On Saturday, some of my friends and I had the chance to go to an event hosted by my library with Markus Zusak, the highly acclaimed author of The Book Thief, as the guest of honor. Markus Zusak is an Australian author, and even though I haven’t had the chance to read any of his books yet, I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and so I had to go.

My friends and I showed up early so we could get good seats. We were just a few rows from the front and off to the right of the podium. We had a very clear shot of Markus (he asked us to call him Markus instead of Mr. Zusak ;) ) during the presentation.

This was the best signing event I’ve ever been to. Markus’s presentation was hilarious, entertaining, enlightening, moving, and just overall fantastic. He’s a great public speaker and when he read one of the chapters  (“Confessions”) from The Book Thief, the audience was so speechless, we almost forgot to clap. He told some personal stories: one about growing up with his older brother and another about an embarrassing moment he had with a bookstore owner when his first book was published. He related the story about his older brother to his writing process. It was very endearing. One of the things he said to other writers is that you’re a writer when you still want to write even if there isn’t a chance for your next book to be published (or published at all for that matter). (If you want to watch a video of the presentation, check out my friend Suey’s post about the event. She videotaped it all.)

When it came to the signing, which started at 7:00 pm, you’d think being in the third group (within 75 people from the front) that we would’ve had the chance to see Markus very early in the game. We weren’t done until 8:30 pm because Markus took the time to talk to each of the people in line. He did more than just sign his name; he personalized every book by drawing pictures in some and writing maxims in all. Even though it was frustrating for people to have to wait so long, I think it was worth it because of the time he took with each and every one of us.

When it was my turn, I didn’t really know what to say to him since I hadn’t read any of his books yet. I thanked him for coming to Utah of all places and taking the time to sign our books. And then, because he’s Australian and I’m really weird about Australia, I told him that I have an irrational fear of Australia. He asked me why that is and I told him it’s because I saw a documentary about all the poisonous snakes there. He proceeded to tell me that snakes are okay and that he had one in his house once and it wasn’t so bad. He also told me that they have the most poisonous spider there and I told him I knew all about the funnel spider and that (and the most poisonous octopus) was another reason I was afraid of Australia. 8O He laughed and drew a snake in my book and wrote, “Snakes are okay.” It made my day that he humored me and talked to me about snakes. :D

After we got your books signed, the library set up a guest book for people to sign and thank Markus for coming. I wrote quite a bit, like most others did, but I made sure to thank him for humoring me and talking about snakes. Now, he’ll always remember me. Hopefully, that’s a good thing. :?

It was a fantastic evening and time well spent with friends and an amazing author. You can rest assured that The Book Thief will be the next book I read after I’m done with my current one.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the Breathless Reads Tour.

The Breathless Reads Tour featured the Penguin Five (as Ally Condie calls them).  The Penguin Five are five authors that had books released in the fall/winter by Penguin books.  The authors in attendance were Kirsten Miller (author of The Eternal Ones), Brenna Yovanoff (author of The Replacement), Andrea Cremer (author of Nightshade), Ally Condie (author of Matched), and Beth Revis (author of Across the Universe).  Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to read any of the books, except Matched (my review), which I loved!  But, I’m looking forward to reading the other four!

It was so much fun to meet and speak to the authors and listen to theirs answers during the Q&A session.  There were some really great questions and I thought a lot of them were unique, which is refreshing since most of the time the same questions are asked over and over again.

One of the questions that got a lot of reaction from the authors was how they felt about book bloggers.  Most of them laughed kind of awkwardly.  Andrea Cremer asked if this had anything to do with some recent controversy on Twitter between a well-known book blogger and an author, Ally said she was oblivious to any of the controversy going on about it, and the person who asked the question said she was just wondering about their feelings toward book bloggers.  Each of the authors, but mostly Andrea Cremer, assured the audience that they love book bloggers because they help sell their books.  The said that they feel that there are those occasional book bloggers that are unprofessional and call authors names when they write negative reviews of books.  But, on the whole, they feel that the good significantly outweighs the bad.  Oh, they also said that an author should never react, respond, whatever to a negative review.

I know that most people would think meeting the authors and having them sign your books would be the best thing about the tour.  I’ll admit it was awesome to interact with all the authors.  And, I loved having some one-on-one time with Ally again, especially when she told me I was the most happy, laughing, smiley person she knows. But, one of the best parts for me during these events is getting to go to them with my friends!  We always have so much fun together and our “mischief” is what makes these events unforgettable.