Top Ten Tuesday (37)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is

Top Ten Bookish Memories

1.  BEA12 - Last year was the first year I have ever gone to anything like this.  It was unreal to be surrounded by so many people who love books as much as I do for three whole days.  I also really loved getting to meet so many of my favorite authors (Holly Black!  Lauren Oliver!  Diana Peterfreund!) and getting so many awesome books.  I can't wait to go again this year.

2. Working the Deathly Hallows midnight release party - My store went all out for the HP 7 release.  We hung candles on fishing line and hung them from the ceiling, had house banners (which you can see in the picture), a lot of the staff got dressed up, there were games, I manned the face painting.  It was just one of those nights that didn't really feel like work, it was awesome.

3. Meeting Holly Black at BEA - This gets its own mention because I still can't even believe it happened.  She tweeted about a secret signing the day before, we stalked where it was going to be, ran from meeting Libba Bray and found Holly and Ellen Kushner sitting at a small table with very few people around them.  There were no books left (they were signing Welcome to Bordertown), but what did I care?  I just wanted to tell Holly how much I love the Curseworkers series and I got to do that and take this very awesome picture with her.

4. TBC at my library - TBC stands for Teen Book Club.  I always hung out at my town library when I was younger and for part of that time at least we had TBC.  We read books picked by our librarian and occasionally watched the movies that went with them (I specifically remember doing this with The Outsiders).  I love that even now they still have TBC and sometimes I still go when they have author visits (it's not that weird because my sister worked there up until very recently).  It's how I met the very amazing Lynn Weingarten (Wherever Nina Lies, The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers).

5. Tweeting with authors - This is such a cool thing that could never have happened when I was younger.  You really have a direct line to the people that have written your favorite books and you get to see their thoughts about (sometimes) meaningless things.  I've tweeted back and forth with Megan McCafferty for gods sake.  About Jersey Shore no less.

6. The Hudson Valley YA Society - What a cool thing they do there.  At least once a month at Oblong Books they have awesome YA authors come and talk about anything and do a signing.  I've seen Cassandra Clare, Gayle Forman, Libba Bray, Andrea Cremer.  The list goes on and on.  And what makes it even more fun is that Suzanna and Jen clearly love YA books and always host a great event.

I'm only going with six this week because my sickness-addled brain can't dredge up any more.  I'm going to go read a little bit/fall asleep with my book in hand (like I did yesterday).  Hooray for sick days!  Don't forget to check out my very first GIVEAWAY!