May 3 2010

Free For All: Fixing School Food in America, by Janet Poppendieck

Janet Poppendieck writes like a lawyer, and we mean that in the best possible way. She's careful and she covers her bases—both highly desirable traits in a nonfiction writer, particularly wh...

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May 3 2010

Austen goes Bollywood... again

AustenBlog informs me that Aisha, a Bollywood film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma starring Sonam Kapoor (left), will be coming out this August. I'm a big fan of Kandukondain Kandukondain, the 2...

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Apr 29 2010

Returned (in part) to the original owner

Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co. is selling the licensing rights for Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts' characters to Iconix Brand Group Inc. (owners of Joe Boxer and London Fog) for a whopping $175 m...

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Apr 29 2010

Who knew she was dating Harry Potter?

Speaking of Nora Roberts' Bride Quartet, there's a game! It's an interactive "Hidden Objects" sort of deal, and apparently there will be separate games for each book in the series. Now, I'm not ...

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Apr 28 2010

Savor the Moment, by Nora Roberts

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Savor the Moment is the third book in Nora Roberts' best-selling Bride Quartet. This installment focuses on pastry chef Laurel McBane, co-owner of Vows, the wedding-planning company she founded w...

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Apr 28 2010

Bad omen?

Hmm. Yen Press has announced that they'll be switching their monthly manga/manhwa anthology Yen Plus from print to a digital format. The last printed issue will come out in July, and there are s...

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Apr 27 2010

Living Hell, by Catherine Jinks

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Great horror novels usually feature two things: a terrifying antagonist and a plot capable of lending weight to what would otherwise just be a lot of running and screaming. Catherine Jinks' novel...

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Apr 27 2010

Just a reminder....

They're offering tons of titles, but I'm most interested in the Tick issue and what appears to be a Lady Gaga bio linked (in some obscure way) to S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders.

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Apr 26 2010

The Sisters Grimm: The Inside Story, by Michael Buckley

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Once again, Michael Buckley's newest Sisters Grimm book is scheduled to go on sale May 1st, and once again, it was widely available by mid-April. I asked about this (again), and the bookseller tol...

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Apr 26 2010

Cringe-worthy

I finally watched the Eclipse trailer, and it is bad. Like, hilariously bad. Everything about it, from the "creepy dudes coming out of the water" bit* to the run-towards-each-other-and-SMASH! ba...

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Apr 23 2010

I'm *sure* there's already fanfic about this.

Huh. Apparently, long-running comic series Archie is about to introduce its first openly gay character. It's sweet that the Archie writers are trying to make their universe more diverse, but ge...

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Apr 22 2010

Taming the West

NPR has a great interview up with Stephen Fried, author of the recently-published book Appetite for America, a nonfiction account of the life of entrepreneur Fred Harvey. Harvey created the Harve...

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Apr 22 2010

Contest news...

Flat broke, but still in the market for a Mother's Day gift? Check out Bookreporter.com's Mother's Day Contest. In addition to a variety of Mom-inspired reading material, they're also giving awa...

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Apr 21 2010

Movie magic

Rumors are rampant that Robert Downey Jr. will be starring in a movie prequel to the Wizard of Oz series. I wonder if Johnny Depp is upset that Downey is now sufficiently clean and sober to provid...

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Apr 21 2010

Class act

Aw... in a particularly cool move, Powell's Books is celebrating Earth Day by giving away a free reusable Powell's tote bag with the purchase of any three used books.This offer is good through Apr...

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Apr 20 2010

Once more (with pants)

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is continuing his march towards Broadway fame. Unlike his role in Equus, we're assuming playing J. Pierrepont Finch in the 2011 production of How to Succeed in...

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Apr 19 2010

For serious?

Whoa: the Royal Shakespeare Company has arranged something called Such Tweet Sorrow, a five-week-long event that allows six actors (playing Romeo, Juliet, and four additional characters) to tweet ...

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Apr 16 2010

Alas.

AustenBlog informs me that actor Corin Redgrave, whole stole every scene he was in in the 1995 movie adaptation of Austen's Persuasion, died on April 6th. He was 70 years old, and no cause of dea...

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Apr 15 2010

Fun with taxes...

In honor of Tax Day, allow us to point out that you can find copies of Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle's excellent Where Does the Money Go? for as little as $5.99 online.

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Apr 14 2010

Manga Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Kate Brown

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Amulet Books clearly worked hard on their Manga Shakespeare books. The series is edited by a “leading Shakespeare scholar” and evaluated by an educational editor and an advisory group of teachers...

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Apr 14 2010

Dark times

There was an interesting article in the Seattle Times (via the Tri-City Herald) a few days ago about a potential censorship case in the Richland School District. A 10th grade Honors language-arts...

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Apr 13 2010

The Scarlet T-Shirt

The L.A. Times recently posted an article about literary-themed t-shirts. I particularly liked the style of and idea behind these baseball-style shirts... but I wish they'd chosen better characte...

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Apr 12 2010

The Reckoning, by Kelley Armstrong

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Kelley Armstrong is one of those authors whose work I rarely think about unless one of her books is right in front of me. I like her novels, but they just don't stick in my brain—at least, they h...

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Apr 12 2010

National Library Week

April 11th through the 17th is National Library Week, and public libraries nationwide will be celebrating with special events. This year's theme is "Communities Thrive @ Your Library", so if it's...

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Apr 9 2010

Let them read read Pat the Bunny.

After years of finding Gwyneth Paltrow unbearably full of herself, I'm learning to appreciate her. I still think she's insane, but insane in a fun way, you know? But while reading her GOOP newsl...

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Apr 8 2010

Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir, by Jennifer Mascia

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When Jennifer Mascia was five years old, her father was taken away by the FBI. It was the first sign that there was something different about her family—a difference that Mascia only dimly unders...

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Apr 8 2010

Return of the Tiffany

AWESOME. There's a release date up for the next Tiffany Aching novel: I Shall Wear Midnight is coming out on September 28th. We will be there with bells on.We want Terry Pratchett to focus on hi...

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Apr 7 2010

Out and about

If any of our beloved readers are going to be within traveling distance of Olympia, WA on April 23rd and 24th, make sure to check out the Olympia Arts Walk. Not only is it a consistently awesome ...

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Apr 6 2010

They Never Came Back, by Caroline Cooney

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Caroline Cooney has never quite achieved household-name status, but she's made a successful career out of writing suspense novels for young readers. Her latest effort is They Never Came Back, a f...

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Apr 6 2010

Meh.

According to Digital Spy, Dark Horse will be coming out with another "season" of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic.I'd be happier about this news if the first season hadn't been such a disappoint...

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