DEBBIE HARRY SINGS IN FRENCH by Meagan Brothers

Johnny likes to party. When he OD's at a club, his mom decides that he's too out-of-control and she sends him to live with an uncle in the country. Johnny is small, artistic, wears nail polish, and totally doesn't fit in with the jocks at his new school. But though he gets beaten up, Johnny is pretty much 99.999% sure he isn't gay. Cause, you know, he has an awesome girlfriend, and he isn't attracted to guys.

So Johnny isn't queer. Still, he does have a secret... he really likes Debbie Harry. Like he wants to be Debbie Harry. Tough and Glamorous. This is the story of how he gets there - and it is surprising and terrific!

If you are over the age of 14, and you live in America, go enter the AUDREY WAIT video contest and maybe win a thousand bucks!

If you are under the age of 18, and you live on Earth, please go help E. Lockhart write her new book!

If you are any age, and alive, come to our NEW AUTHORS PARTY tonight!

Not Your Mother's Book Club presents three fabulous new authors. Don't miss the chance to meet these ladies before they are full on superstars.

Monday, April 28, 7pm
Books Inc. Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness Ave, SF

Robin Benway's debut novel AUDREY WAIT is one of our favorites of the season. Imagine you break up with your boyfriend. He writes a song about it. That song becomes a huge # 1 hit. All of a sudden you're an overnight tabloid sensation, everyone knows your name, the paparazzi won't leave you alone...YIKES!

Polly Shulman's ENTHUSIASM garnered rave reviews when it came out and is a must for any Jane Austen fan. If you haven't read it yet now is the time to snatch it up in paperback.

CONFESSIONS OF A TRIPLE-SHOT BETTY is Jody Gehrman's first foray into the YA world and she's given us the perfect summer read - full of friends, romance and a shot of sass!

Hey guys and dolls,

Due to popular demand, we're continuing to do Not Your Mother's Book Club events in our Palo Alto store as well as San Francisco. That means that all you crybabies who thought that SF was too far will get your very own events, and they will be great, too!

But of course, if you don't come out and support the authors, we will have to scale back operations again... and yeah, that's a threat. ;)

So, don't forget, CASSIE CLARE TONIGHT!!! 7pm!! At our New Books Inc. Location, Town & Country Village, Palo Alto!

First of all, please go friend E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski & Lauren Myracle's new book HOW TO BE BAD on MySpace. They've got, like, 5 friends - Tom, HarperCollins, and themselves - and it's sorta embarrassing.

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Now, let's get you some free stuff, eh? Sweepstakes time!

Win your very own copy of HOW TO BE BAD

Win a beeeyoutiful necklace and a copy of Sarah Dessen's new book LOCK AND KEY

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That's enough, greedy-boots. Now it is time for you to do a good deed: Join YALSA and Readergirlz for Operation T.B.D.! This is an amazing coordinated effort to get more than 10,000 YA books into pediatric hospitals across the country, and released into the wilds of your neighborhood, too! Check out the link for how you can be a part of the fun on April 17.

I love to see my pretty friends on the New York Times bestseller list. I spy with my little eye, Jay Asher, Stephenie Meyer, Libba Bray, Sarah Dessen, Markus Zusak, Ellen Hopkins, Holly Black and Cassie Clare... all former guests of NYMBC!

Special congrats to Cassie Clare, whose CITY OF ASHES came right outta the gate at number three. If you haven't read CITY OF BONES or CITY OF ASHES, you are seriously missing out. Get on it, cause Cassie will be at NYMBC Palo Alto next week!

Check out this terrific interview with Lauren Myracle, E. Lockhart and Sarah Mlynowski. These ladies are so funny together, I can't WAIT to read their collaborative novel HOW TO BE BAD - I've been saving it to bring on vacay with me!

Lauren, E. and Sarah will be visiting NYMBC in May - stay tuned for more details...

Have you ever been in love with a book? I have. KING DORK by Frank Portman. In case you were wondering, that's why we've done 9 bajillion events for it... swoooon!

To celebrate the release of KD in paperback, Frank and his magic guitar will be at Books Inc. Opera Plaza tomorrow at 7pm. And that is it, until his next book comes out. So, you know, don't miss it.

Check out this cool contest for the new book WAKE by Lisa McMann. The book is a totally creepy thriller about a girl who gets sucked into people's dreams.

You could win a Nintendo Wii, iPods, or autographed books, and all for just writing a little story about what YOU would do if you could jump into people's dreams -- or nightmares... more info and contest rules here. Good luck!!!

Meanwhile, if you haven't seen Simon Pulse Blogfest, hurry up, cause it will be over soon -- a ton of NYMBC fave writers(you know, like Scott Westerfeld, Robin Wasserman, Sharon Draper, etc etc...) are taking on a different question every day. It's all right here.

