USA Today Best Sellers  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100722/ap_on_en_ot/us_best_sellers_books_usatoday

#6 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
#11 Breaking Dawn
#12 Eclipse
#23 Twilight
#28 New Moon
#50 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion by Mark Cotta Vaz

New York Times Best Sellers
www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller

#25 (Trade fiction) The Host
#1 (Series Books) Twilight Saga (also note this is it’s 154 week on the list.  The Percy Jackson books however have been on the list of 158)
#4 (Graphic Novels Hardback) Twilight: The Graphic Novel Vol 1

Amazon.com Best Sellers
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books

#20 Breaking Dawn (Pre-order for Paperback)
#23 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
#64 Breaking Dawn (Hardback)

Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Bestseller-Books/379001057/?start=21&cds2Pid=17351

#25 Breaking Dawn (preorder for paperback)
#26 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I really find it interesting that a presale of a book that has already been out for years is a topseller. It is insane how well the books are still doing.  Honestly, I think it is cool.  Kudos to Meyer for doing so well.  Being on the best sellers list is a huge thing for an author.  Seeing anyone do that well is very cool.

What to read after the Sookie Stackhouse novels? 

-If you liked the supernatural side of Charlaine Harris’s books, check out the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.  It deals more with werewolves and skinwalkers but still some vamps and other supernaturals.  I just started the first book and completely love it.  I believe there is books about different characters that show up in the Mercy books too.  Plus I love that Mercy lives in Finley, Washington.  I have totally been there!

-If you liked the hot, romance side, check out the Vegas Vampires series by Erin McCarthy.  I read this series in the last couple years and completely loved it.  It is a really fun, easy read.

What should I read after Twilight?

-If you like love triangles, check out The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith.  The first book actually came out in 1994 so long before Twilight.  The first two books were okay.  The second two got me hooked.  I loved the latest two.  Can’t wait to see what will happen next!

-If you are looking for another great young adult supernatural series, check out The Immortals series by Alyson Noel.   Another great series is the House of Night books by PC and Kirstin Cast if you haven’t read them already.

-For older readers (aka, maybe like 20 and older), the Jane Madison books by Mindy Klasky.  Total chick books about witchcraft.  Neko is one of my favorite book characters ever. 

What should I read after the House of Night novels?

-If you are looking for young adult, again I’m going to say The Immortals series by Alyson Noel or the Vampire Diaries.   

-For those looking for a little more action than romance, The Mortal Instruments trilogy by Cassandra Clare.  Absolutely amazing storytelling on these ones.  It has the whole angel thing going on that we see in HoN.  The entire series was hard to put down and even though it had an ending, I wanted more because I loved the characters so much.  I feel like this series could be read by guys or girls.  There is only a touch of romance which honestly, most books have that anyways.

-Again, for a little more action, the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld.  I’ve only read the first one but like it so far.

Non-series books about supernaturals.

-Anything by Neil Gaiman.  Note: I would not say young adult for any of them.  I read most in college and think that if I would have read them younger, I would not have understood them very well.  Gaiman is absolutely amazing.  Every book and story completely pulls me in.  My very favorite is Neverwhere.

-Devilish by Maureen Johnson.  Young adult novel that was a totally enjoyable read.  I’ve read more of Johnson’s work and really enjoy it.

And if you like comics…

-Check out my very favorite comic series, Fathom.  It falls in with a lot of these books I think because it is about a girl that was normal(ish) but then ends up sucked into a super natural world…an underwater one.

I was very excited that this week I got to go see a Q and A with one of my favorite authors, Charlaine Harris.  As you might already know, she is the author of the Sookie Stackhouse books (along with many other books) that the HBO show True Blood was based on.  Her most recent book, Dead in the Family, just became a best seller as well.

Alright, so what were people asking….

I asked her about advice to writers.  A couple other people did as well and each time she said write a great book.  Kind of a given so not the best advice ever.  She did talk about her writing processes a little though.  I found it interesting that the first book was not written thinking it would be a series.  She said that when she is stuck she thinks about who will show up at Sookie’s door than goes from there.  Interesting advice.  I could definately see that as being a good writing exerise.

She got asked many questions about True Blood.  I liked that she agrees with the show writers decision to deviate from the books so that even if you read the books, the show is a surprise.  She said this season she is looking most forward to see what they do with the Fae.  Yes, they are showing up in season three! I’m excited for Alcide. 

Harris said her favorite scene from the show was the pie scene after Sookie’s grandmother passed away.  Lots of people at the q&a asked food related questions.  Harris laughed that the meaning of the show was pie.  She didn’t know the secrets of Lost but the secret of True Blood was pie. 

She also said that she wishes she would have written a character like Jessica.  She loved that character.  Jessica is the vampire that Bill was forced to change on the show. 

