Advance Copy

In this edition of YA Wednesday, we're completely surrounded by the glitz, and the glamour.

Vampire Glam: Breaking Dawn is Here!
(photo courtesy of TheTwilightSaga.com's Flickr photostream from last weekend's launch event in Manhattan)

There's not much else to be said about the hordes of screaming teens at Friday's Breaking Dawn parties. The New York Times had an article about it, and a post on the Paper Cuts blog describing the Stephenie Meyer/Justin Furstenfeld concert, including this insider-y scene:

"A stadium-sized sigh escaped the crowd when Furstenfeld, who writes rather dark, introspective songs, played the delicately acoustic “Hate Me” — but you would have to have read chapter 3 of volume 2, “New Moon,” to understand why."

Lizzie Skurnick continued the coverage in her Chicago Tribune essay, in which she compares the Twilight Saga to The Lost Boys, then goes on to compliment Meyer's unique take on life and the afterlife:

"Meyer understands there's no true meat to her tale without Bella, Jacob and Edward's agony alongside their amazing skills—and no humanity. Bella, like us, is flawed and irredeemably normal. But being blessed with superpowers can be a bummer too."

Glam that inspires us
People magazine interviewed Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen last week about their upcoming coffee table book, Influence.

"We interviewed the people who have inspired us, with the hope that they will inspire and teach others," Mary-Kate said. "We want to explain culturally how ideas evolve."

Chimed in Ashley: "We have filled Influence with the most interesting, challenging, creative people we know--the ones who helped pave the way for us and our generation."

The book, coming out in October from Razorbill (Penguin's YA press), features the Olsen's interviews with people they admire--including fashion luminaries such as Diane von Furstenberg, Lauren Hutton, Christian Louboutin, and of course, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Get some glam for yourself: Hollywood-style
Razorbill also announced on their blog Monday that they're hosting a Zoey Dean's Talent contest, related to the recent YA novel: "where a trendy trio of Hollywood fabettes find their way into the L.A. lifestyles of the rich and talented."

To win a meeting with a Hollywood agent, contestants are posting videos of talents like cartwheels, impressions, and bird calls--or monologues from Talent--for other contestants to vote on. Last day to post is August 13.

There's also a new trailer for the book here, with a small dog that plays with cashmere and a very enthusiastic host that invites you to "Glam on the glitter."

From chapter one:

"Mackenzie Little-Armstrong held her iPhone high above her golden-blond head, pouted, and snapped a self-portrait. She needed to cross-check her outfit. Mirrors could lie. So could camera phones, actually. But they didn't lie at the same time."

Texas Glam: Do teenagers really wear Manolo Blahniks?
I've just started reading Susan McBride's The Debs, book one in a new YA series by the author of The Debutante Dropout Mystery series (with adult titles such as Night of the Living Deb and Too Pretty to Die). It opens with Laura, a girl who's a size fourteen in a clique of Houston debutantes (The Glass Slipper Club) who call anyone over a size eight a "debutank." Laura's fresh off the plane from "camp hellhole," a fitness camp where she didn't lose a pound. There's already a hot guy, a mean girl, and disconnected parents. And French manicures, Blackberries, Louis Vuitton bags, and a Prius (Mary-Kate and Ashley even get a mention on page 8). McBride is having a lot of fun here, as you can tell in The Debs trailer...

and in "The Deb's Ten Commandments": No tattoos. No weird piercings. And no partying...

--Heidi

In celebration of Harry Potter's birthday (who happens to share a birthday with his creator, J.K. Rowling), this morning, millions of Harry Potter fans around the world woke up (or will soon wake up) to some very exciting news: the announcement of the worldwide release of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a very special book of five fairy tales written to supplement the Harry Potter series. In December 2007, Amazon was fortunate to come into possession of one of the original copies and it was our privilege to share images and reviews of this incredible artifact. Available in a standard edition and a collector's edition, which is exclusive to Amazon.com, these new editions of The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be available on December 4, 2008.

The Standard Edition features all five fairy tales from the original The Tales of Beedle the Bard, an introduction and illustrations by J.K. Rowling, and commentary on each of the tales by Professor Albus Dumbledore.

Housed in its own slipcase--made to resemble a wizarding textbook found in the Hogwarts library--the luxuriously packaged Collector's Edition includes metal corners, clasp, and skull; a reproduction of J.K. Rowling's handwritten introduction; commentary on each of the tales by Professor Albus Dumbledore; and 10 additional illustrations not found in the Standard Edition (or the original).

