Best Books of 2013 lists

Best Books of 2013 lists

• National Book Award titles above
• ALA: long list begins with young readers and goes through teen and all readers
• Amazon: includes editors’ favorites, customers’ favorites, and many genres
• Barnes and Noble: may genre-based lists, including teen
• The New York Times: Ten best books (5 fiction, 5 non-fiction) and their notable book list for the year
• Washington Post: top ten books (fiction and non)
• Time: lists for fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels
• Entertainment Weekly: fiction and non-fiction lists
• Good Reads: lists include many genres including Young Adult Fiction and Young Adult Fantasy
• NPR: an interactive set up that you lets you choose categories to see the best of the year
• Kirkus Review: several lists, including best teen books and best book apps
• Other best YA lists: Mashable, Hypable

Book Talk example

Top 5 example

#4: Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Julia Semple 

What it’s about: The story of how reclusive, genius architect Bernadette Fox goes missing and her daughter tries to find her. 

Why I liked it: It’s told through a series of documents (emails by and about Bernadette, doctor’s notes, court records, etc.) that Bee has found, so we re-assemble what happened along with Bee. 

RIYL: fast, funny, non-traditional structures, satire

Trailer:

Readicide

Best Books of 2012 lists

A collection of end-of-the-year lists:

• Barnes and Noble lists by genre, including Best Teen books of 2012
• 100 notable books of the year from The New York Times (short version here)
• Amazon.com's best books of the year
• Goodreads user picks (lots of genres)
• Publishers Weekly--fiction and non-fiction
• Washington Post best books of 2012
• GQ best of 2012 list
• Top 10 YA Lit fiction from ALA
• 2012 National Book Award finalists to the right

Hunger Games links and things

• Hunger Games giveaways at Amazon, including a free Kindle fire
• How Scholastic began the word-of-mouth campaign for the book
• Soundtrack breakdown by Billboard that goes song by song
• CNN asks: " How do you honor the novel and please readers without compromising the film?
• Slate shows how the story subverts the Cinderella story and the wilderness survival tale

March 20 was Very Hungry Caterpillar Day

The Shallows

I read The Shallows: How the Internet is doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr over break.  It was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and it's good.  He goes over all of the brain research to show what the multi-tasking and information overload of the web does to our brain (it basically gets gradually rewired).  What I thought was most interesting was when he talked about longer form reading, like books.  As our brains get rewired from spending time online, it makes it more and more difficult for us to engage in reflective, critical reading.  It's sort of scary.  Jonathan Safran Foer said the book changed his life, so I decided to read it, too. 

• here is the original article he wrote, called "Is Google making us stupid?" for The Atlantic
• watch Carr on The Colbert Report here