As for favorite books, Harris said she enjoyed writing Altogether Dead a lot.   That was the one in which Sookie goes to the vampire summit with the Queen.  Harris said it was fun to get to come up with a way to blow up a building. 

A few people asking questions and a few in line said that Dead to the World was their favorite.  That is mine so far as well.  I think it is because I’m Team Eric all the way.  It seemed liked most the crowd was as well.  In the series, Bill definetely turns into a bad-ish guy or at least kind of a jerk.  Eric has his romantic moments which I love. 

Of course, someone asked her about Stephanie Meyer and Twilight.  I think she had a very good opinion on the subject.  Obviously, vampire books are going to have things in common.  She wrote her first Sookie novel five years before Twilight so obviously she didn’t rip it off.  Harris said that she was proud to see any female making a living in writing and being sucessful.  I completely agree with her on that.  Again, I find it interesting how people are so negative on Twilight.  In line I overheard a girl complaining about how awful of a writing Stephanie Meyer was.  She pointed out she was no Virginia Wolfe.  Of course she isn’t!  She never tired to be.  She wrote a fantasy book for teens.  There is no comparing the two.  Plus the girl in line also mention how she read the entire Twilight series twice.  If the books were so awful, why read them twice and see the movies to compare?  If a book makes you want to read it twice, it is a good book.  At least that is what I think.

I know there was lots of other questions that Harris answered but those were a few that stood out to me.  I can’t wait to start reading Dead in the Family.  I’m almost done with Burned by PC and Kirstin Cast so I’ll start it after I finish that one.

Here are a few pictures I got of Charlaine Harris.  Sorry they didn’t turn out very well.

The first thing it said was of course saying that she was the author of Twilight.  I had no problem with that because obviously it is true.  Plus I know that I read The Host because I enjoyed Meyers writing.

The part that bothered me was they described the book as “A truly unexpected love story.”   I would never describe the book that way.   There was a slight love story involved but it was in no way a focus of the story.   It would be like saying Twilight is a fight movie because there is some fight scenes. 

What they should have said was “A truly unexpected story of humanity.”   That is what the book was about.  The basic premise was that an alien race has taken over to make the world peaceful but there is still some rogue humans.  When Melanie, a human, is taken over by Wanderer, she refuse to give in.  I guess there is some love involved because Melanie’s memories of the man she loves set the story in motion but it becomes such a minor storyline.

I absolutely loved this book.   It is by far one of my favorite books of all time.  It told such a beautiful and powerful story of how amazing humans can be.  I actually started crying at the end because it was so powerful.  It was a unique story line.  It had elements of sci-fi that were very interesting.  The space stuff I loved because in case anyone didn’t already know this, I’m obsessed with everything star and space related. 

I would highly recommend this book to everyone, male or female.

What are people talking about?

Everyone is comparing Harry Potter to Edward Cullen.  Note, Green and Levithan were mentioning Harry Potter and in no way where talking about Twilight.   I find this interesting because I realized how much it has seeped into our culture.

The conversation started with someone saying “I’m kind of in love with Harry. He’s my Edward Cullen.”  This prompted people to instantly start talking about how much more they loved Harry.  They wore comparing their love to him to how much a Twilight fan loves Edward.  It was like now their is a scale to love and at the top of it is how much you love this certain character.  Everyone seemed to know exactly how much this meant too.  Like there is a quantitative amount of love.  I just find it so completely interesting that as a culture, we have created a symbol of a quantity of love based on a character. 

How I just flipped back to read some more of the chat and the conversation went back to talking about Green and Levithan for a while but then shifted back to Twilight.  This time people are talking about how awful the book is.  Someone even said that it was a disgrace to literature.   One person is even making fun of it despite saying they have not read the books or seen the movie.  Why have such a strong opinion about something you have not even actually experienced? That seems a little bit crazy to me.  Like I have said on this blog before, this book was written for teenagers as a fantasy book.  Meyer’s was not trying to break ground or create a perfect piece of literature.  Yet, the series has become so huge that even people that have not read it care enough to say they strongly dislike it.  How amazing is it that a book has that kind of effect on people?  That to me is what makes Meyer a great writer.  She made something that truly has become a cultural phenomenon.

This also caught my attention yesterday when I was inside Experience Twilight which is a store in St Helens, Oregon that is, as you can guess, all Twilight stuff.  I used to live very close to St Helen’s which is where many scenes from the first movie were filmed.  Until yesterday, I hadn’t been downtown, where the Port Angeles parts were filmed.  It is insane how into Twilight St Helen’s is now. There is photos all over.  Store fronts have cut outs in them.  There is the whole store.  Have other books made that impact on towns?  I know lots of movies are filmed in Oregon yet I don’t see whole areas of  towns dedicated to them.   Again, completely fascinating.  I can see why people are researching and writing books and doing documentaries on how much this series has impacted society.

