About two weeks ago, I got this cold, maybe flu, thing. Runny nose, fever, aches all over.

Just as I started to feel better, the fluey bits decided they wouldn’t be content to use my body as their own personal disco club and leave it crumpled on the floor like a dirty tissue. Oh, no. They had to leave behind a sinus infection.

But full disclosure: I don’t really know what I’m talking about because…

1. I’m delirious from a fever that’s lasted two weeks.

2. I haven’t seen a doctor yet. (I do that as a last resort, which is obviously well past now. But it didn’t hit me until Friday night during a dinner that I could not force myself to eat, when I blubbered to my husband that I shouldn’t have waited so long, and the blubbering just made me more congested. So I go on Monday.)

I’ve never been this sick for this long. So sick I’m not even interested in reading from my sick bed.

What I really want to be doing is posting about the Unsung YA giveaway I have all ready to go, but this is about the most I can bring myself to craft out of thin air. The sooner I get better, the sooner you get your fabulous giveaway.

Your Turn

What’s your favorite trick for getting over a cold/flu/sinus infection?

Or howzabout some tips for thanking a spouse who’s been taking care of the house plus a two-year-old all by his lonesome?

(Here endeth the whine.)

Photo by jamelah.

I want one web site where I can go to:

1. Look up a book title and see all ratings and reviews combined into one list. Example: See how Google Books combines reviews from Amazon, Goodreads, and a couple other sites. But I want them all—LibraryThing, Shelfari, Powell’s, IndieBound. Everything in one place, but with duplicate ratings/reviews from one user across multiple sites culled to just one entry from that user.
2. Enter my rating and review for a title in one place and have it automatically pushed to all the sites of my choice. Currently, I manually post my ratings and reviews on this blog, on LibraryThing, and on Goodreads. The gating factor is my time, so I haven’t been posting reviews to other sites like Amazon and Powell’s, even though I would like to.
3. Get recommendations for books I will probably love, based on the ratings of other users with similar taste as mine. LibraryThing’s recommendations are okay, but Goodreads seems closer to achieving this with their Compare Books feature because you can find users with similar taste based on ratings of the same books. But Goodreads is missing the step of then extrapolating a list from all similar users of recommendations for titles you might like.

Is This Too Much to Ask?

It looks like Google is continuing to add new features to Google Books, as recently as January. And they’ve already tackled the first item on my wish list in their Google Maps interface, such as how they aggregate restaurant reviews into one place. Could they be the first to cross the finish line on that feature?

Your Turn

Have you seen any of these features on my wish list? Tell me and make my day!

Would you be interested in using these features? Or do you have other features on your own wish list?

Photo by Spatch.

There is a verb that is in just about every novel I read. I’ll be trucking along, getting into the story, then BAM! I run smack into that word, and my hate for it throws me out of the story. It takes a good minute or two before I’m ready to get back to the book.

This word has never done anything to me to warrant this hatred. It’s just three little letters, for Pete’s sake.

I know I’m being neurotic, although I guess you already knew that. But still, I can’t get over it. I will forever hate this verb.

So what is it? Pad.

If a character pads down the hall, outside, inside, or into a room in socks, slippers, bare feet, or shoes, you can bet I’m cringing.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the verb is so ubiquitous that it’s no longer fresh. But plenty of verbs are overused, and this is the only one that annoys me.

Your Turn

Are there any words that get under your skin?

Photo by mafleen.

Peter at Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations recently wrote to me about how the Unsung YA Heroes project inspired him to beef up the YA list offerings on his site.

From a girl who thinks everyone should give YA a chance, I say: Hooray for YA!

Peter would like to post one YA list a month, and to kick it all off he asked a few book bloggers to recommend their top 2009 YA picks. Guess who got to submit one of her own picks?! Check it out:

The Best Young Adult Books of 2009

Your Turn

What was the last flashlight-worthy book you read?

Photo by margolove.

My original plan was to post my own personal Unsung YA Heroes list to celebrate my 1-year blogiversary. But just one post to celebrate an entire year of reading and blogging? No, that wouldn’t do. So I fired off an email to a few YA bloggers to see if they would join me in a coordinated blog blitz. The goal of the project would be to highlight YA books we love and think deserve more attention from the world of readers.

About 0.06 seconds after clicking “Send” on that first email, I hunted down my husband and found him in the kitchen blending pesto for dinner. I bounced on my heels and waited for the blender to stop.

“So I bet I can get 5 other people to post with me. 5 would be pretty cool.”

Whee, the blender went.

“But if I’m lucky, I could get 10. 10 would be really cool. Do you think I could get 10?”

Whee.

“Because double digits are like the universal measuring stick for whether you’re doing something good. If you don’t hit double digits, you’re just a weirdo.”

Whee!

“I hope people don’t think I’m a weirdo.”

Whee-uhh.

“Sweetie? Do you think I’ll get 10?”

