Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I'd Love to Meet

 This week's topic is about secondary characters, which I've talked about before. In light of news from earlier this month, I'm changing it to authors I'd like to meet.

While I have met a bunch of wonderful authors, there are STILL MORE I'd love to meet.

Previous lists: Author list 1 and author list 2

1. Barbara Dee 
2. Kate Messner
3. Sarah Adams
4. Rhys Bowen
5. Raina Telgemeler
6. Misty Wilson
7. Alexa Martin
8. Lindsey Currie
9. Fleur Bradley 
10. Emily Charlotte

Who would you like to meet?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Surprised Me

 This week's topic is all about books that surprised the reader. I'm changing it to authors, because these authors are great at surprising plot twists. 

The Biggest:

Sarah J Maas

Frieda McFadden

Very Big:

Ally Carter

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Rebecca Yarros

James Ponti

Stuart Gibbs

Lisa McMann

Mary Higgins Clark

Hafsah Faizal

Any of these authors surprise you with their many plot twists?

Top Ten Tuesdays: Authors that Make Me Laugh

 This week's topic is about book quotes. There are so many great quotes, but I stopped writing them down a while back. So - here are authors that always make me laugh.

Here are some of their books:

New to me authors that make me laugh:

Do you read these authors? Do they also make you laugh?

New Blog/Database Idea: For Librarians and Authors

Over on Twitter, I saw this tweet from an author I follow

Lindsey Leavitt 

@lindseyleavitt

So my traditionally published MG novel came out 7 weeks ago. I have yet to receive a trade review. My 2010 MG debut had 8 reviews. With 0 reviews, it dramatically lowers my shot at awards or making state lists. Some school districts require a positive review for visits now.

This is her new book which I'm excited to read:

And after that, my brain started firing. If the journals can't review all the books, then maybe we could do something to help. I have reviewed for journals and in NO WAY am I trying to take away from them.

Could we have a super blog/database of books reviewed by librarians for librarians???

What Librarians Get:

A place where professionals review books. There will be positive reviews of books, so they can achieve the 2+ rule (if required.)

What Authors Get:

A place where professionals review books.

How it *might* work:

We have a core group who manage the site. 

We have board books thru YA books reviewed.  

We have a team of reviewers who follow the same format for each review.

We have critical reviews, but not negative reviews. (This worked but that didn't)

You could cross post on your own blog or social media platforms.

The reviews would be archived and tagged. 

There could be topical booklists by ages.

As this would be a community blog/database, I don't have all the answers, so please tell me your thoughts! 

Authors - would this help?

Librarians would this help?

Top Ten Tuesday Spin-off: Children's Fiction Authors

 This week's Top Ten Tuesday had my brain working in overdrive. There are too many authors that I MUST read, so I made several lists....

Kelly Yang
Sarah Mlynowski
Erin Soderberg Downing 
Stephanie Burgis

Katherine Battersby

Lyla Lee

Across Ages:

Lauren Castillo (author and illustrator)

Kate Messner (Author)

Christina Soontornvat (Author)

Shannon Hale (Author)

Sarah Beth Durst

* This is hard to do when I'm not in the library in front of the shelves...

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors

 This week's topic is authors or bookish people I'd like to meet. 

We've done this topic a few times. I've been lucky to meet several authors. 

This post is about authors. This post is about bookstores.

And here are the authors I'd love to meet across age groups and genres:

Jessica Burkhart

Ann M Martin

Jennifer Estep

Jasimine Guillory

Erin Soderberg Downing 

Sophie Jordan

Kelly Yang

Lyla Lee

Christina Soontornvat

Lauren Castillo 

Top Ten Tuesday: Funny Books

 This week's topic is books that make your laugh. I have a few authors who I turn to when I'm in need of a laugh.

In no particular order:

Kristan Higgins

Janet Evanovich

Jill Shalvis

Julia Quinn

Tessa Dare

Maya Rodale

Meg Cabot

Alexa Martin

Jenn McKinlay

Sandhya Menon

Have you read these authors?

Are there other authors I should add to my list?

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors

This week's topic is all about social media and authors I enjoy following. To be honest, I follow a lot of authors. So it might be hard for me to narrow down, but I'm going to try.

Sarah MacLean - talks a lot about romance books.

Meg Cabot - talks about books and royalty and cats

Kristan Higgins - talks about romance books and life. She often makes me laugh.

Maureen Johnson - for bookish news, dog pictures, and funny moments about life

Rick Riordan for funny tweets and news about his publishing imprint

Carrie Jones for her animals' daily words of wisdom

Shana Galen (Facebook) for her historical clothing pictures

Tessa Dare for her chats about romance books and tweets about life.

Maya Rodale for her posts about awesome women from history and her romance book inspirations and about romance books in general.

Vashti Harrison for her art work and sharing of book news

Top Ten Tuesday: Author I'd Love to Meet

This week's topic is authors I'd LOVE to meet. I've had the good fortune to meet so many wonderful authors. Here are a few I haven't met yet. 

- meme from The Broke and the Bookish 

JK Rowling (Hey, I dream BIG)

Jill Shalvis

Sarah Morgan

Miranda Kenneally 

Jennifer L Holm

Shannon Messenger

Jennifer E. Smith

Emery Lord

Jenny Han

Stephanie Burgis

And so many more!

Bonus:

Jane Austen

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors

This week's topic is:  Top Authors I've Only Read One Book From But NEED to Read More. I went through my books read on Goodreads - when I came to ten, I stopped, but I'm sure there is more! After all I have a HUGE TBR list! 

- meme from The Broke and the Bookish

One book I read of the author - but I need to read more because these were really good!

What authors do you need to read more from?

Top Ten Tuesday:

This week's topic is New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2013. This list is a mix of YA and adult authors. 

- meme from The Broke and the Bookish

Gayle Forman

Jenny Han

I'd been hearing about these two authors and their books forever - so I decided that I really needed to check them out and I'm really glad that I did!

Sarah Morgan - loved her Christmas book - which is the start of a trilogy featuring three brothers. 

Kelly Fiore - Loved her debut YA  book

Mary Simses - Loved her debut novel as did several of my co-workers

Dayna Lorentz - loved No Safety in Numbers.

Jennifer McGowan - so looking forward to more in the historical spy series

Kristan Higgins - I've been meaning to pick up her books for ages and I'm glad that I start this year because they're amazingly good.

 Ali McNamara - Loved the first book I read by her - which I wanted to because of the title.

Allen Zadoff - Really liked the first book in his assassin series - looking forward to more.

Saw: Michael Scott

On Saturday, I traveled to Madison to visit RJ Julia Booksellers

where I saw Michael Scott of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series Fame

where he read the the latest novel: The Sorceress and answered questions.

Some cool things he said:

1. A book is really one Big fat lie
2. Readers become writers
3. Scents and colors from the magic gives your a visionary but more importantly smell to connect with the characters
4. It's a 6 book series (Somewhere I thought it was a 5 book series, so that makes me wicked happy)
5. He came up with the concept and then outlines all 6 books
6. All the characters (except for Sophie and Josh) are all real characters from history and you can research them
7. Flamel wasn't the original hero, Dr. Dee might have been except that Scott went to this house:

and it changed his mind a little.

Here we are together after he signed my books

and here's a READ poster I made:


and if you want to know more about the series, here's the book trailer I made for the first book (which is actually our middle school book club pick for November)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com