Sep 29 2008

Dead is the New Black, by Marlene Perez

Marlene Perez’s Dead is the New Black is a supernatural mystery/romance aimed at reluctant teen readers*. Her protagonist is Daisy Giordano, the youngest daughter of one of the strangest families ...

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Sep 28 2008

Flora's Dare, by Ysabeau S. Wilce

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Middle series installments frequently feel like stopgaps, but Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora’s Dare, the sequel to 2007’s Flora Segunda, is in all ways exceptional. As the story opens, fourteen-year-old Flora has discovered that her formerly crazy father was actually a lot easier to live with back when he was nuts...

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Sep 26 2008

Speaking of movies...

...Will Smith has signed on to star in a prequel to the blockbuster I Am Legend (which was based on a novel by acclaimed horror/sci-fi writer Richard Matheson). According to Variety, the film wil...

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Sep 26 2008
Sep 25 2008

Dupond et Dupont!

Rumors are afloat that Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will join the cast of Steven Spielberg's adaptations of Hergé's The Adventures of TinTin, thereby increasing the project's cool...

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Sep 25 2008

Typecasting

In news that should surprise exactly no one, Johnny Depp has agreed to play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's upcoming film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Brilliant? Or has the B...

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Sep 24 2008

So much more entertaining than the books themselves...

I was thinking of doing a blog post on Twilight-inspired Halloween costumes (and trust me: there's plenty of material out there), but I found myself distracted by the impressive number of awesome ...

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Sep 24 2008

Breaking records

According to Publishers Weekly, Brisingr, the third volume in Christopher Paolini's "Inheritance Cycle", sold 550,000 copies on its first day. The sales numbers broke records for Random House Chil...

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Sep 23 2008

Mark your calendars...

Wordcandy-approved authors like Michael Dobbs, Neil Gaiman, and Jon Scieszka are going to be there!

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Sep 23 2008

Brilliant or freaky?

It's a tough call, really:

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Sep 22 2008

Scholastic abandons Bratz

According to an article in The New York Times, children's publisher Scholastic Inc. has decided to stop offering chapter books and spinoff products based on the "Bratz" product line at its popular...

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Sep 22 2008

Sanitizing Rapunzel

Boston Globe critic Joanna Weiss posted an article yesterday about the trend towards kinder, gentler fairytales for children, and suggests that important messages are being lost in the translation...

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Sep 20 2008

Susan McBride

Susan McBride is the author of two series about debutantes: the YA Gossip Girl-in-Houston-esque The Debs, and the "Debutante Dropout" mysteries, both of which are set in Houston. The first book i...

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Sep 20 2008

The Debs, by Susan McBride

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Much like Gossip Girl, The A-List, Clique, and countless other titles in the booming subgenre of YA literature about rich, beautiful teens cavorting in the wealthiest communities in America...

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Sep 19 2008

Eoin Colfer + Hitchhiker's Guide = OMG!!!

The world is a more glorious place this morning, dear readers, due to Wednesday's announcement that Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer has been given the opportunity to write a sixth book in Douglas ...

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Sep 19 2008

The Masque of the Red Death: anime-style

AnimeNewsNetwork has an interesting article up about The Masque of the Black Death, the last script co-written by legendary director Akira Kurosawa before his death in 1998. The script is an adapt...

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Sep 18 2008

Read-a-thon!

If you're going to be in New York next week, consider checking out Scholastic's all-day read-a-thon of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on September 23rd. The event is being held in honor of ...

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Sep 18 2008

The horror, the horror...

Forget all that dire news from the financial markets. The news that Miley Cyrus is going to be starring in one of Nicholas Sparks's shamelessly manipulative tearjerkers? Yeah, now that's clear pr...

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Sep 17 2008

SaTC for the young'uns.

I'd like to think this news is a joke, but it's the headlining article on Variety right now: Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell has inked a deal to write two new Carrie Bradshaw novels aimed...

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Sep 17 2008

Susan Juby takes on a new genre.

Man, September 30th is going to be an v. expensive day. In addition to must-buy books (for me, anyway) by Lisa Kleypas and Tomoko Hayakawa, perennial Wordcandy favorite Susan Juby has a new book ...

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Sep 16 2008

Yikes.

Laurell, Laurell, Laurell...Dude. Did you have put the word "swallowing" right in the title?

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Sep 16 2008

Much like the vampires she writes about, Meyer's series just won't die.

Twelve chapters of Stephenie Meyer’s WIP Midnight Sun (a re-telling of Bella and Edward's story from Edward’s POV) were apparently leaked onto the Internet, and Meyer has chosen to post the draft ...

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Sep 15 2008

First the O.C., then the UES, now Palm Beach...

Sooner or later they will run out of American book series featuring semi-exotic locales full of filthy-rich PYTs, won't they? We're not going to be forced to watch a show about the crazy antics o...

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Sep 15 2008

Pharmakon, by Dirk Wittenborn

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Well-written but fundamentally bleak, Dirk Wittenborn’s Pharmakon traces the downfall of a unique American family. As the novel opens in the early 1950s, Dr. Will Friedrich, a Yale psychopharmaco...

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Sep 12 2008

Brave or foolhardy? It's a tough call.

Have any of you read Abigail Reynolds's Pride and Prejudice "variations"? She appears to have written several, each one featuring an alternate ending for the novel. Her previous stories are availa...

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Sep 12 2008

Lisa Kleypas book trailers!

I'm hypnotized by these:Okay, the Seduce Me at Sunrise one was awful, but the Wallflower Christmas one was kind of funny....

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Sep 11 2008

Supersaturated

Just in case The Hills star Lauren Conrad wasn't overexposed enough already, now she's adding "young adult novelist" to her résumé... and something tells me her books will be just as original and ...

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Sep 10 2008

Which Austen heroine are you?

I love the internet, dear readers. Take the Quiz here!

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Sep 10 2008

Nodame in Paris

The promo video for the upcoming Nodame Cantabile Paris arc anime is up. It's all in Japanese, but that's okay--Nodame's awesomeness needs no translation:This series will premiere in Japan on Oct...

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Sep 9 2008

David Anthony Durham

David Anthony Durham is a well-known historical novelist whose debut fantasy, 2007’s Acacia, is one of our Featured Book picks. Mr. Durham lives in California with his family, and teaches in the ...

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