Jun 29 2007

Mr. Spock! How COULD you?!

I was at work the other day, minding my own business, when a co-worker mentioned in passing a song about Bilbo Baggins sung by Leonard Nimoy. "How can it be that I haven't heard of this before?" I...

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Jun 28 2007

Evildoers beware

Mark your calendars--The Tick Vs: Season Two is due out on DVD on August 7th! Its $34.99 price tag is a little painful, but this gloriously strange mid-nineties cartoon is totally worth it.

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Jun 26 2007

Hocus pocus... with a little hanky-panky

The release of The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, Jennifer Crusie's newest collaboration (with authors Eileen Dreyer & Anne Stuart) totally snuck up on me this week. I think between anticipating the i...

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Jun 26 2007

WHHHHYYYY????

Slate has posted an essay about the upcoming movie adaptation of Richard Yates's 1961 book Revolutionary Road, described by the essayist as "one of the most depressing novels ever written". Why i...

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Jun 25 2007

The Last Summer (of You and Me), by Ann Brashares

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I have spent years avoiding books like Ann Brashares's novel The Last Summer (of You and Me). Everything about it--the dreary cover art, the tasteful font, even the artistically placed paren...

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Jun 24 2007

Austin Grossman

According to his publicist, Austin Grossman is a "freelance game-design consultant and a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he specializes in...

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Jun 24 2007

Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman

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At first glance, Austin Grossman’s debut novel Soon I Will Be Invincible has a lot in common with Ben Edlund’s The Tick. Both are witty stories about superheroes and their villainous counterparts attempting to make a name for themselves in cities that are overrun with muscle-bound do-gooders...

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Jun 22 2007

Holy cats!

HarperCollins Canada will apparently be offering a new edition of Susan Juby's Alice, I Think, aimed at adult readers. This book (due out in early August) is a perfect fit for the adult market--le...

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Jun 21 2007

Have we been missing out again?

Operating on a reader recommendation, I've put in a request for the 2005 Tor reprints of Michael de Larrabeitti's Borribles trilogy (originally published between 1978 and 1986). This is yet anoth...

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Jun 20 2007

Seems a little tacky.

Romance author Julia Quinn is offering what she calls "second epilogues" through her website. Each epilogue is about 30 pages long, and is available as an $1.99 HarperCollins e-book. Ms. Quinn h...

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Jun 19 2007

Wordcandy Book Snippet

Excerpt from:The Brat, by Lynsay SandsWhy you should buy a copy of your very own:Sands' books are sweet, funny, and pleasantly free of buttheaded male main characters. I can't tell you how rare th...

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Jun 18 2007

Gakuen Alice

We were excited to hear that Gakuen Alice, one of the darkest kid mangas on the planet, has finally been licensed. AnimeonDVD.com is reporting that Tokyopop will be releasing the first volume of G...

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Jun 15 2007

Father's Day Gift Suggestions, Part II

While all of the titles on our first list of suggested Father's Day Gifts are still awesome, we thought we'd add a few more books to to the pile.For the dad who likes mysteries, we suggest The Mon...

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Jun 14 2007

Uh... right.

There's yet another book being hyped as the next Harry Potter--but this one, at least, is being hyped by the same publisher who "discovered" Rowling's series. Barry Cunningham, a publisher for Ch...

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Jun 13 2007

Cute!

Powells.com is selling an adorable tote bag containing the first two Nancy Drew titles--The Secret of the Old Clock and The Hidden Staircase, for a mere $13.99. The bag itself features the origin...

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Jun 12 2007

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer

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New Moon, the sequel to Stephenie Meyer’s hugely successful YA novel Twilight, tries to take this ongoing vampire romance saga in a new direction... but hardcore fans of the first book shouldn’t worry: New Moon is just as silly as its predecessor...

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Jun 12 2007

ONE TO THREE MONTHS?!?

And this is why I can't stand the Korean manhwa publisher ICE Kunion: not only have they been blithely promising us the second volume of Goong for MONTHS, now they're screwing us over on volumes o...

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Jun 11 2007

See the bear dance...

Interested parties can now download the high-definition trailer for the upcoming The Golden Compass movie. While all the human actors look great--I can't believe how slinky Nicole Kidman looks--t...

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Jun 8 2007

Another one bites the dust

The film review site Pajiba is reporting that one of the big literary successes of 2006, Marisha Pessl's debut novel Specialty Topics in Calamity Physics, is going to be turned into a movie.This...

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Jun 7 2007

New romance recommendation

While going through the slim pickings in a small English-language bookstore in Italy, I unenthusiastically selected Single White Vampire, a cheesy-looking book by a writer I'd never heard of befor...

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Jun 6 2007

Cover art saves

We don't know anything about this book, and (if it's anything like the lion's share of Austen continuations/retellings) it will probably blow like a fog horn, but at least it has a snappy cover.So...

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Jun 5 2007

Desperate Duchesses, by Eloisa James

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Romance novelist and Shakespeare professor Eloisa James clearly wants her books to push the boundaries of the romance genre. But while originality is a commendable goal, it’s usually a good idea to ...

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Jun 5 2007

We are BACK...

...and to celebrate our return to the vitally important world of pop-fiction-related blogging, I think somebody needs to send me an e-mail assuring me that this article is actually the world's lat...

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May 30 2007

No Humans Involved, by Kelley Armstrong

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Kelley Armstong’s most recent book, No Humans Involved, is the first installment of her Women of the Otherworld series to feature a character without name-taking and ass-kicking magical powers. In fact, necromancer Jaime Vegas has decidedly mixed feelings about her “gift”—on one hand, it allows her to work as a successful celebrity medium; on the other, ghosts are constantly hanging around...

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May 28 2007

Manga babes in stars-and-stripes bikinis?

Here's an interesting article about the U.S. Navy using manga to explain its presence to the Japanese people. Er... I'm having some trouble imagining how a storyline could be built around this co...

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May 26 2007

Further unfairness

The Janet Evanovich editions aren't the only examples of superior cover art to be found in Europe. I am only on day ten of this trip, and I've already lusted after a girly, funky paperback copy of...

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May 24 2007

Lucky...

How come the Europeans get much, much cooler copies of the Janet Evanovich books then we do in the States?Totally not fair. Somebody should protest.

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May 22 2007

Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things, by Wendelin Van Draanen

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Wendelin Van Draanen’s Sammy Keyes series is one of our favorites. It’s smart, straightforward, and it hasn’t put itself under pressure by announcing a finite number of installments, so plot lines develop at a natural pace. Van Draanen's eponymous heroine is a genuinely likable character, and her adventures consist of a nicely judged blend of mystery, romance, and hair-raising adventure...

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May 19 2007

Out for lunch

Hey, everybody. The Wordcandy staff is currently on vacation, so updates to the blog may be spotty for the next few days. The main site is all loaded up with new releases, though, so please head...

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May 17 2007

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, by Joss Whedon

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When we first heard that Joss Whedon was going to write a comic book series that would serve as the eighth season of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show, we weren’t sold on the idea. The first f...

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