Reading (and Running) Season

Though September and October are usually very warm months in Los Angeles thanks to the Santa Ana winds, a bit of cloud layer has some Angelenos hauling sweaters down from the top shelf.  Though it never snows and seldom rains, we cherish the changing of the seasons, even if we do have to use our imaginations quite a bit.

For book award fanatics, there's no question that fall is right around the corner.  Not only are the fall books streaming in from publishers, but bloggers have cranked up their engines and have started circling the course.  At Heavy Medal, Nina and Jonathan have gotten their toes wet with some fun, kvetchy posts about too-long books and Over-praised Fantasies with Too Many Capital Letters, plus the expected discussion about Okay for Now's flaws in an otherwise amazing book.  Betsy has given us her fall predictions for both Newbery and Caldecott, adding to my need-to-read list.

 

After resigning from the 2012 Newbery committee last January (full story here), I decided that this would be the year to read whatever the heck I wanted - YA, middle-grade, adult.  As a result, there are big holes in my reading for any one list, be it Printz or Newbery.  On the other hand, it's been a LOT of fun trying to catch up on my adult reading.  I keep notebooks for jotting down adult titles as I read PW, Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus, and I'm now only two notebooks behind, having finally caught up to 2009.

That said, it may be time to toss those notebooks away and focus on Newbery and Printz-eligible titles for the remainder of the year.  Oh, but first I've got to read The Magician King by Lev Grossman!  And Vernor Vinge's The Children of the Sky...

Hmm, this may be another year when I end up not having yet read the Newbery winner, ignominious as that is.

LA Roadrunners

By the way, it's the start of the running season, too - and thanks to our library system being open on Mondays again, my Saturdays are now mostly free to run with the LA Roadrunners again.  Meep meep!