Tidbits: Are you Hungry for the Divergent trailer or just drooling over butterbeer and Hobbit pancakes?

Movies and adaptations

• In case you've been camped out under a rock or working out your daddy issues on a deserted island like the stud my new favorite brain vacation show, The Arrow, the new  Hunger Games movie is about to drop, with the requisite frenzy and hooplah.  Here are some things:
• Oh good.  It appears that the crack marketing team at Subway received advanced degrees in not understanding what the Hunger Games is about!  
• Just like the braintrusts behind the Hunger Games summer camp and the plan to make an amusement park.  
• Shockingly, Finnick can't read good.  
• This is the best thing I think we'll all see, all week.  The Sesame Street Hungry Games

• Harry Potter stamps drop on my birthday aka today.  Thank you for the gift, universe!
• Butterbeer...at Starbucks?
• The Hobbit menu is baaaaccccccck, precious! 
• If they take pictures and put them on the cover, it has to happen, right?  Fifty Shades promo pictures (since you've never heard of it before and it needs the all the promotional help it can get).  I can't wait; it's not often to find such high potential to be a fantastic case of the terribles! Go Fug yourself agrees. 
• I'm way too excited by Four's back to wrangle sense into the English language; luckily the ladies at Forever YA have girded their loins against being Pamuked senseless and have done it for us, because you guys....DIVERGENT TRAILER.
• Bad accent, awesome costume alert (how great are those horns?): the trailer for Maleficent is out! 
• I've failed to adequately share just how flippin' excited I am about the upcoming Outlander series (aka my favorite not so secret shame).  Here are somethings that have me in a tizzy:
• Let's start with Jamie.  
• Or better yet, Jamie in the modern day.  Pretty sure that horse is panting. 
• And now Claire.
• And how about Jamie and Claire 2gether 4evah?
• And how about SIXTEEN episodes?  I'm so down.  
• And now this unsurprising yet terrible news from DGabs that she's delaying the publication of the next book in the series. Yet again. This is all I have to say about that.. It's only been like five years...why not make it an even six? (But please don't.)

Books

• Judy Blume's Forever and Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, got a facelift.  Apparently AYTGIMM is being marketed to middle aged lady book clubs? 
• Eric Carle has a beautiful new book about friends titled...you guessed it!  Friends.

Misc and nonsense

• I have more questions than answers regarding an OkCupid first date to go traveling internationally together for a month bringing no luggage, and only plane tickets.  
• All you need to know about why this would make a great gift for a tea swilling book nerd is in the product description, if they were real.  Sadly, it appears to just be an idea in an art portfolio.  All I'm sayin' is...get at me:  
  

  Prologue is a series of fine teas inspired by literary classics. Each canister of loose leaves features a unique blend of flavors that characterizes the novel. The designs on the tins include motifs from the narratives and other elements that are a part of the reading experience. 

• Now I know why I always wanted to wash my hands when I checked in dog-earred Romance novels at the Public Library...If this isn't a case for more eBooks at libraries, I don't know what is! 

Tidbits: Hallowinners

• If you are not a lazy pumpkin carver, like moi, these could prove to be inspiring for you as you ponder what to carve on a pumpkin (that the neighboorhood hooligans will later feast upon/smash).  And by hooligans, I mean squirrels.
• In even more exciting Halloween things, here are 15 Adorably Bookish Pet Costumes!  I'm kind of partial to Max from the Grinch, but Edward Cullen the Cat made me laugh.  
• Litographs has some pretty cool things, what with the text and the books and the art...well played!  Here is the easiest yet cleverest Halloween costume I could come up with.  Especially if you break a slate over someone's head.
• Step out with style, fellow word nerds.  
• In things after my heart, enjoy these 10 great meal ideas from literature.  Perhaps for your next book club?!
• Oh hello, interview with the Divergent ladies on Forever YA! 
• This Case of the Terribles headline kind of writes itself:  Ja Rule wants to write a microwave cookbook.  Fingers crossed, team!  

