New Book Series "The A Circuit" by Georgina Bloomberg

[Jaideux]

[QUOTE=SweetMutt;5594909]
Did anyone else read the Thoroughbred books? I remember getting into those as a kid/young teenager and loving them. Probably not winners of any literary awards, but they were decently written and didn’t make me cringe.[/QUOTE]

This series is what got me into horses in the first place

I was an avid, nay, rabid, reader as a kid. The girl who sat next to me in 3rd grade had these books. I didn’t have a book one day to read during recess, so she loaned me one. I was hooked on the books, and befriended her. Her other friend (who now makes a nice living repping CWD and making up AA/AO horses to sell) hung out with us, and I was dragged to the dark side. I didn’t get to start taking lessons until 5th or 6th grade, but in the mean time (and even after I started taking lessons!) I did “horse on foot” jumping, managed a whole barn on paper, went to watch my friends ride in their lessons. It was wonderful!

Lucky me

[ForaSmallFee11]

I was a Thoroughbred series addict myself, and the Heartland series. The Thoroughbred series was great and seemingly never ending, I read upto book 30 something before I think I out grew them.

[ElizabethL]

So fun for an author to peek into this thread and find out what people “really” think! So true what everyone says about the covers! Mine has been through LOTS of iterations.

Just a heads up that if ya’ll are looking for a TRUE story, my book, The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation, will be out in September from Ballantine Books.

It tells the true rags-to-riches story of 1950s show jumper Snowman, and his rider Harry de Leyer.

I hope you readers will look out for it when the time comes!

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Jumpthemoon16;5597724]
That’s kind of the YA “style” now. You see it in all of the series books, whether they involve horses or not. The authors like to throw in brand names with gusto. Gucci and Burberry there, Charles Owen and GPA over here.[/QUOTE]

Wow. If you weren’t sure that we are raising up good materialists who will buy and buy to keep economies afloat, now you know.

I didn’t know this was “accepted practice” in modern YA literature. It certainly gives books a short shelf-life… meaning the kiddies with their considerable control over family spending must also buy “new” all the time.

Do you think this emphasis on “the stuff” comes from the fact that the adults writing them grew up in the 1980s and 1990s when to them the stuff was a major part of one’s identity formation?

[danceronice]

[QUOTE=mvp;5598100]
Wow. If you weren’t sure that we are raising up good materialists who will buy and buy to keep economies afloat, now you know.

I didn’t know this was “accepted practice” in modern YA literature. It certainly gives books a short shelf-life… meaning the kiddies with their considerable control over family spending must also buy “new” all the time.[/QUOTE]

Well, it is for a certain value of YA ‘literature’, the “Gossip Girls” school of books. (Honestly, if I had kids I’d give them something else to read and as far as brand-names go they’d get what’s on sale and like it or they could go get a job and pay themselves.)

[Coreene]

She’s got a good PR person. The new Vanity Fair has a drooly paragraph about the book.

[Teacup]

[QUOTE=SweetMutt;5594909]
Did anyone else read the Thoroughbred books? I remember getting into those as a kid/young teenager and loving them. Probably not winners of any literary awards, but they were decently written and didn’t make me cringe.[/QUOTE]
I absolutely loved these books! Now I’m tempted to go open one and see how I like them now vs. then.

[horsegal301]

I love the Thoroughbred series! I thought they were fantastic and I’m sad my mother gave them ALL away at a garage sale, I would still read them now! That being said, I haven’t read much YA literature lately, but it makes me sad that I would find brand dropping in books other than gossip girl type books. I found the simply extremely hard to read, as I said before… I would be adverse to reading any other books that were written like it or the GG books if they are indeed, written similarly.

On a side note, if you want some good YA books and don’t mind fantasy, check out the Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix. Absolutely INCREDIBLE (and I think he’s contemplating making one of them into a movie!)

[rivenoak]

@Coreene;5598155

She’s got a good PR person. The new Vanity Fair has a drooly paragraph about the book.

I’m tempted to write in & complain about that.

That, and if they publish one more article on the Kennedys, I’m tempted to cancel my subscription.

[arabhorse2]

@giddybiddy;5588612

So funny, me and my mom (both writers, and she’s published a few young adult novels) have seriously thought of writing a series set in the A circuit for years now.

You’re a writer? That first sentence should be, ‘my mom and I’, not ‘me and my mom’.

I’d think you’d know that, being a published author and all.