Tomorrow's New York Times brings a pleasant surprise - two terrific YA books, and NYMBC faves, get nice long reviews.

UNWIND by Neal Schusterman

BOY TOY by Barry Lyga

While I don't think that reviews in fancy newspapers are any indication of a books "goodness", there is no doubt that they positively impact book sales. So for that, congratulations gents!

I hope to see many of you at our event for David Levithan & Siobhan Vivian!

THURSDAY, MARCH 13 (um, that's today, people!), 7pm

Books Inc. Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness Ave, SF
(415) 776-1111

and the poster one more time, just cause I love it...

I know it must seem as if I've forgotten you, my dears, but really, I am just super busy planning AWESOME EVENTS for the rest of 2008. The "upcoming" section of the website seems to change practically every day - so do keep your eyes peeled, cause there is some great stuff a'comin.

This Friday, March 7, our NYMBC peninsula edition kicks off! The brand-new Books Inc. in Palo Alto will be home to Not Your Mother's Book Club events on a semi-regular basis. For our first event, we're pleased to host Frank Portman for an evening of punk rock and pizza to celebrate the release of KING DORK in paperback.

So come see Frank, and us, and our new store in the Town & Country Village at El Camino & Embarcadero. It is a great space. Plus, a percentage of all sales from the event will benefit Palo Alto High... cause we are as generous as we are adorable.

I straight up stole this off Dr. Frank's website. Sorry. But isn't it cute?

Friends-of-NYMBC Siobhan Vivian and David Levithan are both represented on the latest BookSense Children's Pick List under the heading "Teen Readers"... And the blurb they chose for Siobhan's book was written by moi. This proves it, once and for all - I have exceptional taste! YAY!

Ahem.

Don't miss David AND Siobhan (along with special guest Eliot Schrefer and plenty of other surpises) when they visit Not Your Mother's Book Club!


click to embiggen poster

Not Your Mother's Book Club presents:

DAVID LEVITHAN and SIOBHAN VIVIAN

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 7pm
Books Inc. Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness Ave, SF
(415) 776-1111

Hey there kids - I know this has been absolutely everywhere today, but I might as well link too!

the CYBILS winners - this cool prize is given by a bunch of bloggers who think that awards should be given for AWESOMENESS and not boring-literariness. This is a sentiment that I can totally get behind.

I loved a lot of books on this list - like TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY and CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT. But super-duper-ultra congrats to friends-of-NYMBC Shannon Hale (BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS) and Barry Lyga (BOY TOY)!!


Full disclosure: I happened to be a judge for the YA section and I know how tough the competition was - bravo, Barry, we love you!

SARA ZARR
TUESDAY FEB 5, 7pm
BOOKS INC. OPERA PLAZA

Not Your Mother's Book Club is proud to present SARA ZARR. Her first novel, last year's STORY OF A GIRL, was heartbreakingly beautiful and garnered tons of critical acclaim, including a National Book Award Nomination. We'll discuss what it's like to be a red-hot genius and hear about Sara's new book SWEETHEARTS. Join us for lively conversation and maybe even some heart-shaped cookies!

MEG ROSOFF
FRIDAY, FEB 8, 7pm
BOOKS INC. LAUREL VILLAGE

The author of our fave book ever, HOW I LIVE NOW, is coming all the way from England to present her brand new novel WHAT I WAS. Theoretically, this is a grown-up event, not a teen event ... but whatevs, we are still gonna be there. Don't miss it!

Other Upcoming Events...

March 7 - Hilarious writer and pop-punk songster FRANK PORTMAN (King Dork) will be rocking out at the grand opening of our newest store! 7pm, Books Inc. Palo Alto (now at Town & Country Village!)

March 13 - NYMBC fave DAVID LEVITHAN (Boy Meets Boy, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist) and brand-new author SIOBHAN VIVIAN (A Little Friendly Advice) will be at Opera Plaza. 7pm.

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All events are FREE and open to the public.

FOR MORE NYMBC INFO:

www.notyourmothersbookclub.com

(415) 776-1111

NYMBC at booksinc.net

I've finally calmed down after our absolutely AMAZING event last week. Everyone here at Not Your Mother's Book Club central was thrilled to host a party for the fabulous Shannon Hale and Libba Bray (aka The Hale-Bray Comet, aka The Torso Twins, aka AKA).