Tidbits:

Let's play two lies and zero truths: I haven't been hoarding these links since July or anything...it's also not September, and I'm not back at school. 

Mish mash and some bookish things

• I love to hear about things like this pseudo Little Library, real library, book store mashup happening in the Shanghai subway.  It sounds like a library done right! 
• I think I found my how to guide for my Halloween costume!
• I love running, but some days, some days it is hard, juno?!  Thank the sweet baby lord jay-zeus that Book Riot knows about our woes  and made us this handy guide to Fitness for Book Nerds, fellow fitness doing book nerds! 
• You guys already know how I feel about food, but I also think the best karaoke I've ever seen done was to Coolio's Gangsters Delight, in a bar that served jello shots and was best known by it's pet name, Uncle Stabby's. This makes me think investing my $12 of life savings in this venture is a great idea!
• Check out the first six chapters of the lovely Laurie Halse Anderson's upcoming book, The Impossible Knife of Memory. 
• Aziz Ansari is going to write about my, your, OUR life, amigos of my day and age (aka modern romance).  I'm kindasortareallyexcited!

Movies and  TV show galore!

• I was SO excited, I forgot to post about the news that Jamie had been cast in the thing I'm probably most anticipating since the last thing, the Outlander miniseries.  What do you think?!  It doesn't really matter, because DGabs seems to be pumped!
• And then I continued to forget...because they cast Black Jack/Frank Randall, and I missed my opportunity to ask, "Et Tu Brutus?" Such a rookie.
• I think my PopTart will be hella excited about the hills coming back to life - I know I am.  Do I smell a family slumber(less) party, or is that just some kielbasa you started to grill in anticipation?
• Uh - Laura Linney and now (okay, a few weeks ago) Sam Tramwell for Hazel's parents?  Well played, casting director casting a cast right into my heart.  (Except for the incest part.   Still TBD.)
• I'm pretty Undeclared, but it is unlikely chance that I will be able to watch 50 Shades of Grey from anything but behind my fingers while giggling nervously has greatly been increased by the casting news. 
• This trailer is such a tease, but it will prove Divergent to your attention for a moment.   
• Who want to go and cry in a movie theater with me?  This trailer for The Book Thief looks so true to the book, I suspect that will be the case!

Until next time I realize I've been hoarding links, I'm back to school, back to school.  If you need to find me in September, I'll be busy. 

Tidbits (of cheese and other literary goodness)

I'm sorry, two loyal readers, one of whom I'm pretty sure is a spambot! I've been super busy - ALA, work, other job, other things...but in good news, I do have some recipes and reviews forthcoming...errrr...as soon as I get the chance to write them.  I have, however, been hoarding up way, way, old news and things.  You've probably already seen them, but I don't care!  Enjoy them or not; as Captain Planet would say, the power is yours!

Food

• Behold, the greatest post I have ever seen: author and cheese pairings.  I mean...does it get any more fantastic than that?  But I have to ask, why no cheddar cheese pic for Ernest?  
• Do you want to make a chocolate loving librarian very happy?  Give them a library of exotic chocolate bars.
• Enjoy this map of the United States of Burgers, just because it is summer, and you are thinking about BBQs, right? 

Art

•  This artists description says it all ("art inspired by and made from books"), but her method of delivery - finger prints - is really cool!  
• Just because I loved it so much when I came upon it, I'm going to share the best, loveliest watercolor prints that would be great in a kitchen.  Speaking of making a librarian very happy, I happen to know a librarian who loves the olive oil print...

Movies

• Stills from The Maze Runner!  I'm not even in a tither about how much the actors are not 13.  It looks great! 
• However, the kid who just got cast as Jonas in the Jeff Bridges adaptation of The Giver?  He does not look like a preteen.  Just sayin'...
• There's a run on Jane Austen on the interwebs this week!  First, check out the trailer for Austenland, which I'm really, really looking forward to, because OBVI.  Then, check out this gigantic waterlogged statue of Colin Firth's Darcy.  Wouldn't you love to know what he thinks? And more importantly, what happens when birds poo on that super white shirt?

