Feb 18 2006

Elizabeth Peters

Elizabeth Peters is one of the three pen names used by the author known as MPM. (She has also written books under her real name, Barbara G. Mertz, and the name Barbara Michaels. However, we are ...

More »

Feb 18 2006

Megan Whalen Turner

Megan Whalen Turner is the author of the excellent (possibly ongoing?) children’s fantasy series featuring The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. Borrowing freely from Greek my...

More »

Feb 18 2006

Mervyn Peake

The works of Mervyn Peake, poet, illustrator, and author of the children’s story Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor and the fantasy/horror Gormenghast trilogy, fall somewhere between Edward Gorey...

More »

Feb 18 2006

Peter Abrahams

Peter Abrahams has written several intelligent, entertaining mystery/suspense novels for adults, and two phenomenal mysteries for teens, 2005’s Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery and its ...

More »

Feb 18 2006

Michael Buckley

Michael Buckley is the author of the Sisters Grimm books, a highly enjoyable series that has some striking similarities to Bill Willingham’s Fables series. So if you’re not old enough for Willing...

More »

Feb 7 2006

Wordcandy loves Russian poetry (even when the translation is iffy)

I don't know if you're alive or dead.Can you on earth be sought,Or only when the sunsets fadeBe mourned serenely in my thought?All is for you: the daily prayer,The sleepless heat at night,And of m...

More »

Feb 2 2006

More Casting Choices - Harry Potter

Well, kids, we have some new casting announcements for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! Er... you kind of have to imagine these actors' potential. (Thought not so much in the case of ...

More »

Feb 1 2006

Bad Casting Choices

I am told that Marilyn Manson is to play Lewis Carroll in an upcoming film. Let's examine this casting choice, shall we?Marilyn Manson:Lewis Carroll:Hmm. Not exactly a perfect fit- Mr. Carroll d...

More »

Jan 29 2006

Sadly, now my birthday is over...

...but on the up side, I made out like the proverbial bandit! Thanks, everybody!Julia's Birthday Reading List: The Sisters Grimm series, by Michael Buckley. I was a little taken aback to find...

More »

Jan 28 2006

Christina Rossetti

More than one critic has compared the English poet Christina Rossetti to Dorothea Brooke, the heroine of George Eliot’s Middlemarch. (A character, by the way, that I have always longed to kick in...

More »

Jan 28 2006

James M. Cain

Most people don’t realize that James M. Cain, the taciturn, womanizing author of such hardboiled pulp classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, originally trained to become ...

More »

Jan 28 2006

Obert Skye

Obert Skye is the author of the very entertaining Harry Potter-esque YA fantasy Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo. I wouldn't recommend going to great lengths to hunt this book down, but if you...

More »

Jan 27 2006

Don't Look Down

Okay, so I have to admit it- I was skeptical when I heard that Jenny Crusie's next book was going to be co-authored with Bob Mayer. I had never heard of him, and after doing some research I decid...

More »

Jan 24 2006

Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer is the author of Twilight, the only vampire novel with the distinction of being set in the town of Forks, Washington. Unfortunately Ms. Meyer just Googled Forks, rather than bothe...

More »

Jan 24 2006

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

2006-01-24-twilight-by-stephenie-meyer

Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight appealed to me for two reasons—I liked the cover, and my mom mentioned that it was a vampire story set in the town of Forks, Washington. If you’ve ever been to...

More »

Jan 13 2006

It just doesn't sound very hygienic.

You know what I learned today? Apparently the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a pet wombat named Top that he let sleep in the middle of his dining room table during dinner parti...

More »

Jan 12 2006

Ian Fleming

English author Ian Fleming was the author of fourteen James Bond stories. Charming, intelligent, and ambitious, Fleming was also a hard-drinking womanizer who worked as a journalist and a stockbr...

More »

Jan 11 2006

Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is the author of the intelligent and entertaining Easy Rawlins mysteries. This series, set in mid-20th-century South Central Los Angeles, blends classic hardboiled pulp style with t...

More »

Jan 11 2006

Stephen King

We would not be the first to compare Stephen King with Charles Dickens. Both were staggeringly prolific, both frequently used an obnoxiously faux-avuncular tone to address their audience, and bot...

More »

Jan 11 2006

Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon wrote one truly remarkable book, followed by many inferior sequels. (Shades of Frank Herbert.) Read the wonderful romance/suspense/sci-fi novel Outlander and marvel at how intelli...

More »

Jan 11 2006

John Mortimer

John Mortimer is the author of the Horace Rumpole novels, short stories, and plays. Mortimer's Rumpole is a cheerful, obese barrister with a passionate love for cheap wine (Pommeroy's Very Ordina...

More »

Jan 11 2006

Jennifer Colt

Jennifer Colt

Jennifer Colt is the author of The Butcher of Beverly Hills, an action-packed story about two redheaded twin sisters (one an uptight university grad, the other a lesbian ex-con with a wickedly ben...

More »

Jan 9 2006

So, my birthday's coming up....

I love vintage Harlequin romance novels. I love how magnificently cheeseball they can be, with their lurid covers and hopelessly outdated sexual politics, and I admire how instantly entertaining ...

More »

Jan 9 2006

Wordcandy loves poetry, even when it's Completely. Messed. Up.

ANNABEL LEEIt was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thought ...

More »

Jan 7 2006

Avalon High and Size 12 is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot

2006-01-07-avalon-high-and-size-12-is-not-fat-by-meg-cabot

In the past two weeks Meg Cabot has released two brand-new standalone novels: the YA supernatural romance Avalon High and the mystery/suspense story Size 12 Is Not Fat. Both feature bright, funny...

More »

Jan 3 2006

Melodramatic covers.... yuck!

I am in the process of hunting down all the wordcandy titles for our "upcoming books" section. While there are many I am excited about (like Jennifer Crusie's new collaboration, due out April 4th...

More »

Dec 26 2005

Holly Black

Holly Black is the author of a series of excellent YA horror/fantasy novels: Valiant, Tithe, and Ironside, one of our Featured Book picks. Ms. Black is also one of the authors (along with Tony Di...

More »

Dec 26 2005

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus when she was nineteen. (Yes, nineteen. Take THAT, Christopher Pa...

More »

Dec 26 2005

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells was the author of numerous science fiction masterpieces, including The War of the Worlds, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Time Machine. Although a pacifist, Wells enjoyed war games ...

More »

Dec 26 2005

Aldous Huxley

Poet, novelist, and screenwriter, Aldous Huxley is best known as the author of Brave New World, one of the few dystopian novels to earn the Wordcandy Stamp of Approval. Huxley was born to a famil...

More »