In my Day One recap, I had said I suspected this post would be short (ha! I should know myself better than that by now) so I was going to write about a few other things. It appears I lied, so this will just be about day two and I'll discuss more about what I actually thought about it in a different post.
The morning of the second day at Book Expo America was another flurry of signings, although it was a bit rougher since I started the day much more exhausted than day one. The highlight was Deanna Raybourn - I haven't read her books yet but I keep hearing about them and she was just so friendly and nice and talked to everyone while signing their books.
Around 11:00 there wasn't much going on so I got a coffee cake and vanilla latte over at Starbucks (fortunately, the line was a bit more manageable than earlier - I got my tired self over there first thing when I got in but the line was as long as the one for some of the signings). I found a place to sit and read for a bit but was too wiped out to concentrate that well. And it's not like I wasn't reading a really good book because I was reading Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews, which was nothing short of awesome from beginning to end (so much so that I'm already reading Magic Bleeds).
Before hitting the afternoon signings, I decided to head over to the Orbit booth since they not only send me a lot of review copies but tend to be pretty good about randomly sending me books that I'm actually very interested in reading (and make me wish I could read faster). Plus I was curious about what they had coming out. While I was over there, the woman at the booth was very apologetic about not knowing much since she was "just the cover designer." Just the cover designer?! She was Lauren Panepinto, who designs some fantastic covers - I've looked through the list she has on Goodreads before (which includes The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, The Parasol Protectorates books by Gail Carriger, The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee and the new covers for Jo Graham's books). They had copies of Married with Zombies, which Lauren Panepinto described to me as zombie chick lit, and I was drooling over the poster for Surface Detail, the Culture novel by Iain M. Banks that is coming out in October.
Then it was back to the signing rush, which is all a blur other than wandering around for a while trying to find the one for Jeri Smith-Ready's book Shade. I thought I wasn't going to find it and then once I did the line was deceptive - it looked short but was actually quite long since it wrapped around the corner. But I got my book and Jeri Smith-Ready was also very friendly, even by the time she'd gotten to the end of the line.
After that, I spent some time at the very packed Book Blogger Convention reception. Janice from Janicu's Book Blog and I were looking for something to do between that and the evening's party hosted by The Book Smugglers, so we decided to take a cab over to the area of the party and find a coffee shop. Half an hour later we FINALLY got a cab and then the driver tried to tell us it was too hard to get to where we wanted to go! So we were going to have him drop us off at the nearest subway but then he'd changed his mind and decided it was fine. We were at least happy to find a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks right there, although we made sure to let the man at the door know we came in with books - the last thing we needed was to be arrested for book theft after all that! It was fun to just hang out, not lug around books and chat about books with Janice for a while. She's another great book blogger I'm really glad I met.
The party was a good time, although very loud. The most fun I had there was conversing/yelling about The Queen of Attolia with Angie from Angieville. She is one of the people who convinced me to read this series, and I'm grateful she did since this book was fantastic. And it was wonderful to be able to talk to someone about it without worrying about spoilers.
Next up: Book Blogger Convention report (unless I finish the Magic Burns review first - I have been working on that this week too!).
Showing posts with label Book Expo America 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Expo America 2010. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Book Expo America: Day One
Of course, as any bibliophile will tell you, being able to get so many books at Book Expo America (BEA) is great (especially the signed books - I am such a sucker for those!). But I've already talked about during my weekly book update posts so now it's time to talk more about the experience (although I will include any interesting book-related news just in case you missed it in the other posts).
Due to technical difficulties with my husband's camera (ok, a wrong setting but I swear I tried that one multiple times), I do not have pictures so I'm afraid this will just be lots of babbling without any photos to break up the monotony. However, a lot of other people got pictures so I will direct you to the blogs of some awesome people I met who have plenty of them.
We made sure to get there early for the signing of Felix Gilman's forthcoming novel, The Half-Made World, and were so close to the front that we also had a chance to go back to Macmillan and get signed copies of Passion Play by Beth Bernobich. I had been agonizing over not getting this one because both it and The Half-Made World looked so good and were at the same time so this made me very happy. After looking at the book, I think this is the one I am most looking forward to reading. When I got my book signed, I asked if it was the start of a series and was told it is the first novel in a trilogy and there is also supposed to be a related book and a short story. It just looks so good from the description, and yes, I admit the fact that the cover is striking doesn't hurt either. Plus Ana and Thea found out the day before at a tour of Tor that Bernobich's editor was the same one who discovered Jacqueline Carey so that just moved it even higher up on the 'must-read' list.
Actually, October 2010 is looking pretty good for new releases since the three books I got that I am most looking forward to all come out then - Passion Play by Beth Bernobich, Dreadnought by Cherie Priest and The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman.
After some signings, we caught part of the Dystopian Fiction panel featuring authors Ally Condie (Matched), Adam Dunn (Rivers of Gold), Lesley Hague (Nomansland), and Sigrid Nunez, (Salvation City). There was an interesting discussion about whether or not there should be a glimmer of hope in dystopian novels. Afterward, I got to meet Angie from Angieville who runs another one of my favorite blogs ever and was a lot of fun to talk to.