By the way, thank you so much to Experience Twilight for staying open a couple minutes extra for us to look around! The people working in their were super nice.

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/breetanner.html

          First off, I think it is awesome that Meyers is letting more of her work involved with Twilight be seen.  I find it very interesting that she had all these left over stories going as she wrote the series.  It makes sense though.  I haven’t read Midnight Sun but I love the idea of seeing what happened during Edward’s time away.  It didn’t have a place in Twilight but it is something that adds to the overall story.  Bree Tanner is the same situation.  We don’t know what was going on from the other side and now we will. 

          I love the fact that Meyer let the actors playing Victoria and her band of vampires read the story first.  It sounds like Eclipse is going to let the viewers see what happened, at least to some extent, so it is nice that Meyer’s came up with a story verses the film writer doing it all.  Giving the actors more information to add depth to their roles is awesome too.  While on the subject, is anyone else pretty excited to see Bryce Dallas Howard step in as Victoria? I’ve enjoyed her acting in the past so I think she will be a good fit.  I didn’t have anything again Rachelle Lefevre but I am a big fan of Howard so I love seeing her in stuff.

          My favorite part about Meyer’s releasing this novella is that she made it a point to have it available both free and in print form.  Personally, I will buy the book.  I have a huge book collection and can’t wait to add it.  But for those who don’t want the physical book, it is awesome that she is making it available to them.  For anyone with e-readers, that will be a huge plus.  I’m assuming it will be able to be uploaded to them.  It is cool that some of the proceeds are going to the red cross too.  If (hopefully it is more of a when then an if) I become published, once I get to a stable point money wise, I want to donate money or whatever I can to help end world suck.  Nerdfighter reference there but honestly, it is true.  I want the world to be a better place.  I try to donate to charities, especially pet charities, whenever I can.  I don’t have a lot of money but I like to try to help.  There would be no better feeling in the world then to get to a point where I could donate my entire portion of my book to charity.

          So who else is excited for The Short Life of Bree Tanner?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090804/stage_nm/us_books_twilight

        So this article is quite interesting.  Author Jordan Scott is accusing Stephanie Meyer of copying a little known book she published two years before Breaking Dawn was released.  Hmm. 

          Four points of similarity that were brought up were that there was a wedding scene, there was sex on a beach, there was a scene that showed how hard it was for the human to become vampire, and that the male using the term love when referring to their wife.

          One point one, the wedding scene.  It was obvious through reading the other Twilight saga books that a wedding scene was needed.  I don’t have my copy of Ecilipse on me but didn’t they bring up marriage by the end of that novel?  I sort of felt like it would happen since the end of the second book.    I don’t feel like it is something that came out of nowhere for Breaking Dawn.  I feel like Meyer probably wrote all the book while thinking ahead to how the whole thing would end.  I have a feeling the wedding idea came to  her before The Nocturne. 

          Point two, sex on the beach.  Okay I guess I can see how if you wrote a book involving a vampire and human going to an island and having sex that you might think someone else later copied that if you saw it in another book.  I will give the other author that.  It isn’t something that is extremely common in books.

          I do however think it is ridiculous to say that someone writing about how painful vampire transformations are is copying you.  I would say 90% percentage of accounts of vampire transformation whether they be in books, on tv, or in movies, are very painful.  This is not some new concept that Scott just suddenly came up with.  

           Even more ridiculous is claiming that you came up with calling your significant other love.  That is common in the english language.   I have had boyfriends that call me that. Heck, sometimes I call people that even though I’m more of a honey or kid kind of person. 

          Overall, I would say based on what the article stated, this is not a valid accusation.  However, I have not read The Nocturne so it is hard to really have an opinion.  However, similar plots and plot points between books are nothing new at all.  I think I have mentioned on here before that I see lots of similarities between Breaking Dawn and Bled Dry by Erin McCarthy.  Bled Dry came out a year before Breaking Dawn.  There was also a human/vampire relationship.  It resulted in a baby.  Pregnancy between vampires and humans is something completely new so the couple and friends try to hid it from a higher up vampire council of some sort.  Near the end someone from another country comes out and states that there was other babies born from a vampire/human.  See how someone could say Meyers copied McCarthy too? 

          It seems like most books could be accused of copying from another source in some extent.  Sometimes books are similar.  I don’t think that always means that the person copied.  Look at The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, Hollywood is like High School with Money by Zoey Dean, and The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare.  Are those not all about a second assistant that gets crap from someone else at their job?  Did they all copy each other?  Did the similarities stop me from enjoying them all?  No. Definately no.  I’m reading Zoey Dean’s book right now and loving it.

