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Book Club Girl's Holiday Open House: Gregory Maguire Shares His Current Favorite Book

What an honor! New York Times bestselling author of Wicked, and most recently Lion Among Men and Matchless, Gregory Maguire is here at my Holiday Open House! And just like at a cocktail party, he's sharing his current favorite book. Read on to find out what it is, perhaps it's one you'll want to buy for the child in your life (or in you!) this year. Be sure to see what Adriana Trigiani and Susan McBride had to say at the Open House, and I think Jacqueline Sheehan is on her way in next!

Having just written and published my own take on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl," called Matchless, I suppose you will be not be surprised to find out that a book of Andersen stories is one of my current favorites. It is called Twelve Tales: Hans Christian Andersen, selected, translated and illustrated by Erik Blegvad. I love it for its artwork--Blegvad draws tight, crisp, droll scenes of great particularity and humor, which suits the stories. Magic, we all know, is much more believable when it is portrayed as snappily there, as real as a Nutcracker or a Little Mermaid or a Steadfast Tin Soldier: a real thing. None of this wispy gauzy fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden that you can't bring into focus (or you'd find out there were scraps of Burger King wrappings blown into the forsythia fronds). We want crisp actuality for fantasy, and Blegvad draws it as well as Andersen tells it. That's what Andersen gave to the fairy tale, and how he revitalized it almost single-handedly: He gave it particularity. That's what I tried to give to Matchless, too. I hope my story of Frederik on his island, and his meeting of the Little Match Girl, is as real as Andersen's tale. And my own drawings derive their strict line and their cross-hatching from my own love of Erik Blegvad's work. Check them both out!

Cheers, Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire's A Lion Among Men is On Sale Today!

The Wicked Years series continues with the long-awaited publication of Gregory Maguire's new novel, A Lion Among Men in which he focuses on an Oz original, The Cowardly Lion. Gregory stopped in recently to participate in a Borders book club discussion, and you can watch the video of the lively conversation that ensued here. You can also listen to a podcast with Maguire here and an audio excerpt here.

For a limited time, you can also read all of Wicked, the book that started it all, including the smash Broadway musical that is celebrating its 5th anniversary this month, online, for free! And for something even more fun, find out which Wicked character you are and post it to your profile with the new Facebook quiz! I am, apparently, Glinda, the Good Witch. My mother will be so proud.

I have 15 advance reading copies of A Lion Among Men to give away -- simply click on this link to read a portion of the book (scroll through to page 3 ) and then comment here on what you think of the book's beginning. I'll choose 15 random winners from all the comments made by midnight EST this Friday the 17th.

Have a Wicked Halloween

I don't know about you, but we're in full-on Halloween preparation mode in our house. My daughter usually begins planning her next year's costume on November 1st. So we went shopping this weekend for both my 13-year-old and my 2-year-old, who will be respectively, Marilyn Monroe (circa Seven Year Itch) and a wizard (we went in intending for him to be a cowboy, but he really took to the wizard hat). This weekend also found me in a Barnes & Noble, where you can't miss their huge display homage to Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, which is enjoying its fifth anniversary as a musical on Broadway this Fall. Wicked remains one of the toughest theater tickets to get in town and I can completely see why. The show is so captivating. We have the score playing regularly in our house.

This fall also brings the long-awaited publication of Gregory Maguire's next installment in the Wicked Years series, A Lion Among Men, going on sale on 10/14. For a limited time, as part of the run-up to the release of Lion, you can browse inside the entire book of Wicked online -- if you haven't yet read it, check it out. Not only a great book group pick, it's a great mother/daughter book group selection as well.

And if you're in the NYC area later this fall, you can try to score tickets to Wicked presents "The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken" being held on Monday, October 27th. This is a one-night only, all-star benefit featuring never-before-seen material performed publicly for the first time. In "The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken," composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz and book writer Winnie Holzman will share some of the scenes and songs from early drafts of the show that were cut during the show's development and pre-Broadway engagement. To purchase tickets, visit ticketmaster.com/wicked. Select "New York," go to 10/27 on the calendar and then "Find Tickets.

For more information on all the Wicked Day festivities celebrating ths show's anniversary, go here. And you can visit Gregory Maguire's website here.