Highlights from BEA

I just came home from a great week in New York, where I attended Book Expo America. I arrived in New York on Thursday May 31st, just to get some more days to do sightseeing and just experience New York. Here are some pictures from the actual event, I will do a post on books later.

Outside the Javits:

The line to get into the floor when it opened, were insane. If you wanted to get a good spot in line, you needed to be there early, like seven in the morning. Some even came at 6.30:

There was also a huge line to get into the breakfast at the BEA Bloggers Conference (BBC). I had gotten a wrong message about when the registration opened, so I was there early:

The sign at the entrance of the BBC - area:

I was not that fond of the BBC this year. Some of the speakers were, in my opinion, too eager to push their own books on us. I also did not like how the networking breakfast and lunch turned out. We were told in advance that we could sit on tables according to the genre that we reviewed and were interested in, but it turned out that the tables also were visited by authors from other genres, like non - fiction. They did not limit the tables to one genre. Also there were not enough tables to everyone intererested in a particular author or genre. If you were late, you could not choose freely where to sit.

I got to meet a lot of great authors at the show. Here are some of them:

Ruta Sepetys:

I love her book Between Shades of Grey ( if you have not read it, you need to), and she was the author I was most excited to meet at the show. I also was one of the first 100 in the line and got an ARC of her upcoming book Out of the Easy, which is due out in January 2013. One of the books from BEA I am most excited for.

Suzanne Lazear: 

Look at that gorgeous outfit. Suzanne makes her debut with Innocent Darkness in August this year, and I went to her signing and got a signed ARC. So happy for that!

Melissa Marr:

The buzz for Carnival of Souls was big, and the line to attend her signing at the HarperCollins booth were insane. I did not get a signed book, but I stood in line for the galleydrop of the same book, and managed to get a copy.


Flash mob outside the floor, before BEA opened that same day:

Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate:

Their new book, Eve & Adam,  is due out in October, and I can't wait to read it.I was happy to get a signed copy.

Marie Lu:

I waited in line for over an hour to get a signed copy of Prodigy. I also got to talk to Marie at the networking breakfast at the BBC.

Victoria Schwab:

I met Victoria Schwab in the line for the galleydrop of Falling Kingdoms, and she was so sweet. I bought a copy of The Near Witch earlier this year, and now I am even more eager to read it.


Becca Fitzpatrick:

They revealed the cover for the final installment in the Hush Hush series on Wednesday, and Becca signed paperback copies of Hush Hush.

Jo Nesbø:

One of Norway's biggest authors. It was great to see a Norwegian author at the show too. Here he is signing books at the Random House booth.

Karen Thompson Walker: 

I interviewed Karen for my Norwegian blog. Her debut the the Age of Miracles was released in Norway this week, and will be released in English later this month. The book is for adults, but may also appeal to fans of YA. The protagonist is a young girl.

Jessica Khoury: 

The debutnovel Origin by Jessica Khoury was another book that created a lot of buzz at the show. Here Jessica is signing her book.

Another buzz-book: 

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. I was first in line at one of the galleydrops of the book, and was so excited to get an ARC

Power Reader Breakfast at Random House: 

I got invited to attend a breakfast at Random House on Wednesday, and it was an adventure to visit a bit American publishing house. I have never been to one before.

There were a bunch of noteworthy books and classics in glassshelves on the wall:

From the event:

The view was amazing:

Another highlight:


I saw Jane Seymour on the showfloor, and got a little starstruck. She was so pretty in real life:

We could take a picture in the Reached - bubble, but sadly I forgot to do that:

 I also got to meet a lot of great bloggers, like Karen from For What It's Worth and Amber from the Musing of Almybnenr.

All in all I had a blast, and I loved being in New York for the Second time. I visited the Strand, Barnes & Nobles and managed to buy 10 books even before the show had started. I will tell you about those books later. Have a great day everyone!

Book Expo America - Recap

First off all I want to apologize for neglecting my blog the past month, but I got completely overwhelmed when I visited Book Expo America, and I have spent some time letting everything I experienced sink in. Aside from that, a lot of other unexpected things happened the past month. One of the best was that my boyfriend proposed. He had been planning the whole thing whilst I was in New York. I said yes, off course. So now we are planning a wedding next year.

But back to Book Expo America. It was an adventure and a great experience, and in this post I will try to recap some of it all.