Books

• This is olllld news at this point.  John Corey Whaley - he of the dipples who shared his woodpecker tattoo with us - is coming out with a new book! YAY! The cover art was released, and now haunts my dreams.  #creepydolls
• Best. Manicures. Ever. 
• Are you a demigod?  Do you want to be one?  Good thing we had this talk.  There's a Camp Half-Blood you can attend! Percy Jackson camp, y'all!  Is there one for grownups?  I want to go! (I think I may have posted about this a million years ago, but if I've forgotten, so have you!) 
• There was an EW issue about Divergent!  There were lots of pictures for your eyeballs to feast upon, and the trailer is being released at Comic-Con.  But I've posted the most important information below:

PAMUKED!

Tidbits: Cleanup in aisle Four

Sorry to disappear, dudes.  It was the end of my school year, and Ms. Paperblog had a million things to do.  Luckily, it is now officially summer vacation, so I'll make big noise about how often I'll review and cook, and get sidetracked with hummus, crudite, iced tea, wine, and a book, inevitably dropping the ball while wearing the same outfit daily in my backyard.  Who else thinks that summer vacation plan sounds awesome?!? 

• Why YA Lit matters.
• OH SNAP.  Please check out a snippit from Maggie Stiefvater's follow up ot the Raven Boys which I never reviewed (mama got lazy, kids) but loved): The Dream Thieves!
• I think I saw this incestuous plotline a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...Tee hee, Fault in Our Stars and Divergent get Luke and Leia'd.  But really, the headline for this one is the best part.  
• Speaking of Divergent, Mr. Pamuk has been werkin' out!  I need to clean the drool off my keyboard.  
• The best new home decoration that will soon be gracing my kitchen wall: THIS.  
• And since I need a new make up bag...I don't see why not! 
• If Wall-E and a library had a baby, I'm pretty sure this is what it would look like.  Which is shorthand for "Squeeeee, I want to go to there!"
• The Portrait of a Librarian.  

Tidbits

• Lena Dunham is not a Dauntless.  She's so clearly Candor.  Get it right, EW!
• This is the best letter to an editor this year.  Excellent point, kid.  Kids SHOULD review kids books! 
• NPR Reports do have the best names. 
• 3 New Genres for YA. I can't wait for sexy teen American history.  (Come on already, Diana Gabaldon.)
• YA imprints are the new hot accessory for summer (if you are a publishing company).
• Gender bender!  Maureen Johnson explores how the gender of the author can affect cover design.  Here are some examples of famous covers made over as if the author happened to be the opposite gender.  My favorite?  Lord of the Flies.  Srsly?  That's way creepier than the actual story, faux designer.  Mostly, I think covers reflect the stereotyped audience they are being marketed to, but then again, there's a reason why Joanne Rowling went by JK Rowling...
• We have liftoff!  FINALLY, a trailer that proves Ender's Game is, in fact, happening, and that Han Solo is still out there, somewhere, in space.
• Hahahahollywood, you joker, you.  There is a one in five chance of knowing who these guys on the shortlist to be cast as Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars are (for me).  Am I just old?    

Tidbits

• If there is a stronger case for why Kate Middleton might be the world's communal bestie, I'd like to see it.
• Please meet your potential husbands from YA, kids.  There's some solid choices, but where are Logan from Babysitters Club, Will from Saving Francesca, Judah from Jellicoe Road, Finnikin of the Rock (duh, name in title), Po from Graceling, Sean Kendrick from Scorpio Races, and the only age appropriate one I can come up with, smokin' Joe Solomon from the Gallagher Girls books?!
• Oh hello, badass library predecessors.  Especially you, original sexy librarian with the handlebar mustache.  You work that card catalog!
• If my only quibble is that she's not as blonde as the Tris in my head, then I think I'll survive.  First photo from Divergent, squee!
• Yay! The trailer for Tiger Eyes looks pretty great.  (I totally thought that was Nina Dobrev for a hot minute). 
• I wish I could say I felt less eh about Graceling & co. being optioned...but some things are just so much more enjoyable inside my head, Hollywood.  TBD!
• You guys know my feelings on Little Libraries...so you can imagine the squee that emerged from my heart when I saw the adorableness of this library of miniature books.  Kind of maybe want to join the Miniature Book Society now.