[InWhyCee_Redux]

[QUOTE=Jumpthemoon16;5597724]
That’s kind of the YA “style” now. You see it in all of the series books, whether they involve horses or not. The authors like to throw in brand names with gusto. Gucci and Burberry there, Charles Owen and GPA over here.[/QUOTE]

It’s called “character development,” i.e. the writer has no time and/or inclination to actually develop the character, instead employing the products the character favors to become, essentially, the character. I blame Candace Bushnell…

[InWhyCee_Redux]

[QUOTE=Coreene;5598155]
She’s got a good PR person. The new Vanity Fair has a drooly paragraph about the book.[/QUOTE]

If she’s trying to make the case that she deserves to be known for her skill as a rider (which is considerable) and not for Dad’s name/bucks, she needs a get new PR person. :no: I’d bet money that Vanity Fair didn’t go so far as to read the first chapter.

[InWhyCee_Redux]

[QUOTE=ElizabethL;5597962]
So fun for an author to peek into this thread and find out what people “really” think! So true what everyone says about the covers! Mine has been through LOTS of iterations.

Just a heads up that if ya’ll are looking for a TRUE story, my book, The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation, will be out in September from Ballantine Books.

It tells the true rags-to-riches story of 1950s show jumper Snowman, and his rider Harry de Leyer.

I hope you readers will look out for it when the time comes![/QUOTE]

I think I love it already — anyone who has read Jilly Cooper’s “Riders” can connect the dots between the fictional Sailor and the real Snowman.

[EverAfter]

[QUOTE=arabhorse2;5598454]
You’re a writer? That first sentence should be, ‘my mom and I’, not ‘me and my mom’.

I’d think you’d know that, being a published author and all.[/QUOTE]

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[ElizabethL]

[QUOTE=InWhyCee Redux;5598474]
I think I love it already — anyone who has read Jilly Cooper’s “Riders” can connect the dots between the fictional Sailor and the real Snowman.[/QUOTE]

Well now… I’ve never read Jilly Cooper’s “Riders”. Now, I’m going to grab one as soon as I can. Sounds like fun!

[ponyhunter7870]

Hmm… this thread has turned from GB to a horsey-reading list.
I recommend Canterwood Crest, Riders, and the Thoroughbred (I butchered the spelling.) books…

[Gnrock25]

Does anyone know when it comes out?

And somewhere I read that someone said that the Clique books are accurate with horses. The first few are I think, but later they get so wrong I was embarrassed to read them I think that a girl used “saddle glue” to glue someone onto their saddle and the same girl’s saddle had a rear view mirror, and some other silly additions to them. About the Gossip Girl books- I can totally see Blair riding! She is the perfect diva to be riding on the A circuit! Georgina from the books “shocked us all by selling her favorite show pony for drug” or something to that extent. She also OD on horse tranqs in one book.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=rivenoak;5598432]
I’m tempted to write in & complain about that.

That, and if they publish one more article on the Kennedys, I’m tempted to cancel my subscription.[/QUOTE]

Vanity Fair bothered? Didn’t Vanity Fair used to not be inspid? Or was that only in the 19th century? Or was it trash then, too, and I just don’t know it?

The whole thing is embarrassment, or ought to be. Maybe the second author made buck. Otherwise I can’t figure out why this was written and published.

@InWhyCee Redux;5598455

It’s called “character development,” i.e. the writer has no time and/or inclination to actually develop the character, instead employing the products the character favors to become, essentially, the character. I blame Candace Bushnell…

The stuff you own vs. the person you are. Weren’t these the same if you were a teen in the 1980s or 1990s? Maybe the product name dropping is character development written in acceptable code. After all, 19th century authors had phrenology behind them and therefore told you lots and lots about the shapes of foreheads and chins.

[Jumpthemoon16]

[QUOTE=Gnrock25;5599009]
Does anyone know when it comes out?

And somewhere I read that someone said that the Clique books are accurate with horses. The first few are I think, but later they get so wrong I was embarrassed to read them I think that a girl used “saddle glue” to glue someone onto their saddle and the same girl’s saddle had a rear view mirror, and some other silly additions to them. About the Gossip Girl books- I can totally see Blair riding! She is the perfect diva to be riding on the A circuit! Georgina from the books “shocked us all by selling her favorite show pony for drug” or something to that extent. She also OD on horse tranqs in one book.[/QUOTE]

That was me. I said the general attitude of the “rich girl with horses” was right, not at all the descriptions of tack or shows! I said I laughed because even I knew girls like that with expensive ponies who would only go out once a month and wreak havoc

[Eye_in_the_Sky]

[QUOTE=hj0519;5594873]
It’s called ghostwriting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter[/QUOTE]

Holy Moly! I Thought it was an urban myth! I really thought that would be illegal and surely not allowed…wow. I can handle the organizational struggles of gang life, but I cannot wrap my brain around THIS. Huh.