(inspired by a couple of weeks of dealing with fall orders, or trying to deal with fall orders, and because I do not yet have time to talk about the LIAR cover issue, except to say that I am angry enough about it that I’m not buying the book for the shop and am ordering [...]

…is it easier to get piles and piles of galleys for blog review than it is to get a sales kit with F&Gs so I can actually buy picture books for the store where I work?

This absurd review by Tina Jordan (Entertainment Weekly) of Gayle Forman’s spectacular, heartbreaking IF I STAY annoyed me more than it surprised me.  It’s short, so I’ll quote it in its entirety:
Though it’s touted as the next Twilight — with a fat movie deal in place and Catherine Hardwicke set to direct — Gayle Forman’s [...]

Dearest, dearest editors/publishers/agents/writers:
Where are the Matt Christopher books for girls? Where’s the girls’ Mike Lupica?
Where is the awesome middle-grade girls’ series about friends who play soccer/ice skate/play field hockey/shoot hoops? Where’s the stereotypical girls’ sports series, for that matter? Most days I’d give my left arm for a fair-to-middling book about short girls on a [...]

Jodi Picoult allegedly dismisses all YA as featuring unclothed girls on the covers, thereby being unsuitable for her 13 year old.
If this is true (it’s a secondhand account), I’d enjoy five minutes with Picoult to explain exactly how A. wrong B. ridiculous and C. potentially damaging to an entire genre (considering how wide-ranging Picoult’s [...]

In January, HarperCollins is publishing Ransom My Heart, a new novel “by Princess of Genovia Mia Thermopolis, with help from Meg Cabot.” I obtained an advance copy of this book from Harper to evaluate for their First Look program. I was also reading it for my old bookstore, because they sell a lot of Princess [...]

I loved Whoopi Goldberg’s SUGAR PLUM BALLERINAS. I also thought the galley cover was quite nice:

 
And then the book came out, and this is the cover, and I hate it:
 

 
It’s kind of hard to see their faces, but man, I really don’t like them at all. I like the having-multicultural-color-on-the-cover part, which we definitely need [...]

There’s going to end up being a bit of a rant in this review, so I want to preface it by saying: I enjoy Buckingham’s writing very much. I loved DEMONKEEPER, his first book, and sold a lot of it when I was a bookseller. I was very much looking forward to reading GOBLINS! and [...]

Dear Publishers (and Editors, and Authors):
If you are going to use the names of actual celebrities in your books, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY PLEASE SPELL THE NAMES CORRECTLY.
Two names that are almost constantly misspelled in print:
1. Lionel Richie. RICHIE. R-I-C-H-I-E. There is no T in Richie. It is NOT spelled RITCHIE. EVER.
2. Danielle [...]