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The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has put together their list of nominations for Best Books of the Year. This list is soooo long. Can't we just go ahead and give it to John Green's Paper Towns? Maybe I'm a little biased because the Nerdfighter event was my favorite teen program this year, but it is indeed a great book as well.
What are your favorite books of the year?
Have you finished all the Twilight books and aren't sure what to read next? Are you looking for a gift for that vampire-lover on your list? Here is a list of Twilight Readlikes!
• Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz: Select teenagers from some of New York City’s wealthiest and most socially prominent families learn a startling secret about their bloodlines.
• Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde: When sixteen-year-old Kerry Nowicki helps a young man escape from a group of men who claim he is a vampire, she finds herself faced with some bizarre and dangerous choices.
• The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce: The servant girl Aeriel must choose between destroying her vampire master for his evil deeds or saving him for the sake of his beauty and the spark of his goodness she has seen in him.
• Fell by David Clement-Davies: In Transylvania during the Middle Ages, Fell, a lone wolf with unusual abilities, learns that his destiny is entwined with that of one human, fifteen-year-old Alina, whose mysterious origins have villagers believing she is a changeling.
• The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding: In a world similar to Victorian London, Thaniel, a seventeen-year-old hunter of deadly, demonic creatures called the wych-kin, takins in a lost, possessed girl and becomes embroiled in a plot to unleash evil on the world.
• Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes: In a land that has been at war so long that no one remembers the reason for fighting, the shapeshifters who rule the two factions agree to marry in the hope of bringing peace despite deep-seated fear and distrust of each other.
• House of Night Series by P.C. Cast: In 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres not only exist but are also tolerated by humans. Those whom the creatures "mark" as special enter the House of Night school where they will either become vampyres themselves, or, if their body rejects the change, die.
• The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle: In nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to be his bride and queen.
• Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt: When Lord Death comes to claim sixteen-year-old Keturah while she is lost in the King’s Forest, she charms him with her story and is granted a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek her one true love.
• Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn*: While staying at the remote and reputedly haunted Maine Inn run by her father and pregnant stepmother, sixteen-year-old Cynda feels increasingly isolated from her father’s new family and finds solace in the attentions of a charming but mysterious guest.
• The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause: A mysterious teenage boy harboring a dark secret helps Zoe come to terms with her mother’s terminal illness.
• Thirsty by M.T. Anderson: From the moment he knows that he is destined to be a vampire, Chris thirsts for the blood of people around him while also struggling to remain human.
• Uninvited by Amanda Marrone: When rejection comes back to bite you… Jordan’s life sucks. Her boyfriend, Michael, dumped her, slept his way through half the student body, then killed himself. But now, somehow, he appears at her window every night, begging her to let him in.
• Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber: Sixteen-year-old Raven, an outcast who always wears black and hopes to become a vampire some day, falls in love with the mysterious new boy in town, eager to find out if he can make her dreams come true.
• Vamps by Nancy A. Collins: At an elite vampire prep school in Manhattan, sixteen-year-old vampire socialite Lilith seeks revenge against Cally, a new student and “New Blood” Lilith holds responsible for the death of her close friend during a dispute that attracted heavily-armed Van Helsings.
• Wounded by Stephen Cole: Sixteen-year-old Tom Anderson and seventeen-year-old Kate Folan try to escape Kate’s werewolf family- and fight becoming werewolves themselves- by making a cross-country journey in search of a mysterious man who might have a cure.
From my years of working in college radio, I think that my favorite part of any year-end are year-end music lists. The lists on Pitchfork have just started coming in, particularly this gem: The 100 Best Tracks of 2008. I know that back in the day, I used to be more concerned about "best albums," but the way that I buy and listen to music now is much more song-based, so I am really digging this list.
They do have a ton of my favorite tracks of the year in the list. Estelle's "American Boy?" #10. Kanye's "Love Lockdown?" #39. Deerhunter's "Nothing Ever Happened?" #6. Hercules and Love Affair's "Blind?" FREAKIN' #1. And Fleet Foxes is all over that list.
But I have to take issue with #30... They give props to MGMT's "Time to Pretend," but fail to give a spot to their MUCH CATCHIER song "Electric Feel." WHAT GIVES, PITCHFORK? This is my JAM. Aeroplane and Justice even did awesome remixes of this track. C'mon. To prove my argument, I will even post a video of one of those animitronic bands at Chuck E. Cheese playing the song to show just how AWESOME it is.
What are your favorite jams of the year? Leave a comment!