Most of the rest of the day was dedicated to signings - there were so many to get to and unfortunately I missed the steampunk panel with Cherie Priest and Catherynne Valente.
I had been so disappointed that were not going to be any authors at BEA that I had read and enjoyed. There were two I had read, but I didn't actually like the book I read by either of them, not even in a "it's ok" sort of way - I actually wanted to go back in time so I could read something better in place of these two books. So I made sure to read a book by one of the authors who was going to be there that I thought I'd like - Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. I did enjoy it and really wanted to get a copy of Inside Out, but the scariest, craziest line I saw the whole time I was at BEA was for this signing so after all that I missed it!
The most fun autographing session had to be for Zombies vs. Unicorns, a young adult anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. It stemmed from an argument between the two editors about which of the two was better, and they were asking everyone if they preferred zombies or unicorns. Before I even got a chance to answer, each of them said I must be on her side. Not being a zombie fan (gore, ick) but having been a little girl who adored unicorns as well as a big fan of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, I had to side with Holly Black on that one. To which she exclaimed "YES!" and Justine Larbalestier asked me if I was sure since I was wearing black. They were quite funny and I'm looking forward to reading the book more after talking to them (even if I am a tad disappointed that it sounds as though there will be no unicorns waging war on a zombie horde).
On the first day of BEA, I also met Kenda of Lurv a la Mode, who had the prettiest bookmarks. She writes great reviews and her blog is one of my go-to blogs now too so it was very nice to get to meet her.
Those are the highlights of day one at Book Expo America. Next I'll write about day two, which should be shorter since I ended up crashing from exhaustion with some coffee and a book in the middle of the day, as well as some general impressions about the event.
Due to technical difficulties with my husband's camera (ok, a wrong setting but I swear I tried that one multiple times), I do not have pictures so I'm afraid this will just be lots of babbling without any photos to break up the monotony. However, a lot of other people got pictures so I will direct you to the blogs of some awesome people I met who have plenty of them.
- Angie of Angieville
- Janice of Janicu's Book Blog
- Ana and Thea of The Book Smugglers (BEA Day One, BEA Day Two, Book Blogger Convention/Day Three)
We made sure to get there early for the signing of Felix Gilman's forthcoming novel, The Half-Made World, and were so close to the front that we also had a chance to go back to Macmillan and get signed copies of Passion Play by Beth Bernobich. I had been agonizing over not getting this one because both it and The Half-Made World looked so good and were at the same time so this made me very happy. After looking at the book, I think this is the one I am most looking forward to reading. When I got my book signed, I asked if it was the start of a series and was told it is the first novel in a trilogy and there is also supposed to be a related book and a short story. It just looks so good from the description, and yes, I admit the fact that the cover is striking doesn't hurt either. Plus Ana and Thea found out the day before at a tour of Tor that Bernobich's editor was the same one who discovered Jacqueline Carey so that just moved it even higher up on the 'must-read' list.
Actually, October 2010 is looking pretty good for new releases since the three books I got that I am most looking forward to all come out then - Passion Play by Beth Bernobich, Dreadnought by Cherie Priest and The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman.
After some signings, we caught part of the Dystopian Fiction panel featuring authors Ally Condie (Matched), Adam Dunn (Rivers of Gold), Lesley Hague (Nomansland), and Sigrid Nunez, (Salvation City). There was an interesting discussion about whether or not there should be a glimmer of hope in dystopian novels. Afterward, I got to meet Angie from Angieville who runs another one of my favorite blogs ever and was a lot of fun to talk to.
Most of the rest of the day was dedicated to signings - there were so many to get to and unfortunately I missed the steampunk panel with Cherie Priest and Catherynne Valente.
I had been so disappointed that were not going to be any authors at BEA that I had read and enjoyed. There were two I had read, but I didn't actually like the book I read by either of them, not even in a "it's ok" sort of way - I actually wanted to go back in time so I could read something better in place of these two books. So I made sure to read a book by one of the authors who was going to be there that I thought I'd like - Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. I did enjoy it and really wanted to get a copy of Inside Out, but the scariest, craziest line I saw the whole time I was at BEA was for this signing so after all that I missed it!
The most fun autographing session had to be for Zombies vs. Unicorns, a young adult anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. It stemmed from an argument between the two editors about which of the two was better, and they were asking everyone if they preferred zombies or unicorns. Before I even got a chance to answer, each of them said I must be on her side. Not being a zombie fan (gore, ick) but having been a little girl who adored unicorns as well as a big fan of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, I had to side with Holly Black on that one. To which she exclaimed "YES!" and Justine Larbalestier asked me if I was sure since I was wearing black. They were quite funny and I'm looking forward to reading the book more after talking to them (even if I am a tad disappointed that it sounds as though there will be no unicorns waging war on a zombie horde).
On the first day of BEA, I also met Kenda of Lurv a la Mode, who had the prettiest bookmarks. She writes great reviews and her blog is one of my go-to blogs now too so it was very nice to get to meet her.
Those are the highlights of day one at Book Expo America. Next I'll write about day two, which should be shorter since I ended up crashing from exhaustion with some coffee and a book in the middle of the day, as well as some general impressions about the event.
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