"Best of" goes graphic
Amazon's posted their nominees for the Best Book Covers of 2009, and while I've got to give a shout-out to Cynthia Rylant's All in a Day, which features lovely artwork by Nikki McClure (one of my ...
Inappropriate in so many ways...
Little known fact: the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, that creepy bit in Fantasia with Mickey Mouse battling the brooms (which terrified me as a child, BTW), is actually based on a poem by Go...
Critics at work
Now that December's here, we're beginning to see all the "Best of 2009" lists roll in. Normally I end up sneering at these (hi, Salon!), but there are a couple from sources I trust. I was pretty s...
Out at Night, by Susan Arnout Smith
Susan Arnout Smith's Out at Night, the second novel to feature San Diego crime-scene tech Grace Descanso, opens with a bit of stomach-churning violence: a middle-aged college professor crawls thro...
Speculation abounds
Katherine White, of the Addison's Disease Self-Help Group, has published an article in the British Medical Journal's Medical Humanities magazine that questions the commonly held belief that Jane A...
Harsh, man.
A 22-year-old Chicago woman has spent two nights in jail and now faces up to three years in prison after taping less than four minutes of New Moon. The young woman was visiting a Rosemont movie th...
Bigger and better things?
Ooooooh... the teaser trailer for the seventh Harry Potter movie is out! I can't find a decent video to embed, but you can watch it here.I just realized, though: if they're going to call this suc...
I have limited wall space, but...
I love Jen Bekman's 20X200. This budget-friendly site sells 8x10 inch limited-edition prints for twenty bucks apiece, and recently added a couple of bibliophile-friendly pieces by artist Jane Moun...
Signs of life
And speaking of reprints, I see they're finally reproduced something of Stella Gibbons' other than my beloved Cold Comfort Farm! Thanks to the fine people at Virago Press, the first edition of Ni...
Rick Riordan speaks!
Publishers Weekly recently interviewed Rick Riordan about his upcoming book The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid, the first story in a middle-grade fantasy series about two siblings—the descendant...
At even longer last...
After weeks of procrastination, I spent yesterday afternoon updating our Upcoming Books page. It took forever (sobs), but I consider myself richly rewarded by the news that the publishing gods ...
Jumping the gun
Warner Bros. has acquired the movie rights to Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's young adult novel Beautiful Creatures (the first book in a projected five-book-long series), despite the fact that it...
At long last...
Megan Whalen Turner has finally announced another book. It's been three and a half years since the superb The King of Attolia came out (and I thought the series was over, frankly), so this news is...
Made of win.
I can only read FailBlog for short periods of time. (I usually get queasy around the five-minute mark.) But I can certainly see why other people like it—at its best, it's insanely, painfully funny...
Stretching your dollars
Well, dear readers, today is Cyber Monday, the pseudo-holiday devoted to online shopping. We totally respect the fact that the whole appeal of shopping from home is that it's low-effort, but we ST...
Well, *I* would pay to see it.
While looking up Jane Austen stuff surrounding the New York exhibition, I noticed that Lady Susan is being adapted by playwright Lucy Prebble (best known as the creator of the Secret Diary of a Ca...
Time for a second mortgage?
TODAY is reporting that several famous children's books from the collection of U.S. professional football player Pat McInally are going up for auction next month, including a copy of Through the L...
Adios, allowance.
I've never approved of Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi's Spiderwick Chronicles. At $10.99 per (short and v. unsatisfying) book, the series has always seemed like a total money sink. But when I saw...
Jane Austen's Real! Live! Stuff!
The Morgan Library & Museum is currently holding a Jane Austen exhibit featuring "more than 100 works, including her manuscripts, personal letters, and related materials". They've got letters bot...
If money is no object...
...or you're just a really, really, really big Robert Crais fan*, you can buy a special limited edition copy of his upcoming novel The First Rule from The Mysterious Bookshop in New York. You can ...
When classics collide
I was listening to my local NPR affliate a few days ago and caught the tail end of an interview with Paul Constant, book editor for The Stranger. Mr. Constant was on KUOW to talk about three rece...
I. Am. Appalled.
No, seriously.I was poking around my local Barnes and Noble last night, and I ran across this:My first reaction was a snicker. I mean, thank goodness Emily Bronte's novel has finally been approved...
Nearly there...
Kelley Armstrong has posted the first three chapters of her upcoming young adult novel The Reckoning (the third and final book in her "Darkest Powers" trilogy) on her site. Interested parties sho...
Rampant, by Diana Peterfreund
The idea of carnivorous unicorns ranks pretty high on both the kitsch-o-meter and parody scale, but Diana Peterfreund's novel Rampant is neither. Instead, this surprising young adult book is...
Nothing but good times ahead
What's this? Why, it's the cover art and plot description for the upcoming "companion novel" to Carrie Ryan's zombies-and-evil-nuns extravaganza The Forest of Hands and Teeth! Behold:Gabry lives a...
James Patterson fans take note:
Yen Press announced their plans last week to adapt the first three novels in James Patterson's Daniel X series into a manga/manhwa-style trade paperback. Yen's adaptation will feature artwork by K...
Buffy lives again (some more)
There are semi-plausible rumors floating around that Joss Whedon's comic book version of the eighth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might get turned into a web-based animated series. No idea ho...
The darker side of Ikea?
Salon recently posted a very interesting Spiegel article about a tell-all book by Johan Stenebo, a former Ikea bigwig with quite the axe to grind. Sadly, I don't read Swedish and I have no idea ho...