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Lauren Oliver’s second book for middle grade readers, THE SPINDLERS, is for sale in bookstores all over the country today, and we’re going to just go ahead and brag that it has already received FOUR starred reviews!

Download our FREE Discussion Guide for THE SPINDLERS here!

If you love a sweeping, classic, spooky, funny, and plucky adventure (and who doesn’t?!), then this one is for you. Check out what the experts had to say:

“Oliver’s magical, mesmerizing quest affirms the saving power of story, friendship, and love.” -Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

“This imaginative fantasy emphasizes individual initiative and the power of hope and friendship. Below is a fully realized alternate world with echoes of both classic literature and mythology.” -School Library Journal, starred review

 ”Richly detailed, at times poetic, ultimately moving; a book to be puzzled over, enjoyed and, ideally, read aloud.” -Kirkus, starred review

 ”Oliver’s fluid, poetic prose elevates this tale above the genre, often imparting weight to the simplest sentences. Similar in its action and pacing to Collins’ Gregor the Overlander but with the emotional resonance of Ursu’s Breadcrumbs, this is sure to win over middle-grade readers.” -BCCB, starred review

A regular on the top banned and challenged books list, ANGUS, THONGS, AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING by the fabulous Louise Rennison has a cult following (um, include me in that cult!).  The book has been challenged for a multitude of reasons: age inappropriateness, profanity, and sexual content.  It has also made the Top 100 list, which we can’t help but consider a distinction!

Today’s booktalk is by the uber-fabbity-fab Sarah Bean Thompson, librarian and blogger (GreenBeanTeenQueen).  She’s also on the 2013 Printz committee!  She’s a fan of Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson stories and contributed a booktalk that you can use all year long in your programming:

Join Georgia Nicolson and The Ace Gang for a fabbity fab adventure through the craziness of high school.  Georgia is madly in love with the sex god, Robbie.  Too bad Robbie has a girlfriend who happens to be the annoying wet Lindsey.  Georgia knows that she could get Robbie to fall in love with her if only she had the chance.  And if high school and love triangles weren’t bad enough, Georgia has to deal with her fat cat Angus who is always causing problems and her embarrassing three-year-old sister who is not as cute as everyone thinks.  Georgia’s adventures are always full of laughs as her entries into her diary recount her attempts to survive school, boys, and big noses.  Growing up is never easy, but at least Georgia Nicolson manages to make it fun.

Thanks, Sarah, for joining us!  For additional info to support your programming and curriculum, check out the Georgia Nicolson reading guide.  I’m also a bit of an evangelist for the Georgia Nicolson website so check that out for a glossary, the complete snogging scale, and quizzes.

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with the trailer for the the ANGUS, THONGS, AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING trailer:

Kirsty expertly handled link love last week so some of these links are a week old- but I think they are still relevant. So get busy procrastinating!

Web 2.0 isn’t exactly democratic but does it matter if it works?

Jeff Jarvis’s tribute to twitter.

A visual tour through 79 years of Best Picture awards. My favorite poster is GiGi. (more…)

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David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here, to read more posts by them click here.  In the post below they bid farewell to Mike Huckabee.

On Tuesday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee finally gave up on his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination. Let us be among the first to say good riddance. (more…)

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Mark Peters, the genius behind the blog Wordlustitude in addition to being a Contributing Editor for Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, a language columnist for Babble, and a blogger for Psychology Today, is our guest blogger this week. Below Peters encourages us to make old words hip again.

Did you hear about the nude pictures of Lindsay Lohan and Roger Clemens drinking a human growth hormone/grain alcohol smoothie?

You have? Then let me tell you what my brother’s nanny has been up to with your father’s mechanic in the gazebo. (more…)

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I love ghost stories. And I mean ghost stories, rather than horror stories. If truth be known I am the world’s most squeamish person. I really do hate the sight of blood, which is the only reason why I haven’t seen Sweeney Todd yet. Anyway, enough of my foibles. I have been looking for an excuse for posting an excerpt from our book Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story, by Peter Marshall, for ages, but so far haven’t been able to come up with one. So, today I am posting it for no other reason than I really loved this book of literary detective work, and I hope you will too. Enjoy!

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There has been much in the UK news about Prozac and other anti-depressants over the last couple of days. This is because of a recently released study from the University of Hull, which suggests that some of these drugs might not be as effective as we have been previously led to believe. With over 31 million prescriptions being given out for these drugs in England alone, this is a grave statement indeed. In light of this study, this morning I’m bringing you an extract from our book Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle, which sheds a little light on the history of Prozac and other “happy pills”.

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It may be called the International Polar Year, but it actually runs for two years. This time it is March 2007 to March 2009, so we’ll shortly be right in the middle of it. The IPY involves over 200 projects in the Arctic and Antarctic, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. I was reading about this recently, and saw that the BBC website is running its own Antarctic Diary to coincide with the IPY. This put me in mind of OUP’s edition of Robert Falcon Scott’s Journals, edited by Max Jones, so I thought today I would bring you an excerpt from the last chapter: The Last March.