So how did it go down? First of all, we took over Cafe Lo Cubano. Seriously. Like, no more room at the inn, that place was PACKED. The ladies were ALMOST late because they were busy getting glammed up at the MAC counter. The results speak for themselves:

We spent about an hour schmoozing. Libba and Shannon went around basically being awesome and chatting with all the groups of girls (and one boy, yay, London!). Here's Shannon with some girls from Live Oak school:

One young lady, Miss Jasmine, won the award for Biggest Fan of the Night. She took her VERY FIRST PLANE RIDE EVER (!!) all the way from TEXAS (!!!) to come to the event. Wowza! Their plane was delayed, so Jasmine missed the first part of the event, but she was able to meet the ladies and get prizes, so it all worked out OK in the end. Here's Jasmine with Shannon:

Oh yeah, prizes - first of all, everyone got a goodie bag. They were all different, but they contained stuff like posters, tattoos, candy treats, CDs, etc - AND every bag had *two books* inside, all advance reader copies of upcoming 2008 YA books. YAY! Also, I did a raffle for some door prizes, including a Barry Lyga package (with autographed copies of BOY TOY and FANBOY & GOTH GIRL) and a Carrie Jones package (with a hardcover copy of TIPS ON HAVING A GAY EX-BOYFRIEND and an advance readers copy of the sequel). Woohoo!

Of course, the most well-received prize was an advance copy of ... well ... let's just say, it inspired screams. LOTS OF SCREAMS. And guess what... I have one more copy, which I will give away at our Feb 5 event with Sara Zarr! So you better be there.

Anyway, back to the recap. Libba and Shannon had shenanigans and answered questions and were awesomely hot and hilarious of course, who would expect anything else? They seemed like total BFFs that had known each other all their lives - its funny, because they hadn't met until 48 hours earlier. That's chemistry, folks! They closed out their presenation with a rousing rendition of TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART, which I swear I have had stuck in my head for days now, and it is maddening. Every now and then I feel like stabbing my ears out (stab them out, bright eyes!)... thanks a lot. Here are the evil songstresses in all their glory:

Finally, after Libba and Shannon signed every book in the history of the world (at least - that's how it seemed) we were finished. Yep, we managed to close out the Cafe. Sorry we kept you from going home, awesome baristas! What a great evening. THANK YOU SHANNON AND LIBBA!!!

I know, everyone else did this last week. What can I say, NYMB'ers are fashionably late! Here's a taste of the titles we are most looking forward to in 2008...

JANES IN LOVE by Cecil Castellucci, illus Jim Rugg: Sequel to our fave graphic novel PLAIN JANES! Haven't read it yet, but my spidey sense tells me that there will be ... some sort of ... romance...?


LOCK AND KEY by Sarah Dessen: Ruby has been living on her own ever since her mom took off. She likes to think that she is tough and capable, but really she's barely holding it together. Her journey makes Sarah's best book yet - and that is some accomplishment.

ANDROMEDA KLEIN by Frank Portman: Frank did one of his very first events ever with us when KING DORK was released. On that day, he told us the title of his new book. It is about a girl whose tarot cart readings are starting to be creepily prophetic... and it will soon be here!


TROUBLE by Gary Schmidt: A reliable source says that this is better than WEDNESDAY WARS. We'll see...

OCTAVIAN NOTHING pt 2 by MT Anderson: No link. I heard a rumour that this is still being written. Alls I can say is, a certain someone will jump out of her own skin if she doesn't get to read this soon. (And yeah, that someone is me). By November? Pretty Please Candlewick?

Not Your Mother's Little Siblings -- Upcoming picture books from some of our fave YA authors!

BEAR'S PICTURE by Daniel Pinkwater, illus DB Johnson: DB Johnson has a way with idiosyncratic bears. This particular bear is an artist who follows his own muse and says FEH to critics.


JUMPY JACK & GOOGILY by Meg Rosoff, illus Sophie Blackall - The story of the cutest unibrow'ed, plaid pant wearing monster you ever saw, and his snail pal!

DANGEROUS ALPHABET by Neil Gaiman, illus Gris Grimly: Two children, treasure map in hand, and their pet gazelle sneak past their father, out of their house, and into a world beneath the city, where monsters and pirates roam. Grimly's delightfully creepy illustrations will please Junior Goths.

Wow - the Longstockings just pointed me towards the trailer for the movie of Blake Nelson's PARANOID PARK. It is by Gus Van Sant and it looks SO AWESOME.



If you are like me and you enjoy movie trailers, check out the French version. Lots of the same soundbites and clips, but somehow an entirely different feel. Compare et contrast, oui?



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Meanwhile, as long as you are just hanging around waiting for this movie to come out, might as well pick up a book. For some great choices, take a look at the American Library Association's lists: Best Books for Young Adults and Quick Picks for "Reluctant Young Adult Readers" (that sounds so horribly condescending, doesn't it? Whatever, they are still good books.)

Lots of NYMBC guests and favorites made the lists, YAY!

I am so sick of the gross spam on MySpace, I can't take it. I will leave the NYMBC community up, and I'll still update it on occasion, but I am really tired of slogging through 9 million spam messages every time I log on.

In the interest of preserving my sanity, I've started a NYMBC FACEBOOK group! Join us, won't you?