In a press release Rowling said: "There was understandable disappointment among Harry Potter fans when only one copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was offered to the public last December.  I am therefore delighted to announce that, thanks to the generous support of Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Amazon (who bought the handwritten copy at auction)--and with the blessing of the wonderful people who own the other six original books--The Tales of Beedle the Bard will now be widely available to all Harry Potter fans."

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is published by The Children's High Level Group (CHLG), registered charity number 1112575, a charity co-founded in 2005 by J.K. Rowling and Emma Nicholson MEP to make life better for vulnerable children. All net proceeds from the sale will be donated to The Children's Voice campaign.

--BTP

Today at Comic-Con it was announced that the always experimental Stephen King is offering an original 25-episode graphic video adaptation (running approximately two minutes each) of his previously unpublished short story, "N."
Included in his upcoming story collection, Just After Sunset, "N" concerns a shared obsession between a psychiatrist and one of his patients.

Continue reading to watch a preview of "N" or visit the NisHere website for more details. The entire series will be collected on a DVD available in a limited-edition collector's set of Just After Sunset. "N" will also be adapted as a comic book series in 2009. Viewers will be able to purchase "N" online, and in five-episode blocks on Amazon Unbox. The first episode will be available on Monday, July 28, with a new episode shown each weekday through August 29.

King says: "I'm always interested in new delivery systems for stories and always curious about how those systems work with the old storytelling verities. This one, it seems to me, works extraordinarily well."

--BTP

David J. Williams' intriguing Mirrored Heavens is set in a 22nd century in which a space elevator has just been destroyed by a mysterious insurgent group called Autumn Rain. US counterintelligence agents Claire Haskell and Jason Marlowe are assigned to finding out more about Autumn Rain. Superpowers move to the brink of war and Haskell and Marlowe find themselves as much hunted as hunter in this action-packed thriller. The novel comes with glowing endorsements from Stephen Baxter and Nancy Kress, among others. I interviewed Williams recently, via email, to get his thoughts on the future...

Amazon.com: Can you share with Amazon readers where you are as you’re answering these questions?
David J. Williams: Sitting at my desk in my apartment in Dupont Circle, Washington D.C. Where, incredibly enough, the weather is mild enough to allow me to open the windows rather than cower in front of my AC. (Which is probably where I'll be by the time you read this.)

Amazon.com: What is your background, and how long have you been writing?
Williams: The vital stats: born in the UK, but have spent most of my life in the U.S. Former management consultant who's also moonlighted as a video-game writer--worked for Vancouver-BC-based Relic Entertainment, which put out the Homeworld franchise of video games.  And I've been writing since September 2000...though calling what I was doing back then "writing" is to take some liberty with the word.

Amazon.com: What was the spark or catalyst for writing Mirrored Heavens?
Williams: The short answer:  I was desperate to escape the corporate world, and knew I'd better think of something fast before I ended up wondering where the #$# my life went. The longer answer:  I found myself reading a lot of U.S. military planning papers (there's a lot more in the public domain than you might think), and was struck by the extent to which they were anticipating the shifting of the center of gravity of war into space. I started to think about Reagan's SDI initiative, and started to wonder what the world might be like when stuff like that actually becomes possible across the next several decades:  what happens when you really can construct a missile-shield that shoots down 99.9 percent of incoming warheads? What would that mean for strategy? What are the implications of the maturation of speed-of-light weaponry? That led to a future in which a new Eastern superpower arises to challenge the U.S.--and plunges the world into a second cold war that makes the first look like a warm-up act. 

Amazon.com: What are some of the challenges of writing nearly near-future fiction? Most writers either choose a period in this century or far future.
Williams: The biggest challenge is making everything as plausible as possible, while recognizing that you're still going to have folks crawling out of the woodwork nitpicking each and every aspect of your future.  There are people who will sit through endless tales about the singularity and aliens and FTL without batting an eyelid--but claim that Russia might still be a force to be reckoned with a century from now, and suddenly they're frothing at the mouth. But that's an inescapable component of writing about the near-future. It comes with the territory.   

Amazon.com: How does human civilization survive global warming to get to 2110?
Williams: Well, we almost don't. Things stagger downward for pretty much the entirety of the 21st century, until finally the United States and the Eurasian Coalition realize that they've got to put aside their differences and work together before it's too late. (Of course, that's when a new player with a very different agenda hits the scene...)

