Baking Bites goes big-time
Nicole Weston, whose Baking Bites blog has been destroying diets since 2004, has decided to release a cookbook. The book is self-published and will ship in late October. It contains 51 recipes, ...
If at first you don't succeed...
Since Jennifer's Body tanked at the box office, Diablo Cody has apparently decided to inflict her (highly questionable) talent for creating teen-girl dialogue on a very different style of story: s...
Highs and lows
Slate has set out to answer a question I've been wondering about myself: what's with all the recent articles proclaiming vampires some kind of "new craze"? Haven't they been a consistent craze? (T...
Trompe l'oeil
I don't know about this, dear readers:Sure, I like books... but I also like cereal, and I wouldn't paint a mural of that on my garage, either.[Via the Los Angeles Times]
A gift from Lisa Kleypas
(Is it just me, or has Lisa Kleypas's website gotten more tasteful again? Man, don't you guys miss it back when it looked like this? Good times...)Anyway, if you take a gander at Ms. Kleypas's s...
Grossly unfair
Speaking of upcoming book releases, there seem to be a huge number of Wordcandy books coming out this fall/winter, many of which come as a pleasant surprise (and an overdue reminder that we need t...
Fantasy revival
Heeeeey, they've finally reprinted L.J. Smith's Dark Visions series! I'm sure I can thank the success of the CW's cheese-tastic Vampire Diaries for this, and it raises a more important question: i...
A literary take on San Francisco
Apartment Therapy wrote a post last week featuring the following print:This image of San Francisco was commissioned by the San Francisco Chronicle. Artist Ian Huebert borrowed literary quotes from...
The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan

Note: The following review is based upon the first five books in this series. Should we object to the contents of the remaining five books, we reserve the right to rain fire upon the heads of all...
How did I miss this?
Sisters Grimm author Michael Buckley has a new series coming out soon, and by "soon" I mean ON TUESDAY!!! I'm not sure how this slid past my radar, but check it out:Admittedly, Amazon has Buckley...
But when will they give us a manga version of Gossip Girl?
Yen Press has announced plans to publish a manga adaptation of the first book in Lisi Harrison’s massively popular series The Clique. Yen's adaptation will be released next July and is being illus...
Mr. Keillor gets back to work
Garrison Keillor has written an essay for Salonabout his recent stroke. It gets a little political at the end (which I wouldn't object to, but his comments feel weirdly tacked-on), and he goes on...
Mutating Austen: a how-to guide
Slate is currently featuring an essay called "How I wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", by Quirk Books author Ben H. Winters. I'm still not paying to read his book, but I have to give t...
Well, if people went to see a love story set on the Titanic, why not?
But if you like your movies sob-inducing, feel free to check out Bright Star, a biopic about the love affair of poet John Keats and the young woman who lived next door to him. Not to spoil things...
A Christmas Carol gets (even more) cartoonish
I'm sorry, Jim Carrey, but I don't like watching old people fall and get hurt. Not even cartoon old people. I only find slapstick funny when the participants are practically made of rubber, and I...
People Who Died
The Times has a nice obit up for Jim Carroll, poet, musician, and The Basketball Diaries author, who died on Friday at his home in Manhattan at age 60. Rest in peace, Mr. Carroll.
Home decorating for book geeks
By the end of the month, I'm hoping to have realized a life-long dream: a real, grown-up library. After spending the past year remodeling my house, I finally have the space... but, sadly, my libra...
Bonnet-rippers
Amish romance novels are selling like hotcakes? Really?Is anybody else having one of those weeks where they're constantly checking the calendar, wondering uneasily if they've lost time and it's su...
Tulle gone wrong.
Hmm. Penguin seems to have bumped up the release date for the second book in Nora Roberts's 'Bride Quartet'. Behold the cover for Bed of Roses, now coming out on October 27th:That's... surprisingl...
Must be dorm-decorating season
Today's the last day for AllPosters.com's big poster sale, which includes a couple of awesome Ralph Steadman illustrations from Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Behold:If you'r...
Churning 'em out
Wow: According to the AP Wire, James Patterson has signed on to write seventeen(!!!) books for Hachette in the next three years--11 adult thrillers and 6 YA books.I'm not much of a Patterson fan t...
Mark your calendars, anime geeks.
A quick reminder for disorganized Rumiko Takahashi fans: Inuyasha: the Final Act will begin airing in Japan on October 3rd.People who watched the original TV series on Cartoon Network's Adult Swi...
Neil Gaiman makes a Christmas movie!
Neil Gaiman's long-hinted-at short film will happen, and it will apparently star ubiquitous character actor Bill Nighy. According to Cinematical, the movie will be a silent short described as "a l...
Emma on the TV
Take note, dear readers: AustenBlog is saying that the BBC's new version of Emma is due to air "early in October". And while that means that us poor souls in the States won't get to see it until 2...
Robert Downey Jr. continues to work the comic book angle
Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. has apparently signed on to star in a film adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens, a graphic novel created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg in 2006. I haven't read it, but I ...
Suzanne Collins chats with NPR
NPR is full of Suzanne Collins goodness right now: their site is offering both a sneak peek at chapter two of her just-released novel Catching Fire and a lengthy interview with the author.
Merge of the Titans
The comic book world is all a-flutter with the news that Disney is buying Marvel for $4 billion... and while I don't have a big emotional stake in either one of these companies, if Disney casts an...