Po(sey) Sessions

I was nervous starting Matched .  A dystopian young adult novel by a local author does put a little pressure on me.  Though, I didn't like The Maze Runner very much and I don't make too much of a secret about that. When you know you will have a chance to meet the author, look them in the eye, and tell them how you liked their book it can be a little daunting.   From the moment I first saw the cover for Matched I completely fell in love.  I heard about Matched originally when it was sold and I was really excited, but then I sort of forgot about it.  A lot of people were getting Matched at BEA and it just didn't sound that good to me. I know you think I sound crazy right now, but without knowing the concept I thought it was a book about arson or something.  But the moment I first saw the cover I absolutely fell in love with it.   I find it increasingly hard to put into words all the things that I love about Matched .  I guess the most...

Last year I went to LTUE by myself and had a great time.  I am here again at this BYU symposium and this time with Mr. X ! It is interesting to have these things in my life come together.  Last year, shortly after attending LTUE . I dedicated a month James Dashner.  I took some notes from Brandon Sanderson on how one should treat James Dashner, just so you know! This year Brandon wasn’t at LTUE to fuel the fire AND Dashner has achieved his dream of being on the New York Times Bestsellers list. I wanted to repost my first little introduction to Mr. X because I happened to talk about Mr. Dashner quite a bit in it and it seems here we are again at LTUE.  Well James and I are here again, Mr. X is here for the first time.   First of all, what is LTUE?  LTUE stands for Life, the Universe, and Everything and it is a symposium that has been going on for years at BYU. They offer great panels, presentations, readings, and signings.  Today I got to go to a J...

Megan, you disappeared off the face of the Earth and abandoned James Dashner and all of your loyal readers. What happened? Well, faithful audience, I am not entirely sure what happened to me, but I blame Mr. X and maybe you should too. It seems like every spring or pre-spring time speeds up for me and I move through the world in slow motion. I get nothing done but the world races around without me. Days pass, then weeks pass, and it is months later and I am still sitting on the spot on the couch. It isn’t like I completely abandoned my life, but I definitely did not accomplish everything I wanted to for James Dashner month. See after I asked my social life to calm down, well it kind of listened and I guess I wasn’t prepared for that so I started feeling really bored and set out to find my social life again. I really want to thank all the great contributors to James Dashner Month. They really help the illusion that James Dashner is worthwhile in some way. I hope he wasn’t p...

Edward Glaeser is the author of Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us richer, Smarter, Greener, and Happier and is also a Professor of Economics at Harvard.  And just a few nights ago he was a guest on The Daily Show . It was very exciting for me to be reading and reviewing a book and then get a chance to see the author of that book on TV.  It kind of makes me feel a little bit like I am in the know. Glaeser showed a great amount of passion on the show and made me happy that I tracked down Trish from TLC Book Tours to get the opportunity to review this book.  Of course Jon Stewart does give Glaeser a bit of a hard time, but that is to be expected. You can see the interview with Stewart by clicking here .    In both Triumph of the City and on The Daily Show, Glaeser shows his ability to make economics and the history of cities interesting and beyond the dry and bland analysis one would stereotypically expect.  The recent Penguin n...

It has been way too long since I attended the Teen Book Fest and there is so much I still want to tell you. I am hoping over the holidays I will get a chance to catch up on my intended posts.  Today I am going to talk about the author I am probably still the most excited to have met.   Part of the excitement of meeting this author was not knowing she would be there and just the sheer coincidence of it. This author has written a dystopian novel, lives in Utah, and even went to the same college as me.  She attended the Teen Book Fest as an audience member, like me, and happened to sit three rows directly in front of me.   The author I am talking about is none other than Elana Johnson , author of the forthcoming Possession .  Her book has the MOST AMAZING cover and I seriously cannot wait to read it.  Possession releases June 7th, 2011, so mark your calendars! Here is the cover. I love the white space, the butterfly, the tagline “control or b...