Tidbits

Books and Libraries

• Yesterday the Youth Media Awards were announced.  An as per, I have never heard of the Printz winner at all.  But I am glad that the supremely delightful This is Not My Hat won the Caldecott, and that my fav from 2012, Code Name Verity, scored an honor - so YAY.
• I know libraries have to be innovative in marketing and services to lure in patrons (see below for more examples)...but pole dancing is a new one.
• I think the real question here is how do we get invited? The Netherfield Ball! 
• Since tea + books = <3 nbsp="">it's only natural there is a pairing guide.
• There is no way to read this story about how a small branch library in NYC is checking out an American Girl doll and NOT feel there is something right in the universe.  
• Fact: even puppies love libraries. 

Movies

• So many books turning into movies, guys!  Publishers Weekly has ten of them listed as the most anticipated (3 of which I've never heard of, so...)
• Did not even realize that If I Stay had been optioned, let alone cast!  
• Anna Dressed in Blood was such a false start of a book (started off terrifying, ended with warm fuzzies) that I'm not really that pumped to hear it may be a movie...even though it would probably be decent.  Maybe.  
• After seeing this tidbit about a certain Titantic star taking an interest in Divergent, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the news that she'll be playing Jeanine Matthews.
• The Selection may be a pilot TV show.  Again.  I'm still here, waiting, CW!

Tidbits

Books

• It took me long enough BUT.  Best news ever red alert, via your, my, everyone's favorite Melina Marchetta:
  They’ve also come back into my life at an important time for writing because 24 year old Jimmy Hailler is camping out in my head.  It’s not just his story, but a bit of a four hander and it will definitely be an adult one rather than YA.  It’s interesting that I didn’t know where Jimmy and his life was until I played with circumstances in Froi and Quintana’s life.
  
  JIMMY HAILLER.  JIMMY HAILLER.  Plus, word on the street is soon even us Yanks will be able to hang tough with our favorite knocked-up pink taffeta dress wearing exiled princess, Quintana.  2013 is looking up!
• Meta alert! These works of art (books) have been turned into works of art (sculptures)!
• Things I am maybe embarrassed to totally get: Texts from the American Girl dolls (the OG's not these new poseurs).
• Somehow, I missed this most exciting news about Patrick Ness and the new books he's going to drop on us!  
• I'm one part jealous, one part judgmental (it's a private home, also she spit-shone his grave), and one part sorry for the people who live there now this is up on the interwebs - a blogger visited E.B. White's house in Maine.  But mostly...I want to live there?
• If you enjoyed Partials and want more, check out this preview of the sequel, Fragment.  
• Thank GAWD, DGabs. Fall is just around the corner, right?  Alls I'm sayin' is you best not Robert Jordan us, mmkay?
  
• The thievin' thugs of YA (Elizabeth Wein! Shock me, shock me, shock me, with that deviant behavior!)

Movies

• Divergent casting news about Four (Let's just say I saw a lot of Alex Pettyfer in Magic Mike that I can't unsee in picturing him as Four...)
• Don't really want to jinx it, but Y: the Last Man has a director.  Still think it would be better as a mini-series!
• I had no idea that Robopocalypse had even been optioned as a movie, let alone optioned by Spielberg.  
• Whhaaat? EW has some pictures of Catching Fire up (like four), but all you need to know is this:

"People are just worried that I'm not going to be as sex god enough as Finnick should be. I've literally had four months of eating nothing but chicken and asparagus. I just want a burger and a beer."

He's hungry behind the eyes, guys.  (Incidentally, does this picture remind you of anyone else? A certain pasty, Civil War era YA vampire, perhaps?)

