Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black
I’m not much of a mystery fan. I’m more of a fantasy/sci-fi kind of guy. But despite the appalling family secrets, ominous settings, and rampant alcoholism in Benjamin Black’s Christine Falls, I still found myself compulsively turning pages. It’s a brilliant book, gloom and all...
Manga on the cheap.
We always encourage people to buy manga through their local comic book stores (who could almost certainly use the money), but if you're doing all your manga shopping at Borders or Barnes and Noble...
In an old house in Paris...
Check out this super-cute box set of Ludwig Bemelmans' three most popular Madeline stories. According to the publisher, it's "packaged in a replica of the famous 'old house in Paris that was cover...
Stardust Trailer
We've been keeping an eye on the new Stardust movie, and we now have a trailer. Take a look:There's a better version on the official Stardust website, located here.
New series from Kelley Armstrong
It seems that Kelley Armstrong, the author of the much-loved Otherworld books, has a new series in the works. Unlike her current series, which has a strong paranormal/suspense element, this new s...
Lean Mean 13
We have a title and release date for the thirteenth book in the Stephanie Plum series. Lean Mean Thirteen will be out on June 19th! For those of you who can't wait to see what Stephanie gets herse...
Jane Austen has a little work done.
Last Sunday's New York Times featured an article about the minor flap over a publisher's decision to prettify one of the few known images of Jane Austen for a reissued biography. I don't partic...
That man is pure class.
On the most recent episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert posed for a series of bodice-ripper book covers. (He was trying to prove to Harlequin Books that he'd make a great cover model. An...
Sugar Daddy, by Lisa Kleypas
Sugar Daddy, Lisa Kleypas’s first contemporary romance novel, is entertaining, well-written, and—best of all—free of anachronistic sexual politics. (Many authors* producing both contemporary and historical romances have been known to lose sight of the fact that readers have different expectations for modern characters than they do for historical ones.) Sugar Daddy features...
Time to suffer, kids!
I've been seeing some comments from people who are taken aback by Oprah's latest book club pick, Cormac McCarthy's The Road (presumably because it has such a bleak style and masculine focus). I'm...
TV does Jane
I've spent the past two nights watching the new British television version of Austen's Northanger Abbey*, and I'm happy to report that it's not bad. It's well cast and nicely filmed, and while it...
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows covers!!!
We finally have the cover art for the final installment of the Harry Potter series. I like the British adult cover the best, though the kids faces on the British children's version are a little sc...
Meg Cabot bullet points
- Meg Cabot's YA books are moving from HarperCollins to Scholastic*, which means that she's wrapping up her current projects, including the long-running Princess Diaries series. (She's currentl...
One last piece of manga news...
I just found out that the new Viz title The Gentlemen's Alliance is the English-language edit of the book irc users know as Shinshi Doumei Cross. Hopefully the professional version of this story ...
Boys on bikes
AZN Television has started airing episodes of the Taiwanese drama Mars, based on Fuyumi Soryo's mega-soapy manga series. Here's the official plot description*:"Asia's most popular group F4's Vic...
The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones
There’s nobody quite like English fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones. Her novels feature bizarre subject matter, but she writes with such relaxed assurance that her worlds instantly feel familiar...
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, by Judith Levine
After hearing Judith Levine on NPR the other day, I decided to pick up a copy of her book Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping*. My hackles rose at the recommendation from Barbara Ehrenreich on the back cover--I applaud Ehrenreich's purpose and conviction, but her books are so profoundly flawed that I think they actually do her causes a disservice. However, Ms. Levine's book doesn't pretend to be an Ehrenreich-style call-to-arms...
Zzzzzzz....
Lisa Kleypas has finally overhauled her website, and I'm surprised to say that I'm kinda sad about it (and not just because I'm now going to have to re-edit her author profile). Sure, we thought ...
Movie news
MSN.com is reporting that Daniel Craig and Julianne Moore* are in talks to star in a film adaptation of José Saramago's Nobel Prize-winning novel Blindness. I've never read Blindness (I'm still w...
Austen: all the better for some hot pirate action?
In this Times editorial, author Celia Brayfield argues that Jane Austen "built a cage for women novelists", and suggests that Austen's "doll-house" novels would have been much improved by a greate...
DIY-ers never had it so good.
Stitchy McYarnpants*'s remarkable book The Museum of Kitschy Stitches: A Gallery of Notorious Knits is currently on sale at UrbanOutfitters.com for a mere $6.99. Pick up a copy for any crafty peo...
Get thee to a comic book store
Today's the release date for the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book! I'm not sure how this whole season-eight-in-comic-book-form is going to work out (I was underwhelmed by the Serenity grap...
My Dead Girlfriend, by Eric Wight
At first glance, the first volume of Eric Wight’s My Dead Girlfriend has two things going for it—glowing recommendations from Meg Cabot and Joss Whedon—and one major strike against it: cover art t...
BBC does the book list thing...
...but not as well as we do. Here are their readers' picks for the "Top Ten Books" (pretty solid choices, although I sneer at Wuthering Heights), and here are their "Top Ten Unfinished Novels".
Decorating on the cheap
The Library of Congress's online gift shop currently has copies of this adorable vintage print on sale--you can have a 16" by 20" copy of your very own for a mere $20!
Also pretty!
I have long admired the cover art for Michael Buckley's Sisters Grimm series. They're truly beautiful books, with packaging that confidently asserts: "Yes, these books are going to be instant cla...
The Physics of the Buffyverse, by Jennifer Ouellette
I'm no physicist, but I like to keep an eye on the science news, lest I end up sounding like an idiot when chatting with my in-laws, who are all science teachers or geotechnical engineers. Th...