Blog Posts for Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted

She Ain't No Hollaback Girl

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:55:32 -0800

People who regularly read my blogs know I make it a habit never to write bad things about other writers' books. Not trying to dictate what others should do - it's just a personal philosophy. But every now and then a writer says or does something that, well, gets on my nerves. And since this little squib I ripped out of the New York Times Book Review has been sitting on my desk since October 18 ...

"People Are Dying In There" + The Sisters 8 contest

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:36:10 -0800

Over at BiblioBuffet I've got a new piece up called "People are Dying in There" about school violence in fiction and nonfiction, focusing on the novels The Hate List, Nineteen Minutes, and We Need to Talk about Kevin, and the nonfiction Columbine. If you scroll down to the bottom there's also a way you can enter to win the first four books in The Sisters 8 series.How about you? Read ...

Book of the Week: Best Intentions

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:20:02 -0800

BEST INTENTIONS, Emily Listfield.From the flap copy:After tossing and turning all night, thirty-nine-year-old Lisa Barkley wakes up well before her alarm sounds. With two daughters about to start another year at their elite Upper East Side private school and her own career hitting a wall, the effort of trying to stay afloat in that privileged world of six-story town houses and European jaunts has ...

Writing v. Publishing

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:34:44 -0800

A question I've been known to ask people who want to write is: What kind of writer do you want to be? A companion question, and one I think equally important is: Why do you write - because you love to write or because you want to be published?It's only natural to want, having written, your words to reach a wider audience. And it would be downright nimrodic, given that I've had several books ...

Book of the Week: King of the Screwups

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:26:32 -0800

KING OF THE SCREWUPS, K.L. Going. From the flap copy:Liam Geller is Mr. Popularity. Everybody loves him. He excels at sports; he knows exactly what clothes to wear; he always ends up with the most beautiful girls in school. But he's got an uncanny ability to screw up in the very ways that tick off his father the most.When his father finally throws him out of the house, his father's brother - ...

"All My Friends Are Writers" on BiblioBuffet + The Sisters 8 contest

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:43:46 -0700

Read "All My Friends Are Writers" on BiblioBuffet and scroll down for chance to win first four books in The Sisters 8 series: here.How about you? Are all your friends writers?Be well. Don't forget to write.

Book of the Week: The Family Man

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:40:17 -0700

THE FAMILY MAN, Elinor Lipman. The flap copy:A hysterical phone call from his ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend Henry Archer’s well-ordered life. They bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay, successful, lonely. Thalia is now twenty-nine, an actress-hopeful, ...

Now I Know How Jane Smiley Feels

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:05:18 -0700

There's not a whole lot Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley and I have in common. There's that prize, for one thing. She's extraordinarily tall, I'm extraordinarily short. Even our names are of wildly different lengths - I've got her whole 10-digit name beat with my hyphenated last name alone.But there are at least two things we do have in common. 1) I remember reading once ...

Book of the Week: Love is the Higher Law

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:01:55 -0700

LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW, David Levithan. This quietly powerful YA novel, beginning with the events of 9/11 and focusing on the year after, takes its title from a line in the U2 song "One." The idea of "One" is symbolic here in terms of people coming together. Claire, Peter and Jasper, all New York teens, are barely acquaintances when the story opens, and they couldn't be more ...

The Seven Stages of My Reading Life So Far Part VII + Crazy Beautiful Giveaway (link)

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:08:00 -0700

BiblioBuffet has posted Part VII in my seven-part series, The Seven Stages of My Reading Life So Far. This entry is called Editor and if you scroll down to the bottom you'll see a place to enter a contest for a copy of my next YA novel, CRAZY BEAUTIFUL. The contest runs thru Friday.How about you? Got any memories to share from your reading life?Be well. Don't forget to write.