Tidbits: There YA go again, Hollywood

• Remember how excited I was about The Perks of Being a Wallflower being adapted?  WELL.  I finally saw it.  Guys, I am pleased, delighted, relieved, and melancholy.  It was great.  You should all see it!
•  Divergent shops for Four; I feel old because I know who none of those actors are. 
• SO many YAdaptations dropped this week.  Okay, two.  Here are my deep, deep thoughts:
• The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones


Get More: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Jamie Campbell Bower, Movie Trailers, Movies Blog
• First and only complete thought: this looks like it'll be better than I thought the book was.
• File this under: potential for really bad British accents, courtesy of American actors. 
• Why are all YA dark magical movie adaptations exclusively lit by LED through dying ivy?  (I'm sending a meaningful glance your way, Beautiful Creatures trailer).
• No matter how hard Jace's hair tries, it will never not ever be Tim Riggins.  
• The Host


Get More: Jake Abel, Saoirse Ronan, William Hurt, Diane Kruger, Movie Trailers, Movies Blog
• So...this is Gattaca, but younger?
• I firmly believe there needs to be a men of YA charity calendar.  Possibly a related movie, avec Calendars girls.  Luckily, I'm not alone...I double dog dare you not the snicker at The Dudes of YA: a "Lit-Erotic" Photospread.  

Tidbits: Sloppy shuffle sorts the presidents and some adapation news

• The Island of the Blue Dolphins + Archaeology = Paperblog Nerd
• Having never been to Australia, the Jellicoe Road I constructed in my head stands to be corrected by author girlcrush Melina Marchetta's photographs of what she pictures the Jellicoe scenery to look like - which frankly is so much better than what I pictured (which kind of looked like Simba's backyard meets Crocodile Dundee).  Even better?  More news about the moooovvieeeeee! 
• Have you spent the past week in a yurt in Siberia?  Then you probably missed the news that the USA had a big to do about presidents.  So naturally, some YA nerds had a big to do about which USA presidents would be in which Divergent factions.  Which leads me to ask which houses former USA presidents would be sorted into in Hogwarts?  Deep thoughts, guys. 
• Oh, hello unrealized childhood dollhouse dream.  Meet the greatest Hobbit hole EVER. 
• In all the hullaballoo about Boy Meets World making an unnecessary remake, you may have also missed the news that Bridget Jones is making her glorious literary return (and obvi has a case of the Twitters). 
• OhEmGee, you guys.  The Ron Moore Outlander adaptation got a network; in related news, a tempered slow roll of jazz hands is making it hard to type this out. 
• Remember that one time I went to Egypt and mentioned the really uncomfortable harassment women face there?  This made my day.
• This little girl's note to Dwell Magazine is a feminist masterpiece.  Also great?  The photos of the over-girlification of toys at the bottom of the story.  Bring back that first Lego ad!
• Guys, confession time.  I have no idea why I find this very silly SNL video as funny as I do.  BUT I DO.  Someone please explain it to me; I'll be over here sloppy shuffling away. 
  
  
  

Divergent, by Veronica Roth: Five factions diverge in a future Chi-city, and sorry Tris could not travel all...

Divergent, by Veronica Roth
Katherine Tegen Books: New York, 2011.
Nook copy reviewed.

In an alternative future Chicago, people live as part of five disparate social factions that highly value specific qualities.  As a 16-year-old, Beatrice must now choose her own faction.  Raised in Abnegation, she receives an inconclusive test result on the government administered aptitude test, and must choose to stay in Abnegation with her family, or break ranks, abandon her family, and join another faction.   Her surprising choice to join Dauntless spins her life in an entirely new direction; soon she is jumping off buildings, onto and off of moving trains, learning to shoot guns, making new friends and enemies, developing feelings for her distant instructor, and fighting to survive her initiation training.   But the newly nicknamed Tris’ test result is what really sets her apart, even from her new faction members, and what will awake her to the realization that her utopia is anything but.  It may be the very thing to save her…Divergent is strongly recommended to all libraries serving older teens.  It even has a bonus slow burning romance (delightfully not a love triangle!), and is an easy sell to Hunger Games fans of both genders craving more, this is an action packed, high intensity, highly addictive, and fun book to read.

