CEFS is a blog and podcast. Established in 2013, we are now a serialized site, with new content generally published monthly. We hope you enjoy!
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @SarahSMoon or tag me on Instagram @sarahbethmoon and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
For the next 2015 List of Awesome, I wanted to spotlight some of the the best comics and graphic novels of the year.
For the first 2015 List of Awesome, I wanted to spotlight some of the fabulous television that I've enjoyed this year. It goes without saying that we're spoiled for television these days--so much so, it sometimes seems overwhelming.
(My apologies for the delay in posting this--it's been a tough couple of weeks around these parts and I haven't been on top of anything.)
I'm happy to host Cordelia Jensen as part of YA Readers' Debut Author Bash event. I read and loved Cordelia's debut, Skyscraping, and am thrilled to introduce her to more readers.
It is hard for me to describe my debut YA verse novel SKYSCRAPING (out this June from Philomel/Penguin) without telling my life story. This is what happens:
“You have a book coming out! How cool, what’s it about?” asks Random Stranger.
I think it’s important to know that I’m sort of a people pleaser. So I hesitate, partly because I think they might want me to tell them a high-concept story summary and partly because what I am about to share feels too personal for this level of exchange.
I've been eager to see what's next in store from this author, so I was super excited to read about her newest novel, Passenger, which sounds equally unique:
This is a pretty freewheeling discussion, with topics ranging from what it's like to work with books professionally (buying books with someone else's money seems like a dream job, but it's also really hard!), library school, how to make book recommendations and some of the more interesting questions she's gotten on Find Your Next Book. It was a whole lot of fun!
We all know that Black Widow is the most awesome lady in the Marvel cinematic universe (ummm... can we talk about what they did with her character in the last Avengers movie, because I have THOUGHTS) and we are thrilled to partner with our friends at Big Honcho Media to give away a copy of Margaret Stohl's the new book Black Widow: Forever Red along with a $50 Visa gift card to get your Black Widow costume on. Enter below using our easy-peasy Rafflecopter form.
Obviously, Laura was right. Which is additional evidence that you should just listen to Laura the first time. Mr. Robot is one of the most interesting shows I've watched in a long time, and one of the hardest to talk about. Because, you see, it's a show ostensibly about hackers. But it's also about a whole lot more. It's about mental health and perception and corruption and corporate greed and a whole bunch of other things.
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @SarahSMoon or tag me on Instagram @sarahbethmoon and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
Duh. Pineapple is awesome. People who don't like pineapple are untrustworthy. Pro tip: Put your pineapple on the grill and brush it with honey. It is amazing. Also, if you are one to partake in Jamba Juice on occasion (as one does), ask for a Razzmatazz, no banana (because banana is the devil's fruit, obvs), add pineapple. You'll never go back to standard Jambas.
Reading has been tough this summer--I took on some huge projects that have competing deadlines and that means my eyeballs aren't too happy with me by the end of the day, so I haven't been reading as much. Plus I've been (intentionally) checked out from a lot of the book chatter online, so I haven't been as on it with regard to what's new and buzzed. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)
Onward to the recommendations!
Instead of defending romance books to those who’ve never read one, I’d like to say this instead: grow up. The categorical dismissal of the most-read genre in the world reveals ignorance, not intellectual superiority. This is a billion-dollar industry, and it’s not built on vapidity and cliché. It exists and thrives because romance authors offer readers an emotional experience that mirrors an elemental desire in life: to find a constant and loving companion; to become our best selves; to forgive our mistakes of the past and learn from them.
But, I have been reading and posting some quick thoughts on Instagram, but since most of you aren't over there, I thought I'd share some of my recent reads over here with recommendations for who'd like them. Enjoy!
Nafiza is one of the smartest ladies in the bookish blogosphere, complete with a Masters in Children's Literature, and we're so happy to have her join us for this discussion. If you'd like to hear more from Nafiza (and you really should), visit her online at Bibliographic Monologues and The Book Wars and check out all her smarty pants tweets at @Nafizaa.
I coined the term "nostalgia lit" on a podcast episode a couple years ago, and I'm generally a fairly reluctant about books set in near history, but Skyscraping is a wonderful example of this particular almost-contemporary setting.
