lady_schrapnell | An Abundance of Katherines... and John Green appearances

First, the book. Wonderful. That's it really, but I suppose I can rise to a bit more. It's got great characters - quirky, funny, and genuinely decent people, if more than a bit obtuse at times. Colin, ex-child prodigy, at 18 is still brilliant (in a lot of ways), but realising his prodigiousness has not turned into genius, and desperately worrying about how he'll matter now that he no longer is so special. And desperately unhappy after being dumped by Katherine XIX. He and his best (and only) friend Hassan go on a road trip, turning off the highway to see the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Gutshot, Tennessee. (You have to read it to find out what that's all about). They end up staying in the home of the woman who owns the local cotton factory which now only makes tampon strings, and Colin sets about developing a formula to predict 'when (and more importantly, whether), any prospective Katherine would dump him.' If that's not enough, somehow Green manages to give Colin a fat, Muslim boy as a friend, and not have him either be stereotypical side-kick or more loserish side-kick. Neat trick. And the maths is great fun, and Colin's misery is something we can both empathise with completely and find very funny - and Lindsey, their new friend in Gutshot is smart and fun too - and they all learn quite a lot about a lot of things - and it's funny. One tiny point just filled me with huge admiration, and that was the extremely light touch with which the dreadful mistakes Colin's father had made were got across. Definitely highly recommended. (Couldn't get ONE image of the book though - what on earth is with that?)

So, now the John Green 'appearances'. First, check out his speech on receiving the Printz award for Looking for Alaska . And then, read MotherReader's great mock interview - when she thought she hadn't been picked to interview him for real. But the funnest part is that he answered the questions - check out the comments! And was doing a 'blog tour', as you can see on his own blog. I don't know, there's just something that delights my soul about all these really intelligent, great people, all so committed to children's/YA books (reading and writing), forming these world-wide connections. Um - just had a wonderful vision of George Eliot and Jane Austen at their keyboards...