Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Essentially, people share what books that they got in their mailboxes over the past week. I think it’s much more exciting to talk about all the books I purchased, gifted, or received. Unfortunately I can’t find an exact description of Mailbox Monday, but I think it’s okay for me to show you all the books I got last week!
I received this box from Daniel Wagstaff. Dan tweeted about having a few packs of YA books from Penguin Group USA. I figured I’d give them a shot since I’ve enjoyed a lot of YA in the past. They arrived in this classy slipcase with five young adult titles all from different genres:
- The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller (YA Romance) release date: August 2010
- The Replacements by Brenna Yovanoff (YA Horror) release date: September 2010
- Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (Paranormal YA) release date: October 2010
- Matched by Ally Condie (Dystopia YA) release date: November 2010
- Sapphique by Catherine Fisher (Fantasy YA) release date: December 2010
My sister is going to Moncton University in New Brunswick for the summer to learn French through the Explore Program. I went to one of my favourite used bookstores downtown, MacLeod’s Books, and asked the owner for some recommendations. I asked if there were any New Brunswick authors who had written some fiction that represented the Maritime provinces well.
It wasn’t until he found some books by Antonine Maillet that we discovered a gem. Antoinine Maillet was born in New Brunswick and received her BA from Moncton University. I found copies of Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979) in both French and English and thought it was perfect.
While I was in MacLeod’s, I couldn’t help be sucked in by some more amazing Canadian literature. These are all titles I’ve been meaning to find for a long while. I am now the owner of The Outlander by Gil Adamson; Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, a memoir by Evelyn Lau; and Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards.
May 31, 2010 at 11:54 am
Sigh…I know it isn’t the point of this post, but I was struck by the genre of the 5 YA books in the nifty box set; Paranormal, horror, and dystopia…what view of life are we asking our young to focus on these days? I don’t object in princial books on these subjects, but it does seem that they dominate the YA market, both in print and on screen.
May 31, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I definitely think there has been a resurgence in Paranormal as part of the “regular” YA crowd with Twilight and that whole bandwagon.
However, I think dystopian novels are quite common — think Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, etc — and I think that The Hunger Games trilogy really brought that idea back into a YA setting.
Either way, I’m going to keep an open mind until after I’ve read them.
May 31, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I hadn’t heard of any of them except the very last few…
May 31, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Runaway was Evelyn Lau’s memoir that brought her into the literary scene (and she’s from British Columbia!!)
Mercy Among the Children has won numerous awards and The Outlander was published a few years ago and has been getting great reviews.
June 8, 2010 at 6:46 am
Nice batch of books.