon this. Nancy Pearl is the librarian of all librarians (like, you can get an action figure of her), and these books she wrote are basically reader’s-advisory-in-a-book. What are you in the mood to read? This book will give you suggestions.

Alas, that is the end of summer as I know it. I will leave you with some goats on a roof.