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Hinche, Haiti

Coordinates: 19 9 N 72 1 W

Population: 23,599 (2003 est.)

People travel for many reasons, but a chance to sample local or “authentic” cuisine often weighs heavily in the decision-making process. In my own peregrinations I’ve sampled stir-fried insects in Thailand, whale carpaccio in Norway, and stink tofu in Taiwan: all things that are harder to come by in the U. S. of A. An uncommon foodstuff that I haven’t tried however, can be purchased for next to nothing in the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. (more…)

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David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here, to read more posts by them click here. In the post below they look at Huckabee’s recent attack on the press.

With John McCain looking to wrap up the Republican Party presidential nomination, challenger Mike Huckabee is just looking for a way to remain relevant. Earlier this week, Huckabee tried going on the attack against a familiar target: the press.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters from the Christian Science Monitor, Huckabee decried journalists’ focus on his religious background, saying: “There has been an attempt to ghettoize me for a very small part of my biography. The last time I was in the pulpit was 1991.” (more…)

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Last week David D. Perlmutter, a professor in the KU School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and author of Blogwars, took a look at whether book authors should blog. This week he investigates the influence of bloggers on “the people.” Be on the lookout for Blogwars which examines the rapidly burgeoning phenomenon of blogs and questions the degree to which blog influence–or fail to influence–American political life. Read Perlmutter’s other OUPblog posts here.

In Blogwars I compile much survey data that shows that people who blog about politics, as well as the readers and commenters—interactors—of political blogs, are not “the people.” That is, they are not a true cross-section of America: They tend to be male, white, upper income, higher education. But even if blogs are not vox populi, it does not follow that, as blog critics love to taunt, bloggers are the tinfoil-hatters of American political life. To the contrary, while bloggers may not be the people, there is growing evidence that they have an extraordinary and extra-proportional effect on the people, and on politics, campaigns and elections, public affairs, policy-making, press agendas and coverage, and public opinion. (more…)

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In honor of President’s Day we asked Mark McNeilly, author of George Washington and the Art of Business: Leadership Principles of America’s First Commander-in-Chief as well as Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers, to reflect on what our original President would think of the current elections. The views he expresses are his alone and are not meant to represent those of any company or institution with which he is affiliated.  Who do you think Washington would have voted for?

“The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant…” So began George Washington in his Farewell Address to the nation in September of 1796 as he prepared to finish his second term as President. Knowing he did not want to have a third term in office, Washington used his Farewell Address to provide advice to the citizens of the fledgling nation by offering “…some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.” Looking back at this and other writings of Washington, as well as his actions in history, we might surmise what he may have thought of the upcoming election. (more…)

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Santiago, Chile

Coordinates: 33 26 S 70 40 W

Population: 5,623,000 (2007 est.)

For Chileans, February 12th marks an important moment in the history of their country. On this day in 1541, Pedro de Valdivia, a Spanish conquistador, founded Santiago de Nueva Extremadura on Saint Lucia Hill overlooking the Mapocho River. Present-day Santiago eventually grew to fill most of the basin of the same name and currently ranks as the sixth largest city in South American and the tenth most populous in the Western Hemisphere. (more…)

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Good morning everyone. I thought I would share some of what I learned at the first day of Tim O’Reilly’s Tools of Change Conference. I took an enormous amount of notes but to be honest the most important thing I heard all day was that Publisher’s Weekly has partnered with Netgalley to allow publishers to send and track galleys electronically. This is huge. Galley production is not only expensive but it is also wasteful. Many if not all galleys end up in the garbage and it is, therefore, difficult to know if they are actually reaching the desks of reviewers. Hopefully, with Netgalley, publishers will be able to cutback on the amount of paper they waste creating galleys and further encourage the publishing industry to go green.

There is your public service announcement for the day. (more…)

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Evan’s post last week, Do I Believe in Ebooks?: Part One, stimulated some interesting conversation in the blogosphere and I hope that Part Two, his bold recommendation, will encourage all of us to reconsider the potential of ebooks. I will be at the Tools of Change conference today and I hope some of my fellow attendees will share their opinions with me both in person and in the comments section below.

By Evan Schnittman

In my last posting I promised to delve into my vision of the evolution of ebooks and in doing so offer a dramatic proposal to make them more mainstream and more widely used. I propose that an ebook license be granted as part of the purchase price to anyone who buys a new print book. Yes, you read correctly; the ebook is free with a new print book purchase. (more…)

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Former Republican Congressman, founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and national chairman of the American Conservative Union, Mickey Edwards is the author of Reclaiming Conservatism: How A Great American Political Movement Got Lost- and How It Can Find Its Way Back. In the post below Edwards refutes the claim that John McCain is not a real conservative.   Read more posts by Edwards here.

