In the Barnes & Noble special edition of Family of Liars (the purple one) there is a MIX-TAPE. I hand-wrote the cassette cover with all the songs, and decorated it with stars -- just like we used to do in 1987, when the book is set. There are a lot of other extras in that edition, too! Recipes, maps, and more.

But I wanted all my readers to be able to access the songs Carrie is listening to on Beechwood Island, so here is the list on Spotify. And on Apple Music.

As you can see from the picture, artists include REM, U2, The Pretenders, The Bangles, Eurythmics, Howard Jones, Dream Academy...
Happy Summer 1987, all of you.

March 14, 2020

The LES Girls Club is stunning — a huge new facility that offers art and career training, after school classes, physical education, roof garden activities, science lab, college application help, social work, travel opportunities, and more for the girls and young women in the community over on Avenue D in New York City.

You, my friends, sent them well over 300 books for the literacy program in 2018. But it's 2020.  And most of those books went home with girls who didn't have very many of their own books to keep. 

As of March 13, 2020, the new group of girls in the literacy program (and in the club, generally) NEED BOOKS. NYC public libraries are closed at present.

I put together an Amazon wish list.  It's newly updated (March 2020) and includes requests from the girls and from the director of the program, recent bestsellers, titles from Marly Diaz's amazing list, books from the Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers lists, books from other reluctant reader lists, and more.   It's super easy to buy the girls a book. Or ten! The address is on the top of the list, and SHOULD fill in automatically when you buy books -- but if it doesn't, you can see it there. 

Thank you so much for helping create a book-rich environment for this community of amazing young women and the facility that cares so much about them. Click here to send books. 

xo

E

Hi! I invite you to come hang out on Instagram, where I'm spending more time nowadays.  I'm trying to make the party over there good fun.  It's there and on Twitter that I do giveaways, give sneak peeks of upcoming titles, and share all my news.  

The blog is still good for tour dates and stuff of that nature.

XO E

I'm on episode 80 of the podcast So Many Damn Books. It’s a great podcast;  I liked the Megan Abbot and Francine Prose episodes, especially.  Anyway, here’s a photo of the cocktail the hosts made for me, plus the novel we discussed.  

Listen here.  

Zoella Book Club!  She (Zoella) picked eight books and I have read a bunch of them and they all look great -- Rainbow Rowell! Nicola Yoon! Jennifer Niven!   And lots of others.   Plus I wrote one of them: We Were Liars. 

The club is sponsored by W.H. Smith, in the UK, but the exclusive content is available for everyone to see. The main club page is here -- with links to videos, playlists, interviews and exclusive outtakes, plus sample chapters of all the books. 

Here's my interview about We Were Liars. 

Here are the outtakes from the book (deleted scenes). 

Here's Zoella chatting about the book, plus a schedule of events related to We Were Liars (and a vote in Sept).

There will be more content rolling out soon, and click here to find it.

And here's the video where she talks about all the books -- great if you're trying to decide what to read this summmer.

My website has been totally redesigned by the excellent Conrad Wells. I love it so much. 

Cheery end of the year stuff is happening with We Were Liars. Your local independent bookshop will probably have nice gift-y looking copies with bands around the center that makes them look special, and Hudson Booksellers (in all the airports) will have the book on display for quick and easy gifts or airplane reading.  And Amazon says its their #1 YA book for the year, and the only YA book in their top 20. 

So I would be feeling pretty awesome if I weren't trying to finish the next book, which is  a BLOODY MESS right now. But still, I do feel awesome. 

The most fun awesomeness for you as a reader is that We Were Liars is up for the  GoodReads Choice Award -- which you can VOTE FOR.  It's in the YA Fiction category and we're down to the finals, now. You can very easily vote in all categories and it is quite fun to do. I voted in fiction and cookbooks. Anyway, WWL is in very good company so when you see the list of books in the top ten, you may vote for something else instead! But I hope you will go vote, because there's no doubt you'll find about about some good new books while you're doing it. 

It is an exciting day in Lockhart land. I am interviewed on one of my fave podcasts, Sara Zarr's This Creative Life. Zarr wrote Roomies (with Tara Altebrando) and The Lucy Variations and lots of other awesome books, and the podcast interviews all kinds of writers about the intersection of life and work, the creative process, etc. 

Click here to listen and to learn more about Zarr and the podcast. 

Also, over at the National Book Award, the long list for young people's lit was announced today!  I was on the judging committee for Young People's Literature last year, so I really understand the process and feel nostalgic about the whole thing -- 289 books, arriving in boxes over the summer. My idea of fun.  Our winner last year was Cynthia Kadohata's The Thing About Luck, which is a really wonderful story and everyone should read it. 

This year's long list includes some books I've loved (Threatened by Eliot Schrefer and Noggin by John Corey Whaley)  and some others I'm psyched to discover.  If you're looking for quality YA and MG to read, you really should check out the "Up all Night" online exhibition of previous YPL finalists and winners.  Happy reading. XXOE

There's a bunch of We Were Liars internet fun been going on past few weeks. I can't imagine you folks want to read it all, but here are some links anyhow!  

Here on Bustle, eight books besides mine with honkin' plot twists, including two of my fave books of all time, Liar by Justine Larbalestier and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. 

Here, an interview on Parade about plotting the novel. 

And here, on Hello Giggles, a list of the best fictional liars, ever. Very nice company to be in. 

Then on Flavorwire, a list of feminist YA novels, starting with Disreputable History and including a load of awesome reads. 

And on GooglePlay I recommend my favorite summer reads. 

Below! Booktalk Nation video of me and Gayle Forman (Just One Day, Just One Year, If I Stay, which will be a movie in August! ) chitty-chatting about We Were Liars and drinking wine and talking feminism. 

And below, a video interview I did with Goodreads.