Price-gouging at Hogwarts
The NY Times recently posted an article about what they describe as the "unexpected, turbocharged success of the $265 million Potter playland" (i.e., Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter th...
Pride and Prejudice goes R-rated
And speaking of Jane Austen-related pain, check this out:The above is what its publisher describes as a "deliciously naughty updating" of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, making it "the story you lov...
Sense and sensibility and OH, MY EYES
Ugh, another one?JUST STOP TRYING, HARPER COLLINS. WE'RE NEVER EVER GOING TO CONFUSE JANE AUSTEN AND STEPHENIE MEYER.
Camelot: now with even more potboiler action!
Arthurian legend fans take note: Starz will be airing a new drama called Camelot, debuting April 1st. This new adaptation will be heavy on the sex, sword-fighting, and magic, and (thankfully) it'...
Either they're missing something, or I am.
My, my. Publisher New South, Inc. is releasing a new edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn that will remove the bucketload of racial slurs in Huckleberry Finn.New ...
The Green Lantern flexes for the big screen
I have my doubts about this Green Lantern trailer: It looks seriously hokey, and I've never really been into the whole golden-child appeal of either Blake Lively or Ryan Reynolds. However, my ...
Three Black Swans, by Caroline B. Cooney
First cousins Missy and Claire, the heroines of Caroline B. Cooney's latest novel Three Black Swans, are so close they can finish each other's sentences. They also look uncannily similar, so when Missy is assigned a school project on scientific hoaxes, she and Claire successfully trick her classmates into thinking they are long-lost identical twins...
Finally, a chance for all that Jane Austen fanfic to pay off...
The fine people at The Republic of Pemberley are hosting a writing contest focused on Jane Austen-inspired short stories. If you are an unpublished author of legal age, your Austen-esque story co...
The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain't Dead, by Keith Knight
Keith Knight's The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain't Dead is a low-key but consistently entertaining comic strip centered around Knight, an African-American cartoonist and musician living...
The end of book-browsing as we know it?
The New York Times posted an article last week about the year-end boom in e-reader sales, which some analysts believe will lead to a huge increase in e-book popularity in 2011. Most of the articl...
Gimme a Call, by Sarah Mlynowski
I've been following Sarah Mlynowski's career ever since the publication of her first novel: 2001's Milkrun, one of the first offerings from Red Dress Ink, the now-defunct Harlequin...
Setting yourself up for disappointment
The BuzzSugar staff has helpfully compiled a list of 15 books to read before their film adaptations are released. Considerate of them, although why'd they leave out The Invention of Hugo Cabret?
The Crossbones: Skeleton Creek #3, by Patrick Carman
We liked the first two books in Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek horror/mystery series. Sure, we moaned about having to access hokey online videos in order to fully experience th...
So pretty!
Isn't this a beautiful sight to behold?The picture doesn't do it full justice, but I assure you: in real life, this recent repackaging of two of P.G. Wodehouse's full-length Jeeves and Wooster nov...
A gift from Scholastic to you...
The fine people at Scholastic have made Alexandra Bullen's YA novel Wish available as a free e-book download. From now until January 3rd, click here to read Wish in its entirety. (You can also p...
Jane Eyre on the big screen. Again.
Why, look at this, another Jane Eyre adaptation! That would be... what, the fourth version made for television or film in the past 15 years? Most of me thinks we should let poor Jane get some re...
Goats: Showcase Showdown, by Jonathan Rosenberg
According to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, an immortal monkey hitting a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time will eventually replicate the complete works of Shakespeare...
Electron Boy takes off
With the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a Seattle-area boy battling a rare form of cancer saved the Pacific Northwest from evil last spring. (Personally, I was very grateful--I'm a huge Seat...
The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar
Seventeen-year-old Alton Richards, the protagonist of Louis Sachar's novel The Cardturner, is furious when his parents insist he spend the summer working for his wealthy great-uncle Lester. Lester is blind, testy, and a master bridge player, so Alton foresees a long, dull summer spent driving his uncle to his club and helping him play the world's most boring card game...
Big Clay Pot, by Scott Mills
Scott Mills's delicately illustrated graphic novel Big Clay Pot is the story of Sun Kim, a preadolescent Korean orphan who ends up in a small fishing community in ancient Japan. Sun Kim's klutziness gets her kicked out of camp after camp, until she meets Kokoro...
Welcome to Temptation, by Jennifer Crusie
St. Martin's Press has recently re-released Jennifer Crusie's Welcome To Temptation, giving Crusie fans a second chance to enjoy this ridiculously fun, sexy blend of small-town pol...
Oscar bait
The movie trailer for Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants is out. Behold:Wow, middlebrow angst, cute animals, period costumes, and Edward Cullen? It's like they're trying to smash every successful ...
Books, bells, and whistles
NPR's Morning Edition recently aired a story about "multi-platform" children's books, focusing largely on our beloved 39 Clues series. Personally, we think the literary gimmick is tough to get ri...
Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater
Writing the middle novel in a trilogy must be tough. Authors need to sustain their momentum and provide at least a little plot resolution, but they also have to leave enough loose...
Cartoon Cute Animals, by Christopher Hart
Christopher Hart, author of the hugely popular book Manga Mania: How to Draw Japanese Comics, has written a number of bestselling illustrated art instruction manuals. His latest effort is...
Figure-skating... WITH THE GODS!
The official trailer for Marvel's Thor movie is out, and it left me with two burning questions. Is that dark-haired dude all in black meant to be Loki, and, if so, is he supposed to look just lik...
How Rocket Learned to Read, written and illustrated by Tad Hills
How Rocket Learned to Read, the latest picture book from bestselling author and illustrator Tad Hills, is an engaging, attractively illustrated story about a small dog who transform...
Travel in style to fictional locations
Okay, I'm adding an addendum to our Holiday Gift List. Check out these "Comic Travel Location" posters from artist Justin Van Genderen:Are they not awesome? There are more on Mr. Van Genderen's ...