Friday, September 26, 2014

Some cool foreign editions!!!



In the mail this morning: the Thai edition of Daughter of Smoke & Bone! I'm not sure if it's new or if I just never received it before, but I love it!

And these. So great! The Japanese Days of Blood & Starlight is in two volumes with these companion covers of Karou & Madrigal. They're the cutest things ever:




Also received recently: (l) Dutch and (r) Greek Days of Blood & Starlight:




And Spanish Dreams of Gods & Monsters, and Indonesian Days of Blood & Starlight!



The second translated edition of Dreams I've received also came this morning: the Bulgarian one!




I love getting foreign editions SO MUCH.

Have a great day!




Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Witch/Hazel



I've finally hired some personal assistants. They're sisters and their names are Witch and Hazel (above, that's Hazel on the left, Witch on the right), and they're not exactly the most skilled candidates for the job, but they're the fuzziest. My main hiring requirement. 




They're pretty good at guarding the keyboard.






But sometimes fall asleep on the job.




When it comes to holding papers down, they have no equal.




There's a certain amount of lap chaos, but nothing I can't handle.






Things are going pretty well so far. They've even shown an interest in typing!

XO







Monday, September 22, 2014

The Musee des Arts Forains





So there's a really cool museum in Paris that no one knows about. It's called the Musee des Arts Forains, which means "Museum of Fun-Fair Arts," and it's exactly what that sounds like: a private collection of really awesome vintage fun-fair rides, games, and ephemera. My best friend Alexandra told us about it after going on one of her trips to Paris.




It's housed in this fabulous series of brick warehouses surviving from the time that this neighborhood, Bercy, was the famed tax-free district for wine cellars, from the early 18th Century. 




That's the history of the building. The collection celebrates a different history, that of the "carousel salon," these fantastic temporary pavilions that would be erected to attract a wealthy (and adult-only) clientele for an evening of wonder. Back then, carousels weren't for kids. Here's one of the pavilions:




It made me think of The Night Circus!




Anyway, it's fabulous, full of such wonderful things, and the best part: You RIDE the rides, and PLAY the games!






Here, the jewel of their collection, a bicycle carousel!




It's human-powered, from the days when bicycles were rare, and people could ride this to see what it was like! Let me tell you: it is FAST. Like hold-on-tight-so-you-don't-fly-off-it fast!


















There was a fabulous Venetian automaton show too.




And plenty of silliness.




So, so pretty.






Highly recommended! And you need reservations so book ahead. Have fun!

(P.S. We haven't been back to Paris this week or anything -- we wish! These are from last spring.)





Friday, September 12, 2014

Mexico I am coming to you!



I can finally confirm that I am, in fact, coming to FIL in Guadalajara! Yippeee!!! I will post a schedule by and by, but it looks like I'll be there the first weekend of December. Can't wait to be back in Mexico! I really, really love Mexico :-)

FIL--both a trade show and a festival open to the public--is the most important book fair in the Spanish-speaking world, with 750,000 people attending!!!!! I can't even fathom that! As for Guadalajara, it is Mexico's second city, home to over four million people, and is known for mariachi music, tequila, handicrafts, and good weather. Sounds pretty awesome :-)




I will also be going to Mexico City after that. 
Info to come. Double yippee!!!!



Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Happy Book Birthday ILLUSIONS OF FATE!



HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO KIERSTEN WHITE and ILLUSIONS OF FATE!!! This book. This book. When Kiersten characterized the hero as "Howl meets Mr. Darcy" I said GIVE IT TO ME NOW. Only, you know, politely. Pleeease give it to me now. Please?

And because Kiersten is lovely she did give it to me (thank you thank you thank you) and I spent a marvelous couple of days with said hero...and the heroine too of course whose book this actually is. And you should too! I love historical romance, and I love historical romance with magic even more, so this was a big treat. The system of magic is intriguing, the setting is wonderful, and the romance swoony. Stephanie Perkins called it "an absolute delight--a magical, sparkling, dangerous world with witty repartee and a romance that will light your heart on fire."

The back of the book says this:

"I did my best to keep you from crossing paths with this world. And I shall do my best to protect you now that you have."
The people of Albion are different from anyone Jessamin has ever known: harsh, uptight, and obsessed with wealth and rank. Jessamin knew as much when she left her sun-drenched island home to attend school in their gray, dreary, country. But she had no idea how different they truly were.
She never thought she would discover a house with doors that open onto a hundred corners of the city or a book that spends its days as a bird. She certainly never expected to become a pawn in a political and magical power struggle between the sinister Lord Downpike and the handsome, charming Finn Ackerly. And she never so much as imagined she'd win Finn's affections--or that one day his shadow would follow her every step.
Fortunately for Jessamin, fate has other ideas...

Publisher's Weekly describes the plot thus:

"White (A Chaos of Stars) claims the influence of Jane Austen on her latest fantasy, but the hero, Finn, is less reminiscent of Mr. Darcy than of Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey — all nervy blond elegance. Like Wimsey, Finn has a nameless role to play in keeping the empire out of war (in this case, the magic-wielding nation of Albion). Finn falls in love at first sight, most inappropriately, with narrator Jessamin, an illegitimate 'island rat' whose father is a professor in Albion and whose mother is a marriage-obsessed native of Melei, a colony. Jessamin has blackmailed her father to gain entrance to an exclusive school, but she works in a hotel to make ends meet, a situation that allows for riffs on A Little Princess as Finn — and Finn's enemies — inflict their attention and wealth on her."

So celebrate this book birthday by going out to the bookstore or library, or ordering yourself a copy of ILLUSIONS OF FATE! 













Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...