Amazon.com: What was the most fun about writing the novel?
Williams: They say that Balzac on his death-bed inquired about the health of his characters. That's what's most fun (and scary) about it--the fact that such a delusion is even possible. People who lived in my mind for years and years now live on my pages and in the minds of my readers. 

Amazon.com: What do you see happening in the real near-future of this planet, in terms of politics and globalization?
Williams: Nothing good. I continue to believe that getting into space in a serious way is the only way to break on out of the trap we're stuck in.

Amazon.com: What are you currently working on?
Williams: Building out my website. Which features all sorts of data relating to the Second Cold War and the hunt for Autumn Rain.  Check it out.

The thrills of this year’s star-studded BEA have taken their toll on our team (you know it’s been a rough week when even our most prolific blogger only manages a couple of posts), as has the absence of sunshine (why oh why do we live in this damp, dark city?). Next week folks will be back to regale you with tales from the show floor, including favorite author sightings, interviews, and must-have galleys, but I’m happy to send you into the weekend with my two fave highlights of the trip, including a King and a Prince.

I shoe-horned myself into a spot in the bustling Simon & Schuster booth to chat with the fabulous Susan Moldow (publisher of Scribner) about our beloved Nixonland, a new John le Carre for fall (I’m going to give it a shot this weekend), and a new short story collection by my favorite-of-all Stephen King (check out the just-released jacket!). But that was not the best scoop on King, nor was the news about the impending release of the second Dark Tower graphic novel, or the announcement of the comic series based on The Stand (although that one is pretty good). The best scoop on King was revealed with a wink and a whisper: “He’s working on a new novel. An epic. 900 pages in and he thinks he’s halfway done.” Music to this fan’s ears. I could have floated home--but then I would have missed the Prince party.

And what a party it was. It has been 8 days and 19.5 hours since I walked into Prince’s house (I KNOW!) and I still remember what it smelled like. And because the gift bags included Prince's designer perfume and scented candle, now my house (and I) too can smell that good. Celebrating the September release of his first book, 21 Nights, the party of my year took place on the palatial grounds, hosted A-list celebs (including Cameron Diaz, P. Diddy, Dave Navarro, Seth Rogen), and featured an out-of-this-world performance by the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. I won’t risk irritating non-Prince fans with the play-by-play (although fans can write in—I’ll tell you anything you want to know), but suffice it to say that it was surreal and, well, awesome.

From the glimpse we got at the show, the book is going to knock fans’ purple socks off—a gorgeous package featuring the lush photography of Randee St. Nicholas (see a sneak peek below), poetry and lyrics by Prince as well as a CD (available only with the book) of Prince’s live after-show sessions. And as someone who witnessed a live session, I can tell you the CD alone is worth its weight in gold. --Daphne

We're all back from BookExpo America, the year's big book convention in Los Angeles this past weekend, and trying to dig ourselves out from under. The nets are full of how-was-the-show post mortems (or, judging by the dour mood of some of the reports, pre-mortems); selected keywords include "geriatric," "fearful," "modest," "subdued," and "Ernest Borgnine." I have been saying it was "great," but I'm more of a small-picture guy, and I met a lot of good people and found out about good new books--I'm always amazed and heartened to see a giant warehouse full of book weirdos like me and to see a season's worth of new writing that just might be great.

You spend much of your time there telling everyone else you meet how your show is going, which often boils down to which celebrity authors you have seen on the weirdly democratic convention floor or at the more hierarchical dinners and parties (where the celeb/civilian lines are still not policed they way they are in daily life), so here's my partial list of sightings: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Slash, Salman Rushdie, John Hodgman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Jeremy, Rick Pitino, Lewis Black, Anne Rice, Gloria Allred, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, plus the two big talking-with-dogs debut novelists, Garth Stein and David Wroblewski, standing next to each other. Most in character: George Hamilton, gliding through the convention looking like a South American oligarch-in-exile; Kevin Nealon, there to promote his new book on fatherhood while beleagueredly trying to stuff a diaper bag in the back of his baby's stroller; and James Patterson, who sat across the cafeteria from me with three colleagues and, no doubt, in the time it took me to consume my miserable tuna sub, "authored" his next bestselling manuscript.

