Chocolate from the Cloud

Chocolate from the Cloud is a new feature that will run approximately once a week to bring you interesting book-related news and articles from around the interwebs that you might have missed. Hope you find something good to read!

•On Kirkus Reviews, John DeNardo talks about the scifi and fantasy books kids should be reading in school. Notable books include personal favorites A Wrinkle in Time, Ender's Game, and The Hunger Games.

•io9 compiles a long list of science fiction and fantasy books expected to be published in the coming year. It's missing some of my most anticipated titles (particularly of the urban fantasy variety), but at least one of the books made me go "Aaahhhh how did I not know that???" In a happy way :P

•April of Good Books & Good Wine writes a number of innovative ways "You Totally Have Time to Read," including audiobooks, read-a-thons, and -- who'd have thought -- timers!

•Alexandra Bracken talks about the inspiration for her recently published novel The Darkest Minds on The Book Smugglers.

•A variety of writers, including a couple of my heroes, Seanan McGuire and Daniel Abraham, talk about whether and what they re-read in a post on SF Signal.

•Over at Book Riot, Peter Damien discusses the merits of reading "bad writing" in "Grumpy Old Men and the Books They Hate."

•The Book Smugglers introduce readers to the ways we can nominate and vote for books to win the Hugo Awards in a guest post on Kirkus Reviews. It costs le money, but if you can, it would be a really cool way to make your voice heard.

•And finally, Ilona Andrews' serial free fiction Clean Sweep is back! So far it's a really cool and different story by one/some of my favorite author(s), and it's unrelated to their other works if you haven't read them yet.