Book Expo America was my very first vist to the United States, and I had butterflies in my stomach throughout the week before I was going to leave. It was actually a relief finally getting on the plane. From Norway you can take a directflight, that lasts for about 8 hours. During the flight there is movies, games and free magazines you can read. I brought my laptop and watched DVDs with tvseries episodes, I also did some reading in Die for me by Amy Plum (look out for a review of that one soon).

When I landed on Newark, I spent a lot of time standing in lines before I could relax in the yellow cab. I was a bit surprised that the airport was so small, I had imagined it as much bigger. New York on the other hand, was a big city. I have read that New York is the city that never sleeps. My first impression was that New York is the city that always smells. There were smells everywhere, different smells mixed together to something very distinct. I got used to it after a while.

And the sounds, the sounds were everywhere. People talking, sirens, cabdrivers honking their horns, music, laughter... I live in a rural area and is not used to that kind of noise, and I had a hard time sleeping during my stay. I had to turn the aircondition in my hotellroom on to get some kind of sleep. I lived on Times Square, so the sounds were all around me at all times. But I do not complain. I started to smile once I left the airplane, and I continued to smile the whole week. To me, USA have been a country in the movies and on TV, a kind of fairytale country, and it felt so surreal finally to be there.

I spent the first days sightseeing, and visited Barnes & Nobles on 5th Avenue. Here I bought some new books, among them Wither by Lauen Destefano and The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting. On Saturday I picked up my badge for BEA, and visited the Strand. What a great bookstore, if you haven't been there, be sure you visit the shop when you are in New York.

On Monday I attended the Teen Author Carnival, that consisted of four panels:
* Kick ass females in YA: And why it's a big deal to have them.
* Teenage angst: Getting it right - The emotions, the voice, the drama
* Otherwordly adventures: With a bit of the real world thrown in
* Debut author showcase: The journey to publication

I sat in on the panel with the debut authors and the one with otherwordly adventures. Very interesting both of them, and for me a big thing just to get to listen to the authors. Publishing in the United States is completely different from publishing in Norway. In my country you do not need an agent, everyone can submit a manuscript to a publisher and keep their fingers crossed and hope for the best. I specifically remember Scott Tracey's story about his road to publication, and that made me all the more interested in his book.

Author Carrie Jones captured the audience when she talked, she could have been an actress. Bettina Restrepo had a very emotional reading of her book Illegal, I almost started to cry myself, and Michelle Modkin told us that her book is a kind of Romeo & Juliet meets Hitchcock story - she totally sold me on that pitch. I was also so lucky that I won a totebag full of ARCs at the event, I am dying to read all of them.

Books I bought at the carnival:


On Tuesday I got up early and headed to Javits and the Children's Author's Breakfast. Once there I realized that everything people have been saying about friendly bloggers were totally true. I met Lenore from Presenting Lenore in the line, and got to share a table with her and some other bloggers, among them The Girl from the Ghetto. Julianne Moore was lead speaker at the breakfast, and it was a big thing for me seeing her in real life.

I left the breakfast a bit early, because I was going to meet up with another Norwegian blogger. I also got to see the madness once they opened the doors to the exibition floor. I was totally taken aback by the behaviour of some of the attendees. I mean, people were literally running to get inside. I thought for a moment that I was watching a class of young students, not adults. This took me completely by surprise.

I was also shocked by how some people act around free books. People were literally grabbing everything they could get their hands on, not bothering reading on the back of the book. I got pushed by a woman and a man in their fourties and fifties, who had desperation glowing from their eyes while they tried to grab as many copies of Eve by Anna Carey as possible. I got a bit stressed out by this.

I was also overwhelmed. People had told me that there would be a lot of free books, but I had no idea just exactly what that meant. So everytime I visited a booth, I kept asking the publishers - Is this for free? Really? In Norway the publishers never distribute free books like this, so to me this was something completely new and, as I said, overwhelming.

BEA is also all about lines, and I stood in a lot of them. I found out pretty early that it was a good thing showing up an hour or so before the signings, that way I got all the signatures I wanted. On Richelle Mead's signing, I showed up over two hours earlier, and got to be first in line once she got there. That was a big experience.