No invite for me to the instantly legendary Prince party (where the pint-sized megalomaniac of funk went onstage in his backyard at 2 am), but I did have a good time at the HarperCollins affair on the New York set on the 20th Century Fox lot (no, not that New York set). There I met one of my favorite new author acquaintances, James Lecesne (he recently made his YA debut), who was reminded of the bad years when he had moved from New York to LA for a development deal at Fox that went nowhere. At his lowest points he'd leave his office and head for those fake NY streets, which at least felt a little like home.

But what about the books? As much as it feels like every book ever printed makes it's way through my tiny cubicle, there is always plenty to discover on the Expo floor. Here are a few promising items I came across for the first time:

Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough (September): a very promising pairing of author and subject. Tough keeps showing up in the right places (Harper's and This American Life, plus the wonderful but short-lived mid-early-Internet experiment he helmed called Open Letters), and his first book is about a man social services folks like my wife talk about in nearly godlike terms. The obvious comparison would be Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Dr. Paul Farmer, but I'm sure the stories are too good and too different for the comparisons to go too far beyond that.

The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolano (November): I guess New Directions doesn't post their upcoming releases on our site (or theirs) very far ahead of time: I can't find this listed yet on either site, but I swear a nice woman in their booth told me all about it (and I have a lovely bilingual broadside of one poem, "Godzilla in Mexico," to prove it). It's Bolano's first collection of poetry in English, timed to appear at the same time this fall as his giant final novel, 2666 (which you will become sick of hearing me talk about between now and then). I'm a broken record about Bolano, so of course I'm excited about this, especially since he thought of himself foremost as a poet, not a novelist. But the poems are described as more raw and direct, less ironic than the novels and, well, I do like that irony. We'll see... (Here's an early glimpse.)

Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States by George R. Stewart (July): Speaking of broken records, you've likely heard me before on the lost-classic glories of New York Review Books, and this is a reprint of a typically idiosyncratic and cult-beloved World War II-era reference about just what the title says. With an introduction by Matt Weiland, which makes it a nice companion to the State by State anthology that Weiland and Sean Wilsey are bringing out in September (and that you'll hear more about in this space before long).

Berlin, Book Two: City of Smoke by Jason Lutes (August): I did actually know this was coming, but heard more about it at the show. About 10 years ago Lutes, after his acclaimed comics debut, Jar of Fools, concocted a perversely ambitious followup that he is patiently and brilliantly seeing through: an epic story of artists and revolutionaries in Berlin between the wars, drawn in his meticulous and humane style. Once in a very long while he publishes installments in the almost obsolete indie serial format, but this is only the second of three book-length collections, and the first in eight years. Hooray!

An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, Vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brunetti (September): Sticking with the art comix--Stephen from Yale University Press, whom I'd never met but who saw my name tag and knows what I like (what perfect world is this that I live in?!), buttonholed me to let me know about the second volume of comics (here's the first) collected by the supremely grumpy and funny artist Ivan Brunetti. His taste is fantastic, the production quality is exquisite, the cover is by Dan Clowes. What more is there to say?

Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska by Seth Kantner (came out in April): Kantner's Ordinary Wolves is one of my favorite novels of the last few years: the one-of-a-kind coming-of-age story of a young man raised in a sod igloo in Alaska by his back-to-the-tundra dad, which went beyond the novelty interest of its subject to be a wonderfully observed and constructed book. It was the kind of story that just had to be autobiographical--and was--and Shopping for Porcupine is a sort of nonfiction companion to it: essays on Kantner's life and his wilderness, heavily illustrated with photographs (including old family photos of their sod-igloo days--that's his dad on the cover).

I Am Death by Gary Amdahl (just released): Another book from Milkweed Editions, pressed into my hands at their booth with convincing enthusiasm. Convincing enough that I read the second of its two novellas, "Peasants," on my flight back home from dry LA to wet Seattle yesterday. Enthusiasm confirmed: it's a bitterly funny, spiraling story of office politics gone mostly (and badly) wrong (in whose plot, coincidentally, an annual booksellers convention figures, along with a Jimmy Buffett concert, corporate cartography, and a foam sword). Not only the plot but the individual sentences ratchet forward in relentless and surprising ways: it felt fresh, fresh, fresh, even as it reminded of some mix of Stanley Elkin, Richard Yates, and, obviously, The Office. It left me both elated and filled with self-loathing: what a lovely way to end a short business trip.

Stay tuned this week for more BEA reports and some on-the-floor auhor interviews.

--Tom