A Rogue By Any Other Name, by Sarah MacLean
After hearing absolutely glowing reports of Sarah MacLean's romance novels, I picked up a copy of the first book in her most recent series, A Rogue By Any Other Name. It's been quite some time since I last read a straight-up romance, and my hopes that I had found an entertaining new author to follow were high...
Books and jewelry
Sourcebooks is sponsoring a contest on BookPage in celebration of their new reprints of Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables books. The grand prize is two Tiffany & Co. sterling silver key pendants, the 5 second place winners will each receive...
The Dirt Diary, by Anna Staniszewski
The Dirt Diary, the first book in Anna Staniszewski's latest series for middle readers, centers around eighth-grader Rachel Lee, a shy, awkward girl with a passion for baking. When her parents split up, Rachel steals nearly $300 from her college fund and buys a plane ticket to Florida, hoping to fly down and talk some sense into her loving but flighty father. Rachel needs to replace the money before her mother finds out...
An Interview with Anna Staniszewski
We recently had the opportunity to interview Anna Staniszewski, author of the new middle-grade novel The Dirt Diary, and ask her some burning questions about inspiring creativity in children, her future writing plans, and brownie recipes. We've posted her responses below (along with a brief author bio) and will be featuring our review of The Dirt Diary later today...
Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass is the second teen-girl assassin book I've read in the past few months, and while I preferred Robin LaFevers's Grave Mercy (which sang to my very soul), Maas's offering is pretty fun, too. Between the two of them, “Ruthless killer” is fast becoming one of my favorite types of fantasy heroines...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass. I am told I can expect tremendous things from this story, but I keep getting distracted by the shirt the heroine appears to be wearing on the cover. Is that... ribbon? How does it even work? I will ponder this, and post my review later today...
Rosemary in Paris
More news about NBC's upcoming miniseries take on Rosemary's Baby: according to Deadline, actress Zoe Saldana has taken on the lead role, and the film will be set in Paris. I don't know, guys, but I'm feeling weirdly excited about this. Saldana is obviously a HUGE upgrade over Carrie Underwood...
I suspect this is a bad idea.
Slashfilm recently posted the first official image and plot summary for Disney's upcoming film adaptation of Judith Viorst's classic kids' book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. According to the article...
360-degree books
These paper books created by Japanese graphic designer and architect Yusuke Oono are spectacular. According to the "Art and Visual Culture" blog This is Colossal, the artist...
Still so pretty...
A trailer has turned up for the upcoming Rurouni Kenshin sequel Rurouni Kenshin: the Great Kyoto Fire Arc, and while I'm not quite as excited as I was for the first film, I'm still pretty stoked. The first movie was beautifully shot and perfectly cast, but I got more than a little irritated with the sword-fighting heroine's constant bouts of utter uselessness, which forced the hero to rescue her from her own stupidity again... and again... and again...
Another step forward
See that little bar on the right? The one above the long ad, with the bird on it? Yes, dear readers, today Wordcandy joined Twitter, once again bringing us up to date with the cutting-edge technology of, oh, 2007 or so...
Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
We had such high hopes for Palace of Spies, the first book in Sarah Zettel's new YA trilogy. Zettel's writing is consistently solid, she chose an unusual time period for her setting, and she avoided the cover art controversy that has dogged her otherwise-excellent Dust Girl books. The end result, sadly, fell a hair short of our dreams, but let's face it: even Zettel's B-grade work still stands head and shoulders above...
Teardrop, by Lauren Kate
In the author's note following her novel Teardrop, Lauren Kate shares the following story: once, when she was crying, her husband reached out and swiped a tear from her cheek, blinking it into his own eye. If that's the kind of thing that strikes you as indescribably romantic, Teardrop is the book for you. If (like me) your reaction hovers somewhere between “Ew” and “...why?”, move right along...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
This week's Book Giveaway title is Palace of Spies, the first book in a historical YA series by Dust Girl author Sarah Zettel. Our review will go up tomorrow morning, seeing as we still have to post our thoughts on the Book Giveaway title we featured over our winter break: Lauren Kate's Teardrop...
My birthday is coming up.