(Please note: I know Romney well, having worked in his gubernatorial campaign and later joining him frequently at Republican fundraising events in Massachusetts. I know McCain, too, having served with him in Congress. I have not, however, endorsed any candidate in this year’s presidential primaries.)

With Mitt Romney out of the race for President, the narrow circle of self-designated “spokesmen” for conservatism will find themselves growing ever more frantic in their desperate search for a candidate who can somehow stop John McCain’s march to the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. McCain’s apostasy, they contend, is that he is not a conservative and, in the words of Mr. Romney, “outside the Republican mainstream.” (more…)

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Ethan Rarick’s Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West is an intimate portrait of the Donner Party and their unimaginable ordeal in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Rarick, in researching his book, decided to retrace as much of the Donner’s trip as he could. In the interview below with radio host Dorian Devins,  Rarick discusses his journey. Hear other Rarick clips here.

Transcript after the jump. (more…)

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By Kirsty OUP-UK

With Oscar season in full swing it seems fitting that this month’s Very Short Introduction column comes from Patricia Aufderheide, author of Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. Patricia is a professor in the School of Communication at American University, Washington DC, and in the past has served as a Sundance Film Festival juror and as a board member of the Independent Television Service. Regular OUPblog readers will also have read Patricia’s previous posts for OUPblog here, here and here.

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It’s not everyday I have an author who has written about blogs agree to post on the OUPblog! Today,  David D. Perlmutter, a professor in the KU School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and author of Blogwars, lets us know how truly bizarre it is to transition from penning a book to penning a blog post.  Be on the lookout for Blogwars which examines the rapidly burgeoning phenomenon of blogs and questions the degree to which blog influence–or fail to influence–American political life.

I begin my new OUP book Blogwars by claiming, only half facetiously, that there are good reasons not to write a book on blogs. New stuff is happening so fast, that it’s hard to keep up.

But that is the point: A blogger’s work is never done, nor, I hope, is that of a student of blogs. Bloggers cannot coast or rest on their laurels; their readers will abandon them or, worse, ask why they are failing them. Blogs are always unfinished, their work always to be continued, revised, and extended later. Books are supposed to be different. In a sense all books are orphans. Only in some screwball comedy movie is it possible for an author to change his mind and run into bookstores and add new material. (more…)

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By Anatoly Liberman

This is a story of the naked but not necessarily the dead. Traveling through time, we notice the same grim custom: a defeated enemy or a prisoner of war may be killed or stripped of everything he wears before (and sometimes instead of) being murdered. Reports gloat over the details. Marauders search for good clothes and valuables on the battlefield and care little for the indignity with which they are treating corpses, but it was the ability to humiliate the survivors that gave the greatest joy to the winning party. The shame of being left naked clung to the victim forever, and it was worse than death. With amazing regularity the languages of the world show that the similarity between robber and robe is not fortuitous, that those words are indeed related. (more…)

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By Evan Schnittman

Recently I was on an airplane reading an article in the New York Times when the woman in the seat next to me leaned over and asked what I was holding. I told her it was a Kindle, Amazon’s new ebook reader. I showed her how it worked, explained e-ink, walked her through my collection of titles and subscriptions, and showed how I could look up words in the built in Oxford dictionary. Her response; “That is really cool, but I prefer the feel and smell of a real book.” (more…)

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One of the hardest things to do in any job is to watch co-workers, who have become your friends, leave. Darren Shannon, OUP Senior Publicist, is leaving and it is a sad day here. This is not to say that I am not truly excited for him, his new job his is a promotion he deserves and Cambridge is very lucky to get him, but nevertheless, the desk across from mine will now be empty.

Darren has kindly offered to share a bit of his infamous wit and wisdom on the blog with us today and below is his “goodbye” post. Perhaps it will help you, dear readers, understand what a wonderful person Cambridge is gaining.

The story I always like to tell about Oxford University Press is about something that happened during my job interview. I interviewed with our esteemed Publisher, Niko Pfund, and my soon to be manager, Rudy Faust – an intimidating duo to say the least.

As our meeting came to an end, I asked them what qualities they were looking for in the person who would fill the job for which I was applying.

“We want someone who’s polymath,” Niko said.

“Yep. Polymath,” Rudy agreed.

Polymath… Polymath… Polymath… I didn’t remember taking that in college. (more…)

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Former Republican Congressman, founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and national chairman of the American Conservative Union, Mickey Edwards is the author of Reclaiming Conservatism: How A Great American Political Movement Got Lost- and How It Can Find It Way Back.  In the post below Edwards considers the Republican nominees and the voters who may elect them.  Read Edwards other OUPblog posts here.

John McCain’s victory in Florida’s Republican presidential primary (or, more accurately, Mitt Romney’s loss and Mike Huckabee’s distant fourth-place finish) illustrate once again – as did Rudy Giuliani’s once dominant lead in earlier national polls – that many outside observers, including most of the nation’s most prominent political reporters, have no clue as to the party’s real electoral base. (more…)

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