I was told beforehand that you needed to donate 1 dollar to the publishing industry in the autugraph area, but I never saw anybody doing that. When I did it, people looked strangely at me. I thought that was something everybody should do. Standing in lines to me was one of the best parts about BEA. It was mostly during the lines that I met a lot of fab bloggers, and got to talk to other readers. Thank you to everybody who took their time talking to me, making me feel welcome and giving me a lot of inspiration to blog and read. I found some new blogs that I will be following.

Here are some of the authors that I meet during BEA. :

Ally Condie:

Brunonina Barry:



Maureen Johnson:

Lauren Kate:
Kady Cross:
Julia Kagawa:
Gena Showalter:

In My Mailbox (2)

This weekly meme focus on the books we got our hands on last week and is hosted by The Story Siren.

I have decided to not buy so many books this year. Maybe I told you that last time I did an IMM meme, but I still need to tell myself that some more. I have a lot of great books waiting in my shelfs, ready to be read and reviewed and it is about time I really dig into my reading pile. But, I got some books in the mail this week that I had preordered. I am still waiting for other books that I also have preorderer - mostly books written by debut-authors or books in series I read.

Bought:
Melissa Guibord: Warped
Alexandre Monir: Timeless
Julia Karr: XVI
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Have a great sunday everyone.

Book Blogger Hop 14/1 - 17/1

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books.

This weeks question is:

"Why do you read the genre that you do? What draws you to it?"

I have always been fascinated with the paranormal and things that are not easy to explain. Even from an early age I was drawn to books that featured ghosts and other paranormal creatures. I lent a lot of books about unexplained mysteries at my school library, and even though it scared me I also found it fascinating.

When I became a teenager, I discovered a very popular bookseries here in Norway called The Legend of the Ice People by Margit Sandemo. I was instantly absorbed into the universe she created, a universe with strong female heroines, paranormal creatures and events, love, mysteries and action. I read the whole series ( 47 books) in a few summer-months.

Since that day, I have always liked books that focus on the paranormal but as the years progressed I got a tendency to focus on suspense & thrillers when I chose books. To make this story a bit shorter: Like everyone else I discovered the Twilight phenomenon on the internet and wondered what this hype was all about. I bought and read the books, and even though they are not my favorites I started to buy other books in the same genre and that was the beginning. The first books I read, aside from Twilight, was Fallen by Lauren Kate and Evermore by Alyson Noel. Those two books mean a lot to me now.

I also read suspense & thrillers because I love mysteries, and it is always fun to try to guess who the killer is during the reading. I have always been fascinated with the dark depths in the human mind - what makes people become killers and even serialkillers.

And last but not least I read historical fiction because I am a big history buff. I love to read and learn about other times and I am especially fond of reading about The Tudors, WW2, the Dark Ages and The Victorian Era.

Happy hopping everyone.

Meeting Alyson Noël in Norway

Alyson Noël is in Norway. She arrived yesterday, and will stay until November 30th. And I got the chance to meet her, and not only that, I also did a public interview with her.

Evermore, the first book in the Immortals series, was one of the first books I read in the genres ya and paranormal romance, and one of the main reasons why I started out blogging. I found the book on Amazon.co.uk, loved the cover and the description of the story and preordered it. And when I read the story I knew that this was a series I had to follow. I loved Alyson's writing style and the story of Ever and Damen. It was magical and romantic, dramatic and full of warmth and atmosphere.

This autumn, the first book in the series was published here in Norway,and I have been raving about the books on my Norwegian blog. I also did an interview with Alyson by e-mail prior to the Norwegian release. You can read the interview here. And the book have done great here in Norway. A lot of teenagers and grown ups are buying Evermore and falling in love with it. In 2011, Blue Moon and Shadowland will be out here in Norway.

When I read that Alyson was coming to Norway, I was very excited. It is not everyday we Norwegians get the chance to meet a bestselling American author. I wowed that I was going to attend the booktalk and the signing her Norwegian publisher had set up for her at the House of Literature in Oslo.

A week ago I got a call from her Norwegian publisher, asking if I wanted to be the one to interview her during the booktalk. I could hardly believe my ears, but I said yes of course. I have been working as a journalist here in Norway, that is also one of my educations, but I have never interviewed an author in public, in front of an audience before. I have had butteflies in my stomach all week.

