The world run amok
So, it's been several days of crazy news, right? Palin resigned! The Californian economy went belly-up! Michael Jackson died! And then, in a little bit of weirdness that sat atop the great big pil...
Nonfiction for the young'uns
Powell's Books is having a limited-time sale on DK Publishing's excellent line of nonfiction books for young readers, including Annabel Karmel's Cook It Together, an entertaining and informative c...
Money burning a hole in your pocket?
Because I'm pretty sure that all the real Stephenie Meyer fans are rushing out to buy one of these $24.99 Twilight USB Flash Drives.
It's that time of year again...
...Bulwer-Lytton time!There are several excellent entries for this venerable contest celebrating terrible first sentences for imaginary novels, but my favorites are these:The gutters of Manhattan ...
A new take on a classic
Brace yourselves, dear readers: we are getting yet another Hollywood remake of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Normally this news wouldn't result in anything other than the fervent hope that its star...
The Maxx is back on MTV
...kinda.MTV.com has begun streaming their '90s-era bizarre-yet-fascinating cartoon adaptation of Sam Kieth's even more bizarre-yet-fascinating comic book series The Maxx. As I (distantly) recall,...
Propaganda for fun and paranoia
There's a fabulous article over on Sleep is For the Weak about the comics of North Korea, which are apparently chock-full of propaganda-y goodness. (In The Great General Mighty Wing, pictured righ...
Hiatus blues
Another manga creator is taking a break due to poor health: according to AnimeNewsNetwork, NANA author Ai Yazawa is putting her popular series (read our review of the movie adaptation here) on hol...
Janet Evanovich changes it up
After a whopping fourteen volumes, Janet Evanovich has decided to go with fancy new cover art. Behold:Cute, right? And a nice change from volumes one through fourteen, which all look more or less ...
New manga from S.A.'s Maki Minami
According to the AnimeNewsNetwork, there's a new manga coming out from Special A's Maki Minami. The series will be called Seiyū ka—!, and ANN describes its heroine thusly:"Hime Kino, a 15-year-old...
Dubious DIY
I'm just not sure about this upside-down bookshelf project:It looks kind of cool, sure, but how do you get the books (especially the ones on the ends) down? And, once they're down, how do you put ...
Ponyo in English
The English-language trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's latest film (the Little Mermaid retelling Ponyo) is finally up, and while they didn't quite sync up the voices and the mouths, it still looks pret...
Chicken With Plums, by Marjane Satrapi
I do not enjoy tragic love stories. I rolled my eyes when Anna Karenina offed herself, I failed to sympathize with the plight of Newland Archer, and I spent most of The Great Gatsby wanting to kic...
Alice... from Hell!
USA Today has a bunch of exclusive images from Tim Burton's upcoming adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, but if this is the kind of thing we're going to be subjected to, I'm not sure I'm old enough...
Teenagers (heart) disaster lit?
The Wall Street Journal recently posted an essay about the brisk market for grim YA literature, wondering when the nation's teenagers became "connoisseurs of disaster". The author, Katie Roiphe, s...
Tone it down, son.
They've released a whole bunch of Harry Potter images on the British Warner Bros. site, and I am once again taken aback by young Daniel Radcliffe's ability to over-emote:See what I mean? His over...
Book nerd chic
Is it wrong that I really, really, really want to buy this?I mean, how many "conversation piece" furniture items are actually functional? Overstock is selling this library cart for $215.99. What d...
Jim Lynch speaks
Powell's Books (in Portland, OR) has just posted a great interview with Border Songs/The Highest Tide author Jim Lynch, who lives in my hometown of Olympia, WA. Pacific Northwest power! raises fist
Coming to a Supermall near you?
Two Wordcandy staff members were at a Seattle-area mall over the weekend, and ran across this wonderful device. In case you can't tell from the picture, this is a book-and-candy vending machine s...
More Gokusen!
In happier manga news, Shueisha's You magazine has announced that Kozueko Morimoto's Gokusen manga will return for two more issues in July. Gokusen ended in 2007 after a seven-year-long run, but t...
More health troubles for Nodame creator
According to AnimeNewsNetwork, the next installment of Tomoko Ninomiya's Nodame Cantabile will delayed because Ms. Ninomiya has been rushed to the hospital to treat acute appendicitis. The manga's...
Nervous from the get-go...
Maya Slater's, um, unique reworking of Pride and Prejudice, The Private Diary of Mr. Darcy, is finally out here in the U.S., and I'm wrestling with temptation. I strongly suspect I will regret rea...
Amy Poehler serves up justice
Amy Poehler has signed on to star in a film adaptation of Jarrett Krosoczka's upcoming children's graphic novel series Lunch Lady:I love me some Amy Poehler, and the combination of her + a series ...
See more True Blood goodness
Buzzsugar has posted four clips from the upcoming second season of True Blood. Is it just me, or are their accents just a hair better this season?
Shutter Island trailer's up
Check out the brand-new trailer for Shutter Island, based on Mystic River author Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name:Eh. It looks The Sixth Sense-y.
More Nodame!
In happier manga-related news, AnimeNewsNetwork says that Nodame Cantabile creator Tomoko Ninomiya is planning to launch a new manga miniseries called Noda-Can BS (short for "Nodame Cantabile Back...
Manga price hikes
Hmm. It seems that several major manga publishers will be raising their prices in the immediate future, including Del Rey, Viz, and Dark Horse. Their books will now run $1 or $2 more per volume.Pe...
Summer reading picks straight from the source!
Salon.com has asked a variety of authors, including Wordcandy-approved authors like Neil Gaiman, Berkeley Breathed, and Diana Gabaldon, for their summer reading picks, some of which are actually p...