With the exception of our Weekly Book Giveaway pick, we are taking the two weeks off between December 23rd and January 1st, but this is too magical not to share: the Creative Action Network has partnered with the Harvard Bookstore to offer a series of beautiful artist-designed classic book editions that can be printed on demand...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Teardrop, by Lauren Kate
Our current Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Teardrop, the first book in a new trilogy from popular YA author Lauren Kate. Her Fallen series was hit-or-miss, but here's hoping she's learned something along the way...
More monkeys
I always wonder about authors like Pierre Boulle, who wrote both The Bridge Over The River Kwai and the novel that inspired Planet of the Apes. That's a wide-ranging literary legacy, you know? I'm sure more people have read The Bridge Over The River Kwai than La Planète des singes, but certainly more people have watched The Planet of the Apes than read the two books put together. Anyway, Boulle's monkey book is the gift that keeps on giving...
Ridiculously cool
Clearly, nothing says "holiday spirit" like the sex-and-death world of Game of Thrones, so we all have to be grateful to interaction designer* and storyteller Krystal Higgins for providing us with ten incredible (and free) GoT-inspired snowflake patterns...
Sacred and Splendor, by Elana K. Arnold
Sacred and Splendor, the first two novels from YA author Elana K. Arnold, are ambitious, creative... and totally devoid of editorial judgment or restraint. The books contain a number of intriguing ideas, but the sum total is a hot mess...
My eyes remain dry.
The Guardian posted an article about a trio of unpublished J.D. Salinger short stories that recently leaked online. The transcripts are apparently accurate, and have lead to considerable hand-wringing for Salinger's fans, who are torn between their desire to read the difficult-to-obtain* stories before Salinger's approved publication date of January 27th, 2060...
"Shaken, not stirred" might refer to an alcoholic tremor
According to NPR, a group of Nottingham University Hospital scientists spent a year analyzing Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and tabulating the number of drinks the spy downed each day. The grand total? Six to seven drinks per day, or an average of 45 per week...
Tomorrow, by C.K. Kelly Martin
I always feel weird making this criticism, but C.K. Kelly Martin's Tomorrow is Too Much Book. It crams enough action and drama for an entire series into a scant 250 pages, leaving readers more shell-shocked than anything else...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tomorrow, by C.K. Kelly Martin
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Tomorrow, the sequel to C.K. Kelly Martin's Yesterday, which we reviewed here. Sadly, her publisher still has not granted us the insanely lurid 80s-inspired cover art of our dreams, but (spoiler!) Tomorrow is pretty good anyway. Our review will go up later today...
Death comes to BBC One
Unwilling to let NBC steal all the questionably-adapted thunder, BBC One is offering up a trailer for their upcoming adaptation of P. D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley. I haven't read this book (I'm not a fan of unnecessary drama in my Austen pastiches), but...
NBC is feelin' bold
Fresh off the questionable success of their Sound of Music adaptation, NBC has ordered another update of a modern classic, according to THR: a four-hour miniseries based on author Ira Levin's 1967 horror novel Rosemary's Baby...
Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, by Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks's book Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse was formally approved by Wodehouse's heirs, who apparently hope that Faulks can introduce a new generation of readers to Wodehouse's most famous creations: the “mentally negligible” Englishman Bertie Wooster and his ever-resourceful valet, Jeeves. Frankly, I doubt it. I mean, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells might amuse Wodehouse groupies*, but...
A good cause
J.K. Rowling recently wrote a lovely article about charm bracelets for Harper's Bazaar. She was promoting the sale of a charm bracelet she designed, the proceeds from which are going to benefit Lumos, the charity she co-founded in 2005 that wants to "[transform] how governments and communities think about looking after vulnerable children"...
Red, by Alison Cherry
Alison Cherry's debut novel Red has its charms: her heroine is relatable and plausibly flawed, and she has the fun, flowing writing style of a much more experienced author. Unfortunately, the tone of her story kept flip-flopping between campy and realistic, ultimately failing at both...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Red, by Alison Cherry
This week's Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Alison Cherry's Red, which is either an entertaining satire about superficial beauty standards or a questionable (at best) metaphor about racial inequality. I haven't decided which one I think the author was aiming for yet, but I'm hoping to make up my mind before I post our review this afternoon...