          Do you think Meyers is a copier?  Do you think the case will stick?  Have you ever read a book that was a lot like another one?

http://www.observer.com/2009/media/pocket-books-goes-all-zombie-craze-signs-zombie-beatles-book

          Has anyone read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?  I keep seeing it and thinking about it.  I haven’t read the orginal book (shame I know) so I feel like I should first. 

          I’m not at all surprised that zombies books are on the rise.  Books tend to go in trends. Perfect example, has anyone noticed how many vampire books are out right now?  I went in Barnes and Noble a few weeks back and they had an entire table stacks high with different titles that were young adult books only.   They probably could have made a whole other table for adult ones too.   The Sookie Stackhouse books are definately selling well everywhere.   Personally I love the Vegas Vampire books by Erin McCarthy which are usually in the paranormal romance section.  I started reading them a couple years ago.  By the way, Bled Dry (which was published in 2007) has lots of plot points similar to Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers (published a year later).  Hmmm.  Actually I don’t think Meyers was copying by any means but I definately had the feeling of this story has been done before only sexier.

          The part of this article that bothered me was how they said they wanted to make the new book Paul is Undead a huge franchise.  I understand dreaming big but isn’t it a little early to tell the press about all these dreams when for all you know the book could completely flop.  What is that phrase about getting ahead of yourself?  I can’t remember right now but it feels like that is what they are doing with this book.

          I do however think it was very smart to make a zombie book that was original.  Doing another classic meets undead clash would just seem like trying to hard to capitalize on another book that did well.  The idea was original with P&P&Z but if it is done again it will feel like a copycat.

          What do you think about the zombie trend?  Will you read Paul is Undead?  More importantly, quick Zombies or Vampires?  Haha, just kidding.

Does anyone else remember when some kid hacked an electronic sign in Texas to say this?

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dwarning%2Bzombies%2Bahead%26fr%3Dyfp-t-151&w=316&h=259&imgurl=www.journalstandard.com%2Farchive%2Fx1452244443%2Fg13c10475eb1f01e6d78a64b8253fe96325e3522e83b66c.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.journalstandard.com%2Fnews%2Fx1851002780%2FCaution-Zombies-ahead&size=16k&name=Caution+Zombies+…&p=warning+zombies+ahead&oid=d3faa2a0493e73d2&fr2=&no=9&tt=9&sigr=125e8og56&sigi=12v32mk8c&sigb=12h6jlfq9

Probably one of my very favorite news items of all time.  I really want to know if anyone believed it.  Like was anyone driving, saw the sign, and went home scared and prepared for an attack?

          Love her or hate her, Stephanie Meyer has done something no other author has ever done.  She took the top four slots in the Top Sellers of 2008 list.  Another article on the same site stated that one in every five books sold between Thanksgiving and the end of the year was written by her.  That is completely insane.

          I know there is lots of people online saying that Twilight is the worse book they have ever read.  I have a few points to make on that.  First of all, I think it says a lot to have so many people read your books.  If she was such a horrible writer, people would not have read past the first book.  Even if the story behind the book is amazing, if an author is horrible, it will not be a best seller.  People obviously read all the book to make them all top the list.  I think it take a certain talent to write a book that so many people want to go out and read.

          I would also like to draw people’s attention to the audience that the books were originally aimed at.   It is written as a young adult series.  Being a romance series, I would say it is target more towards girls.  So what other series are targeted at teenage girls?  Gossip Girl? A-List?  Is it that much of a stretch to say that the Twilight saga is better quality writing than those series?  I honestly would say it is just as good as the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books.  Actually honestly I thought two of the four Pants books were just okay (the middle two).  I wasn’t much of a New Moon fan but I enjoyed the other three Twilight books quite a bit.  I do think it was a little weird that she changed writing styles for Breaking Dawn but I got over it. 

          The Host however I thought was a great piece of writing.   I loved it so much.  Meyer stated that this book was written for an adult sci-fi audience and I believe that she did a good job of upping the reading level.  There were many underlying themes in The Host.  It said so much about the human race and was written from such an interesting perspective.  I did in fact cry at the end of it because I thought it gave such a beautiful testiment to the hope and will of people.

          I was also quite happy to see Nicholas Sparks have so many books appearing on the list as well.  He is a very talented writer as well.  There was a few others on the list I’d read as well.  I see that Dewey made it pretty high on the list.  I keep almost buying it but am scared to.  I feel like it might cause me lasting emotional damage.  I am a huge cat person and cry when anything happens to cats in books or movies.  I have a sick feeling the book will end with the cat passing away and I seriously don’t know if I would ever recover from it.  This is kind of like how I own Marley and Me but haven’t been brave enough to read it yet. The movie made me cry a lot.

          So what do you think about Stephanie Meyer?  Are you a Twilight lover or hater?  Was there any other books on the list that you read and love or hated?