I'm today's stop on Rachelle Rogers Knight's Traveling to Teens tour for her new reading journal, READ, REMEMBER, RECOMMEND FOR TEENS. I shared my impressions of the journal earlier today, and now I welcome Rachelle for an interview.Your reading journal places a lot of focus on award winners. Do award lists help you yourself select what to read?
I am very picky about what I read, and because I have limited time to devote to reading I feel strongly about reading really 'good stuff'. I love the awards lists - because the highest literary critics and academics in the land have spent countless hours pouring over the latest books to find the "best". This saves the rest of us readers from having to pour over the same books - we get to go right to the cream of the crop and read the best.
Not only do I like the award lists, but I think the finalist lists for those same awards are equally if not more important as a source of reading recommendations. It is hard to conceive of just one 'best' and the finalist lists offer more of a great thing. When I go back over my reading, I have read more of the finalists than the actual winners in some cases.
What resources (other than awards lists) do you use to find book recommendations? Are book blogs important to you? What do you look for in a book blog?
I get recommendations from a myriad of sources including newspaper reviews, online reviews, magazine articles and book blogs. When choosing blogs for my own personal reading, I look for blogs with similar tastes to mine with quality reviews that don't give away too much of the story.
Now that you've been getting user feedback on the journal, is there anything you'd do differently in an updated edition?
I think we may try and increase the number of pages in some of the sections. This is more of a publishing concern, but it is something I will definitely chat with Sourcebooks (my publisher) about. It is a hard balance to include the lists I wanted to include as well as all of the other sections - but not make it too large.
You seem like a very organized person. Is there an any area of your life is chaotic at all?
I wish I could be as organized in every other part of my life as with my books.
My reading life is very important to me - my means of escape at the end of each day. I think it's the one area I feel I have complete control. When I created the fiction journal, it was just for me - I needed some way of keeping this very important pastime organizing, because I didn't want to waste a single, precious minute of my few hours of reading searching for a list or a good recommendation.
Thanks Rachelle! Rachelle has a giveaway of one copy of her journal especially for Presenting Lenore readers. Please follow this link to enter! I'm not sure if this is for international readers as well, but go ahead and enter. Giveaway closes on May 21, 2010.
Find out more about the book at http://www.bibliobabe.com/.
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7 comments:
Thanks for the interview - it's nice to know that the author isn't organized in every aspect of her life - that makes me feel better!
It seems there is a discrepancy between what you posted today with a bad review, an author interview, a book giveaway and your "Bloggers Behaving Badly" post.
Here's what you say a good blogger should never do:
-Ask for a copy of their book to give as a prize after you’ve given their book a bad review.
-Ask an author to do an interview with you when you haven’t read their book or did not like their book.
-Trash an author’s book to punish them for not giving into your demands (because you weren't listed?)
Judy: She did not "trash" her book because she was not listed. Didn't you bother to read the whole review? Also, just because she does not like it...does not mean that someone else would not enjoy it.
Lenore: I loved the review, and the chance to hear the author's take on the book. Thank you.
Hi Judy,
I'm happy to clarify your points!
- I did not ask for a copy to give away, nor I am I the one giving the book away. You'll notice the book giveaway is hosted on the author's site.
- I am doing the interview as part of a blog tour that was schelduled before I even saw the book.
- I am not trashing the author's book at all, but merely posting my personal reaction to it. I never demanded that the author list my blog, nor do I demand that she do so in the future. Plus, if you read my reaction closely, there are a lot of parts I like about the journal, and I even said I would buy a fancier, pricier version of it. I also said that even though it may not be the ideal journal for me personally, people who don't read as much should quite like it.
I think it's attractive, fun, and informative - so I am not really sure why you think I'm trashing it. Trashing it would be if I said "This book sucks and no one should buy it." And that I definitely did not say, nor do I think that.
Just wondering: do you think any critical statement automatically equals "trashing"?
Good interview! It was interesting to learn a little more about Rachelle. I like the idea of increasing some of the sections. I love to write so the journal pages are a big "woo hoo" to me.
I liked this interview! Though the book doesn't sound perfect, there is a lot to like and I have been considering grabbing a copy for my daughter. She's probably go ga-ga over it! Thanks for posting this!
i'm interested in this book...thanks for the chance to read it :)
karenk
kmkuka at yahoo dot com
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