Hodder Launch Party for Delirium by Lauren Oliver - 21st March 2011

On Monday the lovely Lynsey (from Narratively Speaking) invited me as her plus one to the launch party for Delirium by Lauren Oliver that had been organised by Hodder & Stoughton.  I've heard nothing but good things about Lauren's first book Before I Fall and I absolutely loved Delirium (I'll be posting my review soon) so I was incredibly excited when Lynsey invited me to the event.  We met up in the afternoon and travelled to the event together stopping for something to eat on the way but we were both so excited that we ended up arriving really early.

The event was held in a design shop, cafe and bar called Drink, Shop & Do which I'd never heard of before but will definitely be visiting again.  Not far from Kings Cross station Drink, Shop & Do is a fantastically kitsch place selling both vintage and designer products.  The cafe come bar in the back room is like a wonderfully old fashioned tea room with mismatched furniture and best of all everything you see is actually for sale.  The Hodder and Drink, Shop & Do staff had gone to a lot of effort to create a cozy atmosphere for the event and everywhere you looked were tables piled high with copies of Lauren's books and plenty of cakes and nibbles.  While we were finding somewhere to sit the staff were busy making cocktails in fab little tea cups - cocktails and cake, my favorite kind of tea party!

I had a great time chatting with the other bloggers while we were waiting for Lauren to arrive.  As you can see from the pictures below we were all quite excitable!

When Lauren arrived she was so lovely and friendly, she made a great effort to make sure she went around and spoke to everyone and spent quite a bit of time sitting at our table with us.  We played a fun introduction game where we all had to share our favorite animal.  Lauren's was a teacup pig which she would love to own as a pet one day, we were all laughing out loud at her description of how it would sound clip clopping across her wooden floors.  If you'd like to play guess the bloggers favorite animal the bloggers playing were Lynsey, Jo, Vivienne, Michelle, Lauren, Becky, Kay & me and the animals picked were dolphins, butterflies, koalas, penguins, tigers, elephants and wolves. Feel free to make your guesses in the comments and I'll let you know if you're right or not

When it was time for the more formal part of the evening Lauren was introduced by her editor Kate (who has fantastic taste in books!) and then Lauren gave a lovely speech about how much she appreciates bloggers and how they really helped make a success of Before I Fall.  It was so sweet of her and I think we were all touched. Apart from meeting Lauren the big highlight of the evening was getting to listen to the folk group Minnie Birch.  One of their songs was used for the Before I Fall trailer so when it was time to create the Delirium trailer Hodder sent them a copy of the book and they actually wrote a song especially for the trailer.  Delirium is a beautiful song and the room was in silence as we all listened to them singing it.  You can find out more about Minnie Birch on facebook here and if you'd like to listen to the beautiful Delirium song you can download it for free here (this link was posted by Minnie Birch on their facebook page and isn't a sneaky way of stealing the song!)

Before I Fall Trailer:


Delirium Trailer:


Before the end of the evening we were given fantastic goodie bags by Hodder containing Delirium posters and postcards and we were allowed to take copies of the books from the tables so we could get them all signed. Lauren took time to chat to everyone while she was signing and wrote lovely personalised messages for each of us. It really was wonderful to meet her and she was one of the loveliest authors I've met.

I would like to say thank you to Lauren and Minnie Birch for making it a night to remember.  Also I have to say a massive thanks to everyone at Hodder for arranging such a fantastic event and for letting Lynsey bring me with her!

If you'd like to watch the official Hodder video of the evening I've included it here for you.  You can spot all of us on there if you look carefully enough!

Who Was There:

Leni, Kate, Katie, Laur & Oriel - Hodder & Stoughton
Lauren Oliver - Website - Event Report
Minnie Birch - Facebook Page
Becky - The Bookette
Carla - The Crooked Shelf - Event Report
Jenny - Wondrous Reads - Event Report

Jo - Once Upon a Bookcase
Kay - Dead Book Darling - Event Report

Lauren - I Was A Teenage Book Geek

Lynsey - Narratively Speaking
Michelle - Fluttering Butterflies
Tara - Hobbitsies - Event Report
Vivienne - Serendipity