Two shout-outs in one month

BookKids Recommends, by the independent bookstore BookPeople in Austin, Texas, has given Nancy her props for two different books this month.

First they climbed aboard the Impossible bandwagon here, and then they warmed my heart by including a recommendation for Double Helix (the first Werlin I ever read) here.

It's particularly nice to see Nancy's earlier books staying on the radar screen. Her stuff continues to grow in popularity, but a lot of people just coming to Impossible or The Rules of Survival haven't read all of the terrific books that she wrote in previous years. Fortunately Penguin has her entire back list now, so things like The Killer's Cousin and Locked Inside should be more readily available than they have been in the recent past.

Reaching a Reader

We bloggers, let's face it, tend to be rather fond of the sound of our own virtual voices. Sometimes we think we have a point, sometimes we've got a good quip, and sometimes we reach for le mot juste, whether or not we know French. But other times it's incumbent upon us to just shut up and link.

Rules of Survival en Español

Rules of Survival será publicado en español por Ediciones Obelisco de Barcelona. Los detalles seguirán. Es bueno, incluso si mi español es malo.

Tanya on Bowdlerization

Tanya Lee Stone fumes in her take on bowdlerization in New Rochelle schools. I could paraphrase for you, but in the spirit of anti-bowdlerization, I'll simply encourage you to take in her take in its entirety.

Best of 2K8

Impossible shows up on the Kirkus Review's list of the Best Young-Adult Books of 2008. You can see it in the Second Look section (because they'd previously reviewed it), on page 21 of the PDF, with the orange background.

Further up, on page 5, is a nice Penguin ad that includes Impossible and uses the cover as the background.

Audio version of Impossible

Impossible is now available as an audio book. Go to Brilliance Audio to listen to an excerpt -- it's Episode 053.

If your appetite is whetted but not satisfied, proceed to your favorite bookstore online, to iTunes, or to here to get it from Amazon.

What do you think?

Betsy Bird (she styles herself Elizabeth online, but the nickname's a bit too compelling to pass up) asks readers which YA novel she should read in the School Library Journal. You'll not be surprised to learn that Impossible is among the possibilities. There are lots of opinions, but none quite as incisive as yours, so speak your piece to Betsy.

Bella Scrittura

I'm in the midst of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. So far it's very, very good. The story, the detail, the phrasing -- Patchett seems to be good at all of it.

Nancy handed me Truth & Beauty, Patchett's memoir of her friendship with Lucy Grealy, and was tickled when I tucked into it like Mikey on a bowl of Life cereal. (I'm tricky to please; I don't get very far in most books before I find something I don't like and tune out.)

I'm now unintentionally on a bit of an Ann-and-friends spree. One book has led to another, and I've since read Grealy's Autobiography of a Face before moving on to Bel Canto. I'd already read the novels of their mutual friend Elizabeth McCracken a few years ago.

I've loved all of it. After this I'll promptly read the rest of Patchett's novels, and from there I might even try to get my hands on some of Grealy's poetry, just to see. And McCracken has another one, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, that I'll likewise look in on.

Makes me wonder if they have any other friends...