Sunday, October 21, 2007

YA Making Inroads Among Adult Readers?

Today we have a party post, like the party posts Fuse does, but different. Instead of taking place in Manhattan, this party takes place somewhere else. Instead of publishing types, this party is for reader types. Instead of sophisticated mixed drinks and canapes, guests at this party are offered Mike's Hard Lemonade, cheap wine, cider, and popcorn.

Yes, people, on Friday night I held another bookswap. Revelers brought a book they liked and/or a book they hated. All books arrived in bags (gifty bags or, in my case, plastic shopping bags I found in the pantry) so that they could be drawn blind from the pools.

Here is what was so interesting about Friday night's event. The second person to draw a book from the loved pool received Twilight. The woman who brought it is halfway through her thirteen-year-old daughter's copy, was loving it, and ran out to buy a copy for my party.

The Twilight person brought up Uglies, which she liked. This led to a discussion of one of the sequels, though I can no longer remember which one. Then someone brought up His Dark Materials. The other two people in the room who had read the whole series didn't have any trouble understanding the religious aspects of the second and third books, which means that my friends are far more sophisticated spiritually or intellectually or both than I am.

I traded Corbenic.

I thought that was rather a lot of YA talk among eight non-YA women. If only we'd known what J.K. Rowling was doing in New York City while we were meeting, I'm sure the Potter lovers in my living room would have had much more to discuss.

I ended the evening with The Dogs of Babel and Tender at the Bone. Not YA, but I was rather pleased with my haul.

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