My book is officially in stores today and to celebrate, I thought I'd do a little strip tease.
No, not of me, silly! That would be a strip torment, not a tease.
Instead, I'm going to reveal everything I love about the physical copy of the book itself, because I can't get over what a great job the team at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic did.
Like a lot of people, I love the lightweight convenience of ebooks. But with only a few exceptions, they are a design wasteland. The e-ink is grayish and bland. The covers are shrunken and pixellated, and the interior pages from one book to another look pretty much the same. It's also cumbersome on the Kindle at least to organize a library--something I love doing at home. I'm sure a lot of this will change as technology advances, but with books I treasure, I still want the physical copy. It's the same way that photographs of my family and friends are no replacement for their actual human presence in my house at backyard barbecues.
When it comes to actual books you can hold in your hands and tuck away on your shelves, no one does a more beautiful job than Arthur Levine. It's one of the many reasons I am so happy to be one of his authors.
Here's a slide show highlighting a few of my favorite things about DEVINE INTERVENTION:
Want a signed copy of your own? Queen Anne Books in Seattle has them. (And of course you can get one online, too.)
Other fun stuff: