The Once and Future Sweet Valley High
I would like to think that this is an April Fools' joke, but, sadly, it's still March.With typical elegance and restraint, Gawker is reporting that the Sweet Valley High books have been updated. (...
Sakura-Con 2008
Forgive the short blog post today, dear readers, but I'm heading to Sakura-Con, the big Northwest anime/manga convention. So if any of you happen to be attending, and you see a tall, confused-loo...
Upward Spiral
When Mary Street’s The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy was first published in the U.K. in 1999, it looked like this:Now, almost ten years later, it is finally being published in the United States....
Downward spiral
We're a little behind on the calendar, so I was surprised to learn that Kelley Armstrong's new book Personal Demon is already out... and I was even more surprised to learn that this is the cover:A...
I will undoubtedly regret watching this, but at least it's free.
PBS's The Complete Jane Austen is concluding with the only Austen adaptation I haven't already watched on YouTube: the 2008 TV miniseries version of Sense and Sensibility, adapted by screenwriter ...
ADV falls off the wagon (again)
We're hearing distressing rumors that ADV is once again in financial difficulties, which means that we'll have to wait even longer to get our hands on the sixth volume of Yotsuba&!. The original ...
Freeing Tibet
The BBC/NPR program The World aired an interview with novelist Eliot Pattison yesterday as part of a series of stories on the recent unrest in Tibet. I've never read one of Pattison's mysteries, ...
The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall
I have long avoided reading Jeanne Birdsall's National Book Award-winning The Penderwicks, mostly because of its tastefully retro cover (which I felt was shamelessly derivative of the silhouette i...
Hana Yori Dango Version 3.0
While reading the excellent Dramabeans blog, I was delighted to see that there's going to be a K-drama adaptation of the cheese-tastic shojo manga Hana Yori Dango. I enjoyed the recent Japanese v...
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, by James Patterson
James Patterson’s Maximum Ride books are an action-adventure/science fiction series featuring a group of genetically engineered bird-human children. There are currently three books in the series*...
Kamikaze Girls, by Novala Takemoto
I hunted down a copy of Novala Takemoto’s 2002 novel Kamikaze Girls after I saw the film adaptation a few months ago, and—for once!—I’m not sure which I recommend picking up first. There are slig...
The Fug Girls are at Powell's
Well, kinda. Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, creators of GoFugYourself are the guest bloggers this week for Powells.com. Sadly, they haven't talked much about books at this point (although ref...
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winnifred Watson
Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day has just been made into a movie, and—for once!—we’re totally grateful. We’re usually the first in line to complain about film adaptations, but if it wasn’t for the fine people at Focus Features we might never have heard of this charmingly optimistic romantic comedy...
Sisters Grimm #6: Tales from the Hood
(Have I mentioned how much I hate the whole Daylight Savings spring time change? Because, seriously: my brain feels like it's going to melt.)I can't believe this slipped past me, but Michael Buckl...
Bone: the movie
Meg sent me this link over the weekend. Apparently, Warner Bros. has bought the movie rights to Jeff Smith's Bone. See, a Bone movie would only work for me if they got the people who make Wallac...
Georgette Heyer rides again!
Much to my delight, Sourcebooks, Inc. is continuing to release beautiful paperback editions of Georgette Heyer novels. Their most recent publication, False Colours, isn’t her best work, but even a...
Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson
Wordcandy doesn’t review much nonfiction, but we were pleasantly surprised by Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle’s Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. Miraculously, Johnson and Bittle have managed to write a politically unbiased book on an important-but-drier-than-dust subject that is both informative and entertaining...
Amazon takes one for the team
As most of you probably know, Amazon purchased J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard at a Sotheby’s auction. The purchase price (of £1,950,000!!!) was donated to The Children's Voice campai...
Help Jennifer Colt (or somebody else) land a Penguin contract
I got this e-mail from beloved Wordcandy author Jennifer Colt yesterday:Dear Friends,I entered my unpublished McAfee Twins manuscript The Hellraiser of the Hollywood Hills in the Amazon Breakthrou...
Hogfather: the movie
We are happy to report that the Sky One made-for-TV movie adaptation of the Terry Pratchett novel Hogfather is finally available here in the U.S. This unique holiday story (Hogfather, the Discwor...
Immortal, by Traci L. Slatton
[Note: this review contains a semi-spoiler, so procede with caution!]
While Anne Rice fans breathlessly await that last Lestat book, they would be well advised to check out Traci L. Slatton’s debut...
Darkside, by Tom Becker
Tom Becker’s debut novel Darkside opens with a kidnapping: thirteen-year-old Ricky Thomas is abducted from the middle of Trafalgar Square in broad daylight, and, strangely, none of the hundreds of...