Behind The Pages #1 - The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

Welcome to my first Behind The Pages post! This is my new feature in 2014 and one I've been waiting for months now to share with you all.

What is Behind The Pages all about? I asked some of my favourite authors and a bunch of promising 2014 debut authors to annotate a scene, page or more of one of their books. I see the feature as a chance to show readers what's behind a page. Authors can share their favourite writing memories, the music that influenced a certain scene or anything else that comes to their mind. We might get hints to what the characters were thinking and feeling that exact moment or other fun details about their story. 

Hope you enjoy Behind The Pages as much as I do. I'm intending this feature to be a monthly post here on the blog, with Lauren Oliver kicking off the feature with her second MG novel THE SPINDLERS and being my Behind The Pages January author. Thanks to all the fabulous authors who took the time to annotate a page or scene for us, your comments are always so insightful and fun to read. When readers can't get enough of a book and its characters it only shows how much the author's work means to them, to us. Thank you! 

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Looking across the breakfast table one morning, twelve-year-old Liza feels dread wash over her. Although her younger brother, Patrick, appears the same, Liza knows that he is actually quite different. She is certain that the spindlers—evil, spiderlike beings—came during the night and stole his soul. And Liza is also certain that she is the only one who can rescue him.

Armed with little more than her wits and a huge talking rat for a guide, Liza descends into the dark and ominous underground to save Patrick's soul. Her quest is far from easy: she must brave tree-snakes, the Court of Stones, and shape-shifting scawgs before facing her greatest challenge in the spindlers' lair, where more than just Patrick's soul is at stake.

Jonathan Alpeyrie, 2011

Lauren Oliver comes from a family of writers and so has always (mistakenly) believed that spending hours in front of the computer every day, mulling over the difference between “chortling” and “chuckling,” is normal. She has always been an avid reader. 

She attended the University of Chicago, where she continued to be as impractical as possible by majoring in philosophy and literature. After college, she attended the MFA program at NYU and worked briefly as the world’s worst editorial assistant, and only marginally better assistant editor, at a major publishing house in New York. Her major career contributions during this time were flouting the corporate dress code at every possible turn and repeatedly breaking the printer. Before I Fall is her first published novel. 

She is deeply grateful for the chance to continue writing, as she has never been particularly good at anything else.

Book Summary & Author Bio from Goodreads 

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The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver
- In case the notes need translation Lauren Oliver provided it on the right side.

* So in my front yard we really did have a little fir tree next to a birdbath. One time, my sister and I buried a time capsule there!

  

*I was thinking of my mom's garden here, which was wild and magical.

*My best friend's name is Patrick. I even have his initials tattooed on my arm!

Want to find out more about THE SPINDLERS and not only what's behind a single page, but an entire book? Then I can recommend watching Lauren Oliver's seven-video series about HOW A BOOK IS MADE. In the first episode Lauren Oliver tells you how she developed the idea for her book.

The Spindlers Art by Iacopo Bruno

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Here's your chance to win the THE SPINDLERS copy Lauren Oliver used to annotate her page. She was so kind to donate the copy for a giveaway. Thank you very much! The giveaway is open to US residents only and ends February 15th 2014.

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