Jun 18 2010

Gimmicky and overpriced

I am voting "no" on the romance-novel inspired gloss made by Three Custom Color Specialists. I like romance novels and I like lipgloss, but A) I've never read anything by author Brenda Novak, B) ...

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Jun 17 2010

Yeah... I think not.

Yearning for an "artistic" sci-fi film about human clones being raised as organ donors, enjoying a few totally depressing romantic liaisons, and then dying early deaths? You're in luck! The trai...

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Jun 16 2010

We approve.

As longtime readers of the site know, I love reading about frugality. Sadly, Wordcandy hardly ever receives books on this subject, which means I have to either wait patiently for library copies o...

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Jun 16 2010

Something to (maybe) look forward to

Whoa: I've been wading through the descriptions of the "favorite fall teen reads" from a panel of big-name YA editors at the BookExpo of America. Their picks include:Infinite Days, by debut autho...

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Jun 15 2010

Deliciousness ahoy

I knew Publishers Weekly reviewed cookbooks, but I didn't realize they featured recipes, too—particularly not recipes with names like "Kate's Impossibly Fudgy Brownies with Chili and Sea Salt" (fr...

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Jun 15 2010

A happy combination

If you're interested in Janet Evanovich's upcoming graphic novel Troublemaker (a continuation of her Alex Barnaby series), you should check out the—mildly NSFW!—Etsy Shop of Joëlle Jones, the illu...

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Jun 14 2010

Looking forward to it

Eoin Colfer has apparently written his first independent novel for adults. (We're discounting And Another Thing..., his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sequel.) Colfer's upcoming book Plugged i...

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Jun 14 2010

Just like The Firm, but rated G, and set twenty years later...

Okay, I'd heard of this novel, but with a title like Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer I seriously thought it was a joke. But it turns out that A) it's a real book (international best-seller John Grisha...

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Jun 11 2010

Okay, I admit it.

Much as I hate these monster/classic book hybrids, this cover did make me laugh.

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Jun 10 2010

Let down your standards

I was really irritated when I first heard about Disney's decision to tweak their upcoming movie version of Rapunzel in order to attract more boy viewers. There's already a serious lack of girl-fr...

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Jun 10 2010

Pride and Prejudice and footnotes

Okay, it's not the annotated Pride and Prejudice of my dreams, but DK Publishing's "Illustrated Classics" edition is still pretty great. Each book contains the original, unabridged text, and feat...

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Jun 8 2010

A fine birthday tradition

Author Kat Richardson decided to celebrate her May 22nd birthday by giving her fans a present: a previously unpublished Harper Blaine short story, available here. Here's hoping Ms. Richardson had...

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Jun 8 2010

Nothing says "summer" like overblown Czech prose

I just don't know about your list of the top 60 books to read this summer, Los Angeles Times. I mean, I'm with you on the Daniel Pinkwater and Meg Cabot and China Miéville releases, but a bunch o...

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Jun 7 2010

Seita Parkkola

Finnish author Seita Parkkola is the author of the award-winning horror/fantasy novel The School of Possibilities, one of our Featured Book picks. According to the (possibly questionably translat...

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Jun 7 2010

The School of Possibilities, by Seita Parkkola

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The School of Possibilities is the English translation of Seita Parkkola's award-winning novel Viima, originally published in Finland in 2006. While the book isn't perfect, it is an unusua...

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Jun 7 2010

Awesome!

At long last, the cover art is out for Jennifer Crusie's first solo novel in years, a Turn of the Screw-inspired book called Maybe This Time. Behold:I'm not a huge fan of that font, but I like ov...

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Jun 7 2010

There's a fine line between "sweet" and "totally hokey"

Well, the trailer is out for the movie adaptation of my beloved Flipped, and I'm really not feeling it. The book was wholesome, sure, but this looks like a non-ironic version of Pleasantville wit...

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Jun 4 2010

I'm not gonna lie; I will probably watch this.

I have this 14-year-old family friend who only seems to enjoy books featuring preternaturally good-looking people dying horrible deaths. She's a big fan of the "Pretty Little Liars" series by Sar...

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Jun 3 2010

Kids + books = recipe for success?

Laura Miller wrote an essay for Salon about two recent studies that link the mere presence of books in a child's home with the number of years of education the child will complete. The first stud...

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Jun 2 2010

Odd pairing

I'm not sure why a Portland independent bookstore is celebrating Dairy Month, but celebrating it they are... so if you're in the market for a book about milk, cheese, cows, or goats be sure to che...

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Jun 1 2010

RIP, CMX.

I didn't hear much about DC Comics' CMX manga line while it was up and running, but now that DC has decided to shut it down it's all over the place. The Beat posted a helpful summary of the many,...

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Jun 1 2010

Best of luck, but...

The fine people at Dramabeans have been kind enough to keep us updated on the status of the upcoming K-drama adaptation of the Japanese manga Itazura na Kiss, so we were interested to learn that H...

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May 28 2010

End of an era

Heh. Apparently, Oxford's All Souls College has decided to scrap their infamous one-word exam, which frequently consisted of a question like this:'Water' (Expound)Admittedly, this will probably s...

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May 27 2010

So unfair. So very, very unfair.

WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?As y'all know, I HATED the recent five-issue Marvel comic adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. So when I saw their next Austen-inspired project (an adaptation of...

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May 27 2010

Lord Sunday, by Garth Nix

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Lord Sunday is the final book in Garth Nix's ambitious fantasy/adventure series The Keys to the Kingdom. Over the course of the six previous novels Nix's protagonist—an asthmatic 12-year-old na...

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May 26 2010

A little something extra

Okay, this isn't really a book post, but I have a head cold, and when I don't feel well reading about food soothes me (even when I totally can't taste anything). But even if I wasn't sick, this c...

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May 25 2010

Typecasting

Angelina Jolie to play the Wicked Witch of the West in a Wizard of Oz remake? ...I could see that, actually. I think she'd rock the green paint, but they might want to go for a more form-fitting ...

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May 24 2010

Swedish smackdown

If you're a fan of Steig Larsson's hugely successful Millenium Trilogy, be sure to check out the Times article "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson". It's a little wordy (eight pages), but offers a gr...

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May 21 2010

Not the cake I would have chosen, but...

Huh. Apparently, May 10th through the 16th was Children's Book Week, and the always-entertaining site Cake Wrecks decided to celebrate with a selection of literature-inspired cakes. I don't know...

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May 20 2010

What DOES Disney have against eyeshadow, anyway?

Clearly, some people see the Disney 'verse in a sexier light than I do--check out J. Scott Campbell's illustrations of pneumatic Disney princesses (I can't believe the Little Mermaid's seashells c...

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