Yesterday I celebrated Thanksgiving with some of my Norwegian friends. We always celebrate thankgiving, because we think it is a great American tradition and a way to get together and remember the year that has gone by. One of my friends is from Britain, so I got to practise my English skills with her all evening.

And today was the big interview and it went well, thanks to Alyson. It was so easy to talk to her. She is such an amazing person, you get that feeling when you read her books, and she is that way in real life too. She is open, warm and not afraid to talk about personal things. It was her first time in Norway, and she has a lot planned. She will attend two signings, and do interviews with the media.

In the interview I focused on The Immortals, and how she got the idea for the series. She told me that the series was born from grief. She lost someone that was close to her, and nearly lost her husband as well. Through Ever she has decribed a lot of the feelings that she delt with.

Ever and Damen are carefully chosen names. She collects unusual names. Damen is actually named after the place where her husband was born.

We talked about the paranormal elements in her books, and she said that she has had some experiences she could not explain - some of them whilst doing the research for The Immortals . She also talked about her childhood, about starting to work very early and about her previois job as a flight attendant. She talked about how her writing day is, her imaginary dog Buttercup and what she does when she has finished a book. ( She used to clean the house, now she goes for a massage or take a pedicure).

There is some major upcoming plans for The Immortals, and you will get the chance to see Ever and Damen's story on a movie or TV Screen some time in the future. If you visit her website in a few days, you will get to read more about it there. She also talked about her last book in The Immortals series, which will be called Everlasting. Alyson is working on a new series, Soul Seekers, which will probably be released sometime in 2012. The story will take place in New Mexico.

We also talked about Miles and Haven and she gave advice to aspiring authors. Afterwards she signed books, and I got a lovely message from her in my copy of Evermore.



It was a great day,and like I said, so nice to meet her. I am also going to meet her tomorrow for another event. And after she has been in Norway, she will travel to Paris.

Going to London - again!

You might remember that I went to London earlier this fall. London is one of my favorite cities to visit, and me and my boyfriend had a great time. I promised myself that I was going to return as soon as possible, and now the plans have been made for a new trip and I am so excited about that.

I am going to visit London in april to attend The London Book Fair. The fair runs for three days, and is visited by publishers from all over the world. I have never been to a book fair this big, so I am pretty excited. And I have to visit more bookshops in London off course, and return to my favorite secondhand bookshop in Bloomsbury.

Bookblogging has also made the headlines here in Norway. Our national broadcaster made a program where they interviewed some bloggers about bookblogging. I was one of them. Bookblogging in Norway is different from bookblogging in the US and Great Britain, and some of the reviewers in the newspapers are not so happy about it. They believe that the bookbloggers are a threat to them. I do not share that opinion. Take the genre YA, for example; there is not a lot of publicity in the magazines or the papers when it comes to books, new releases etc. So, if I want to learn more about this, I have to read other bookblogs. I have found so many great books I never would have known about, if it weren't for blogging.

I could talk for ever about this issues, but instead I am going to show you my dogs.

Say hello to Bogart & Dogbert:

This is Bogart ( 3 years), named after the actor Humphrey Bogart:

And this is Dogbert ( 5 years), named after the cartoon character:


Have a nice week everyone.

I am featured in "Better Know a Blogger"

Today I am featured in "Better Know a Blogger" at Karen's blog "For What It's Worth". She is co - hosting The Ultimate Reviewers Challenge this month.

I am so happy to be a part of that. You bloggers are so creative. There are so many great events out there, and this is one of them. So make sure you check it out. There are great prizes to be won and a lot of surprises. So start reviewing today and join the challenge :)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

This is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila on Bookjourney. In this meme bookbloggers get together to share what they read last week, what they are are currently reading and planning to read this week. One can also post a list over last weeks reviews.

Books I read last week:
Lara Adrian: Kiss of Midnight
I had a very busy week, so I didn't get to read as much as I wanted. But I started some books. Hopefully I will get more reading time this week.

Books I reviewed last week:
I am currently posting a lot of reviews I have posted earlier on my Norwegian blog.
Glass Houses by Rachel Caine ( 5.books)
The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason (5 books)
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton (5. books)

Books I am currently reading:
By Midnight by Mia James
Shadowland by Alyson Noel
Susan Abulhawa: Mornings in Jenin ( I am reading this one in Norwegian)
Colleen Gleason: Rises the Night

What are you planning to read this week?