YOU GUYS.  I LOVED THIS BOOK.  Not because it’s the most super books in all the lands, not because it blew my mind, not because it made me want to be a better person – in fact, it did none of these things.  No, my friends.  It was straight up FUN to read.   So, so, so much fun!  It’s firmly in the mind-crack category.  Y’all know how much I love a slow-burning romance (swoon), so Veronica Roth had me at Four.  I loved the description of messed up future Chicago (the Bean in particular), the differences in the factions, and witnessing Tris and her fellow faction switchers adjust to what really amounts to as a new culture.  Super bonus points for a kind of badass game of capture the flag!  Sure, there are minor things that if I hadn’t raced through it I might have a quibble with (largely, hey TRIS, have a thought about what is beyond that giant fence!? OR where do the factionless go?!? OR less importantly, who drives those trains? what happens in winter? - but methinks this will factor in later in these books), but I don’t care!  I couldn’t put it down, and when I did, I got that twitchy finger feeling that encouraged me to go back and pick it up.  I even stayed up past teacher o’clock to finish reading it, and then couldn’t sleep because I was so excited.  I’m so glad I finally resigned myself to get at it, after having heard tell of it for a while.  It received a strong rating of awesome from the wonderful teens on my trip to Chile this past summer, and it had been on my to do list since.  Thankfully, my procrastination paid off; I have to wait way less time for the May 1^st sequel, Insurgent.  I won’t say much more about how much I enjoyed this, because I’ll be gushing here all afternoon and you’d rather use your time to be reading this, right?  Lucky for you, there is a 100 page preview available.  Say goodbye to your afternoon plans!

Tidbits: Little libraries are dauntlessly fashion forward

• Little libraries may be the cutest advancement in the housing market since the birdhouse. 
• For those of us who still want to dress like Stacy, Claudia, Dawn, and Maryann in the Babysitters Club, Lucky Magazine UNDERSTANDS.  They have created a YA inspired fashion guide. +1 for including The Saddle Club, but -1 for those Boxcar Children inspired horrible overalls.  No, girl, no.  Other lovely books from my youth included are Nancy Drew,  Little House on the Prairie, and Sweet Valley High.
• I haven't stayed up past my bedtime (okay, my bedtime is like 10, but WHATEVER) to finish a YA book in a while.  But I did last night...Divergent.  I held off, but once I started, there was no stopping.  Thank the YAgawds the sequel drops in a few months!  And DOUBLE thank the YAgawds because a preview of Insurgent, the sequel, is available on the EW website.  This made my breakfast ohsodelightful. And then...OHO!  Fast forward to the next item, because this, my friends, is what we call a CLIFFHANGER in YA:
• And this, friends, is what we call the SEQUEL:  Lo, just as I was thinking to myself this morning that there would totally be a Divergent faction quiz online, what do I see?  A Divergent Faction quiz*.  Thank you internet!  Please divert your attention if you are in Abnegation, because I'm about to do what is called BRAGGING:  yes, I am a Dauntless (even if I do think that, like, sky diving and face tattoos are not for moi).  And double smug, I'm totally always a Gryffindor too.    Humbleness is one of my greatest traits.  Though, I think the real question is how does one buck the system and test as divergent?  Does having this thought make me...divergent?!?
  (*You do, however, have to offer up your info for this Facebook quiz.  Which I assume is how the Erudite will control us all!)
• Something really exciting happened to me on Valentine's Day.  No, not my student publishing a piece on the back page of the school newspaper of the eight reasons I should be his Valentine (true story, I cannot make these things up).  It may not have been romantic, but I know my favorite authorcrush was totally thinking of me on Galentine's Day when she linked to my review of her latest book on her site.  Melina Marchetta, thank YOU for being my Galentine!
• Well hey there, potential case of the terribles: the cast of the Hunger Games is touring the malls of America, in case you had any doubts about this being an Oscar nominee.   Life, imitating art.  Do you think Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson will accidentally on purpose start a revolution?  And yet,...still really excited for the movie.