I don't have any of these books but all of them sound appealing in one way or another. And I wanted to close these bookmarks but still remember the books - hence a post to remind me about them as the holidays get closer.

DASH AND LILY'S BOOK OF DARES by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. First, all fans of Hammett and Hellman need to stand up and cheer over this title. (Yea!) What we have here are two teens on a literary treasure hunt through NYC that starts in The Strand. There are clues and quirks, and, of course, a budding romance. Perhaps not as snarky as Nick and Nora but carrying the panache of the real Dash and Lily. I love what these authors do when they get together - this looks like total winter break fun reading.

THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO LIVING by Lia Hills. This is new to the US (out last year in AUS) and is a coming-of-age with a strong philosophical lean to it. Will's mother has suddenly died and he seeks meaning in the works of Plato, Seneca, Nietzsche, etc while also embarking on a romance with a girl he meets at his mother's wake. It's all about finding answers with a strong teen male protag which makes me very happy. It also includes black and white photos, quotes, etc., so from a design perspective I'm quite curious. Looking forward to seeing if this one lives up to its promise.

Anvil Press, a Canadian indy, sent me a catalog out of the blue and the poetry collection VS by Kerry Ryan jumped right out at me. The poems chronicle her real life foray into boxing - she's described as shy and bookish but oddly compelled by the sport. She decided to enter an amateur bout and see how she could do. "Throughout the collection the author reflects on what it means to be a woman and a fighter, as well as a poet and a fighter." I'm usually intimidated by poetry but I've long been interested in boxing so the combo here is way appealing.

And DK has several books to keep an eye out for - especially LOOK NOW - a "picture of our world and its people conveyed through infographics". This has boys written all over it (not that it won't appeal to girls too but still...) It's full of facts, figures, graphics, illustrations, etc to show how humans interact with the world. There's also THE BEST ART YOU'VE NEVER SEEN by Julian Spalding which is pretty self-explanatory (and looks gorgeous) and EXPLORERS which focuses on 50 of the world's greatest explorers and in a ton of different ways shows wicked cool people doing wicked cool things.

Basically I can't get enough of guys like Shackleton and Mallory so a book like EXPLORERS just screams "Read Me!" (And I know a ton of teens will fall hard for it because the spreads look amazing.)

More substantial posting to return soon - as soon as I dig out from underneath the massive amount of book reviewing for Booklist plus finishing a rewrite on a piece of MAPS to submit and a short story. So that means - look for longer blog posts in November. Promise. Really. But finding out about cool books in short posts is fun too, right?