And then you went and BLEW MY MIND.

As of last night, 73 bloggers had posted their own Unsung YA Heroes lists. Not to mention all the tweeters and authors and English teachers chiming in.

Congratulations to all the titles and authors featured in the last few days. May our blog blitz bring you new readers and happiness! And to all the TBR lists bursting at the seams, I am sorry. I didn’t foresee what this would mean for you. But maybe you could “misplace” a few of those bestselling titles that aren’t quite as awesome as these Unsung titles? Go ahead, I won’t tell anyone.

Now, onto the awesomeness that only spreadsheets can bring…

Top 10 Unsung YA Heroes

Out of the 494 unique titles picked, here’s a round-up of the most commonly picked titles across all the lists. When there was a tie in the number of times a title was picked, the more obscure title—that is, the one with the fewer number of LibraryThing members—won out.

10. How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

Picked By: Brooklyn Arden, Melissa Walker, A Patchwork of Books
LT Members: 99

9. Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart

Picked By: Book Nut, The Hate-Mongering Tart, Melissa Walker
LT Members: 67

8. Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson

Picked By: Brooklyn Arden, Melissa Walker, Reading in Bellevue
LT Members: 48

7. Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

Picked By: Abby (the) Librarian, Dreaming Out Loud, Leafing Through Life, Lucy Was Robbed
LT Members: 495

6. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Picked By: Not Enough Bookshelves, Steph Su Reads, YAnnabe, Youth Services Corner
LT Members: 446

5. Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Picked By: MELIScellaneous, Reading and Rooibos, Steph Su Reads, Youth Services Corner
LT Members: 318

4. Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman

Picked By: One Librarian’s Book Reviews, Ticket to Anywhere, Write Meg!, YA Librarian Tales
LT Members: 238

3. Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Picked By: Melissa Walker, Not Enough Bookshelves, Sarah’s Random Musings, YAnnabe
LT Members: 182

2. The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

Picked By: Annie, I Think, Lucy Was Robbed, Presenting Lenore, Sarah’s Random Musings
LT Members: 105

1. Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins

Picked By: Book Nut, LL Word, Semicolon, Worducopia
LT Members: 48

Top 1012 Most Obscure Picks

Out of those 494 titles, which books were the most unsung? Bonus: You get 12 picks instead of 10 because the 10th spot had a 3-way tie.

10. Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 12

10. Not a Swan by Michelle Magorian

Picked By: Archimedes Forgets
LT Members: 12

10. The Death-Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean

Picked By: Gaskella
LT Members: 12

9. Trudy by Jessica Lee Anderson

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 11

8. Gamma Glamma by Kim Flores

Picked By: Archimedes Forgets, Biblio File
LT Members: 10

6. Holy Moly by Leah Hayes

Picked By: Pop Culture Junkie
LT Members: 8

6. The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth

Picked By: Beyond Books
LT Members: 8

5. The Thirteen Curses by Michelle Harrison

Picked By: Beyond Books
LT Members: 6

4. Year of the Horse by Justin Allen

Picked By: Arch Thinking
LT Members: 5

3. A Is For Angst by Barbara Haworth-Attard (also published as My Life from Air-Bras to Zits)

Picked By: Erin Explores YA
LT Members: 4

1. The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate by Donna St. Cyr

Picked By: The Hate-Mongering Tart
LT Members: 3

1. Unsigned Hype by Booker T. Mattison

Picked By: Semicolon
LT Members: 3

Most Obscure List

Pop Culture Junkie
Alea’s picks averaged 44 LibraryThing members per title.

Longest List

The Hate-Mongering Tart
You might say Emily got into this project. Like, REALLY got into it. She picked 43 titles.

Most Unsung Author

We could take this in a couple directions: Which author had the highest number of unique titles crop up on our lists? Or, which author was picked by the most people? So to be fair, we have two winners in this category:

Elizabeth Scott
5 of her titles made the lists.

Melina Marchetta
Her titles were picked by approximately 10% of the bloggers who posted lists.

Your Turn!

Do you want to keep the Unsung fun alive?

• Did this project inspire you to add a title (or two or fifty) to your TBR list? How many did you add? And which ones? Hmm, I smell a topic ripe for a blog post! Or maybe a comment? (Thanks to Anastasia for this idea.)
• If you’re on LibraryThing, tag the titles you picked with the tag “unsung”. Then we’ll be able to use the unsung tag page to see all this fabulousness. (Thank you to Emily and Nicki for this suggestion!)

Do It Again! Do It Again!

Well…okay!

How does this sound? We’ll pick one week a year to be The Week of the Unsung. Each day, we will focus on a different genre—YA, middle-grade, picture book, graphic novel, even (gasp!) adult fiction. You can sign up for whichever genres you’d like, then post your Unsung lists on the appropriate days.

Thoughts? Ideas? More stats you want to see? Leave a comment to chime in!