Lizzie Skurnick's Blog, page 3

Plotfinder, OMIGOD HOT edition #plotfinder #finelines #jezebel

I can't believe how hot it is. It's difficult to continue with any other statement but an emphatic recitation of the previous: I can't believe how hot it is. That said, many of you are somewhere with air conditioning, I assume? Here are two plotfinders to keep you amused, if not chilled to the bone. (Remember, to follow these with greater ease, you can always friend me on FB, where in great part the Shelf Discovery community resides, or you can subscribe to this feed at

Instant solvation! #plotfinder #finelines #jezebel

That…was fast! It's On That Dark Night by Carol Beach York. THANK YOU Erin your presence here is both inspiration and honor.

Plotfinder deux, enjoy your 4th! #plotfinder #finelines #jezebel

Ashley sent this today, which in my laziness has moved it to top of queue. I was already 400 in 90s and am definitely too old to know. Thoughts??? This one is also kind of epic in the crazed associative disorder order of these things — RODDY and CANDLESHOP and literally THREE BLIND MICE:

Hello.
I have been searching for a book that I loved as a young adult and have not been able to locate it. The book is about two teen girls who take a day trip to a small artsy town (I think its Greenwich) for...

Think we have a win on one?: #finelines #plotfinder #shelfdiscovery #jezebel

Okay, Bridgit B. says:

Ooh, I know the second one! (I think.) I'm pretty sure it's "A Matter of Pride" by Dorothy Simpson, if it's the one where the main character(Janey?) orders some shoes from a mail-order catalog and everyone tells her they're inappropriate.

Will email original asker and see if this is in fact so. Now the first one is weirdly torturing me? The drag racer/Yale theme rings distant bell.

The book was set in Maryland. The heroine was a cheerleader/all around good girl who gets...

The Triumphant Return of Plotfinder! #finelines #shelfdiscovery #jezebel

One of the great sadnesses about leaving Jezebel's "Fine Lines" series behind is that I also had to retire the Plotfinder series, in which you all sent me your mysterious queries — "Girl on a bus who eats bean sprouts and peanut butter sandwich?" "The Divorce Express!" — and we all solved them.

Plotfinder was one of those weird items that sprang up organically almost from the first column, and I've often wondered if it's because strange details and covers are so much more likely to endure — "...

Will Work for "Like"

If you missed either of my pieces this week, I reviewed Justin Cronin's delightful The Passage, and also recommended three books to NPR you can use to feel better about failing immediately out of the gate after graduation. I even responded to a piece in which I was quoted because I disagreed with the conclusion! Now I am off to write yet another piece for the fledging, underpaying web culture monster, the landed gentry of which I was hanging out with on a well-stocked roof in Soho last...

Before it begins! #crossposted #willsolvethisproblemsoon

I know, I know, I just drafted a massive complaint of those bitches of the MSM yanking my pony. I didn't say I didn't enjoy the drama, though! Here's some recent work:

At the behest of Salon, I Kindle'd Stephenie Meyer's latest and concluded that, by the third novel-to-movie, the bubble's off the champagne:

Mega-popular writers today have a hard row to hoe. Fame that, in the old days, would have crested with a spot on morning television has morphed into a sort of media free-for-all. Hollywood...

You Might Be Able to Go Home Again. Maybe.

I am tired of no one paying me. I am tired of blogs being boring. I am opening up Old Hag again. Here's my essay about why.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" turns 50

One of the nicest/weirdest parts of BEA 2010 was realizing I was in a book I totally did not know I was in — one with a huge big wall and anniversary edition thinger, yet! The director Mary McDonagh Murphy filmed a wondrous documentary about the fiftieth anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird at BEA last year – and now it's coming out accompanied by the book Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of 50 Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird", which collects all the interviews from the film. So weird to...

BEA 2010 La Press Clippings

Only good picture ever taken of me by snapperati

After this Library Journal panel write-up for our BEA 2010's "You're Reading That!?!—Tackling Crossover YA/Adult Readers" posted, I ran into my brother on the subway and was like, "Did you see? Did you see? I talked about you in my panel!" And he was like YEAH you called me NERDY. And I was like hello VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER FIVE TIMES. Seriously, though, everyone should read Jaws.