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Susan Carpenter

There's plenty to keep author Adam Mansbach awake at night

Last updated Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 7:29am

LOS ANGELES -- A year ago, Adam Mansbach was an award-winning novelist and aspiring screenwriter wrapping up a two-year teaching job at Rutgers University. That was before his off-color picture book, "Go the F -- to Sleep," became an international phenomenon, catapulting the sleep-deprived father of one to the tops of best-seller lists and into the eye of a parenting maelstrom.

Features, Adam Mansbach, Books, Child rearing, Go the F--- to Sleep, Picture book, Seriously, Just Go to Sleep Read more Comments

Annaliese Wiens wraps herself in a Hunger Games blanket as she waits for the midnight shows of "The Hunger Games," at Rave Motion Pictures Northeast in Hurst, Texas on Thursday, March 22, 2012. The film, about children who are forced to compete in a live televised death match in the not-too-distant future, is based on the popular young adult book series by Suzanne Collins. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Max Faulkner)

Fans 'hunger' for more Hunger Games merchandise

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Monday, March 26, 2012 - 11:55am

LOS ANGELES -- Danielle Pepers is such a fan of "The Hunger Games" that she had the book's unofficial mascot -- a mockingjay -- tattooed on her right arm this month. But her intrigue with the books and movie, which hit theaters Friday, didn't stop there.

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Hiaasen's 'Chomp' takes a bite out of reality TV

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 7:58am

"CHOMP: A NOVEL." By Carl Hiaasen. Alfred A. Knopf. $16.99. Age 10 and up.

South Florida is known for many things: Alligators, orange groves and the writer who spins the area's most sensational attributes into even more sensational story lines, Carl Hiaasen. In his many best-sellers for adults and kids, Hiaasen has demonstrated a unique gift for wrapping real environmental issues into apocryphal, bust-a-gut books that parody pop culture -- a talent he furthers in his most recent middle-school novel, "Chomp."

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Geriatrics rent bodies in thriller

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 6:49am

"STARTERS." By Lissa Price. Random House Children's Books. $17.99. Age 12 and up.

It's often been said that youth is wasted on the young. In "Starters," the outstanding young-adult novel from debut author Lissa Price, that premise is pushed to an apocryphal limit that's possible only in sci-fi as wealthy geriatrics rent the bodies of nubile teens.

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Time travel proves tricky in fast-paced 'Tempest'

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, February 26, 2012 - 8:29am

"TEMPEST." By Julie Cross. Thomas Dunne Books. $17.99. Age 14 and up.

The dramatic potential of time travel has been exploited for decades in kid lit and in recent months has become something of a micro trend in modern young adult fiction, with books including Jay Asher's "The Future of Us" and Ian McDonald's "Planesrunner."

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'Chopsticks' a 21st-century novel

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, February 5, 2012 - 8:31am

"CHOPSTICKS." By Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral. Razorbill. $19.99. 12 and older.

The first indication that "Chopsticks" is significantly more than just a novel is its trailer, which encourages readers to watch, listen, feel, look, discover, view and imagine. All of those activities are not only encouraged but enabled in this ambitious and hefty tome that works as a sort of interactive scrapbook. An exercise in multimedia storytelling, "Chopsticks" is a book, but it's also an iPhone and iPad app peppered with videos, songs and instant messages that bring the story to life in a way that isn't possible with words alone.

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Teen struggles in space in action-packed sequel

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, January 22, 2012 - 6:16am

"A MILLION SUNS." By Beth Revis. Razorbill. $18.99. 12 and older.

More than 80 years ago, Aldous Huxley imagined a genetically engineered society whose inhabitants were willfully drugged into submission. In the "Across the Universe" trilogy, Beth Revis takes that pioneering concept and sets it afloat in space with a cast of cloned and cryogenically frozen characters who, in the second installment of this bestselling sci-fi series, become increasingly mutinous.

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Quest runs through parallel worlds

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - 1:36pm

"PLANESRUNNER." By Ian McDonald. Prometheus Books. $16.95.

It's an alluring idea that somewhere, somehow there's an alternate version of the life you're currently living. It might be better. It could be far worse. But if it exists, and it's possible to get there, why not at least visit? That's the basic idea at the center of "Planesrunner," the first book in the Everness series and the young-adult debut from award-winning sci-fi novelist Ian McDonald.

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Teens see their futures on Facebook

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - 2:12pm

"THE FUTURE OF US." By Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler. Razorbill. $18.99. 14 and up.

With the exception of the psychically inclined, most people would prefer to let their futures remain unknown, fearing that what they discover might influence their current choices and, as a result, alter what was otherwise meant to be.

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Michael Chabon tells story of vain superhero using pictures

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Monday, September 26, 2011 - 12:42pm

"THE ASTONISHING SECRET OF AWESOME MAN: A PICTURE BOOK." By Michael Chabon, with illustrations by Jake Parker. HarperCollins. $17.99. Age 4-8.

Faster than a 1,000-gigabyte word processor. More literary than the Oxford English Dictionary. Able to accrue writerly accolades in a single bound.

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Author Colfer keeps his sense of humor in adult novel debut

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, September 18, 2011 - 12:04pm

Irish author Eoin Colfer has been "doing leprechaun stuff" for a decade.

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MCT
Colin Meloy performs with his band The Decemberists in Los Angeles.

Decemberists' Colin Meloy tunes into book world with 'Wildwood'

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, September 11, 2011 - 12:24am

LOS ANGELES -- A baby is snatched by crows. His sister treks into the woods to find him and is followed by one Curtis Mehlberg, "son of Lydia and David, resident of Portland, Ore., comic-book fan boy, persecuted loner."

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Ties that bind also blind in 'Imaginary Girls'

Susan Carpenter Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, August 14, 2011 - 2:00pm

"IMAGINARY GIRLS." By Nova Ren Suma. Dutton. $17.99. Age 14 and older.

Sisterly bonds are complicated, none more so than those of teenagers whose parents are, in effect, absent. Having a barfly for a mother and fathers who fled the confines of domestic life, the half sisters at the center of the young-adult novel "Imaginary Girls" turn their relationship into a surrogate mother-daughter pairing that begins as idol worship and evolves into something even less healthy.

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The summer Carrie discovered the city

Los Angeles Times, Susan Carpenter

Last updated Monday, May 9, 2011 - 1:02pm

"SUMMER AND THE CITY: A CARRIE DIARIES NOVEL." By Candace Bushnell. HarperCollins/Balzer & Bray, $18.99.

For women of a certain age, Carrie Bradshaw and her "Sex and the City" pals are surrogate friends -- lovable yet flawed characters who've collectively experienced the many and messy permutations of modern-day urban romance.

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RICARDO DEARATANHA/Los Angeles Times
Marcia Clark is best known as the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial but she is now a novelist with her book “Guilt by Association.”

Clark metes out justice in a murder-mystery

Los Angeles Times, Susan Carpenter

Last updated Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - 3:01am

LOS ANGELES -- It's telling that the title of Marcia Clark's murder-mystery debut is smaller than her name on the novel's cover. Clark is best known as the lead prosecutor in the media circus known as the O.J. Simpson murder trial. She's less recognized as an author, even though her 1998 book about the case, "Without a Doubt," spent nine weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

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