Spring Fever, by Mary Kay Andrews
Mary Kay Andrews's novels are the modern-romance equivalent of a plain cake doughnut: unexciting, yet undeniably tasty. Her latest effort, 2012's Spring Fever, is the story of Annajane Hudgens, a sweet-tempered advertising executive carrying a not-totally-extinguished torch for her ex-husband (and current boss), Northern Carolina businessman Mason Bayless. They've both seemingly moved on with their lives, but...
Hopefully there aren't many power outages.
MySanAntonio.com has an article up about Bexar County's attempt to create the nation's first book-free countywide library system. The goal is to have a library designed for the digital age (rather than adapted to it), which apparently means A) an interior resembling an Apple Store, B) an exterior resembling a minimum-security prison...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Spring Fever, by Mary Kay Andrews
This week's Book Giveaway title is Mary Kay Andrews's Spring Fever. (Our review will go up tomorrow.) To enter, just send us an e-mail connected to a valid address...
Reworking Cinderella
I didn't even realize Disney was making a "revisionist" film version of Cinderella, but apparently the movie is running into problems. Cate Blanchett is still on board as the wicked stepmother, but director Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go) has left, allegedly due to "differing views on how to tell the story" between him and the studio...
The Rabbi's Cat (film review), by Joann Sfar
I was recently sent a DVD screener of The Rabbi’s Cat, a 2011 animated film adaptation of Joann Sfar's graphic novel of the same name. I'm no film critic, and my previous experience with Sfar's work is limited to reading his sword-and-sorcery-on-drugs series Dungeon (which he co-created with Lewis Trondheim, and I have always found more exasperating than amusing), but I'll try anything once...
A random but interesting glimpse of the past
Speaking of Laura Ingalls Wilder (or at least speaking of Wilder's illustrator Garth Williams), Slate recently posted an image of Almanzo Wilder's 1884 “Homestead Proof”, the document that established his claim to a homestead in the Dakota Territory...
Want to buy a piece of history?
A collection of rare illustrations by Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter, Charles Addams, Ludwig Bemelmans, and Charles Schulz is about to go up for auction via the Swann Galleries in New York. The works include a first edition of Sendak's first book, Where the Wild Things Are, "signed and inscribed with a drawing", and the original ink drawing done by Garth Williams for the dust jacket cover for Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie...
Dr. Jekyll vs. Mr. Hyde on a weekly basis
Well, Revenge proved there was an audience for heavily-altered TV adaptations of classic novels, so at the end of the month NBC is kicking off Do No Harm, a modern-day reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde...
Kinky! But not really.
WHOA. This collection of Spanish-language e-book editions of Jennifer Crusie's older titles looks way racier than anything actually featured in the books. These are stories set in Ohio, people...
Daughter of the Centaurs, by Kate Klimo
Kate Klimo, author of the popular Dragon Keepers series for children, has launched a new trilogy aimed at older teens. The first book in the Centauriad series, Daughter of the Centaurs, introduces Malora, a girl growing up in a hunter-gatherer village in a post-apocalyptic future. Malora dreams of becoming a master horse-trainer like her father, and when her tribe is slaughtered by monsters her affinity with horses is all that allows her to survive...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Daughter of the Centaurs, by Kate Klimo
It's been a couple of weeks, but we're (mostly) back on our normal schedule, which means it's time to announce the book for our Weekly Book Giveaway. This week's title is Kate Klimo's Daughter of the Centaurs, which we are planning to review tomorrow morning. (Review here...
Cold open
Okay, I'm really looking forward to seeing this. MTV Geek recently posted a clip of the first four minutes of Warm Bodies, the not-very-thinly-disguised zombie version of Romeo and Juliet, and it looks ridiculously fun. Also, uh, just plain ridiculous, but that's never stopped me from enjoying something before...
Cinderella, vastly improved
The always-delightful webcomic Hark! A Vagrant recently re-interpreted Cinderella, and the results are glorious. I hope this is the beginning of an entire series of reworked fairytales...
Book cover twins
Last week, Flavorwire posted a slideshow of 10 "Suspiciously Similar" book covers, which I totally enjoyed. My favorite is the pairing of George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones with Mark Lawrence's nearly-identical King of Thorns. I'm pretty sure this would be an easy win, Mr. Martin, if you're feeling litigious...
Absolutely necessary, I'm sure.
Publishers Weekly recently posted an article attempting to define the new publishing sub-genre "New Adult", which apparently is a) ubiquitous, and b) a vital part of the publishing machine. I can sum it up for you, though: "New Adult" books are "Young Adult" books, but with explicit sex scenes in them...
An awesome sign of things to come
Happy New Year, everybody! 2013 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, so I have sky-high hopes for this year. A major Pride and Prejudice anniversary means this is clearly going to be a great year for... something. No idea what (other than a bumper crop of scholarly P&P analysis, obviously), but I'm sure it will be amazing...
Winter break
Hi, everyone! Wordcandy.net is taking the week between Christmas and New Year's Day off. I'm planning to spend it obsessively stroking my presents, which include four absolutely gorgeous new Jane Austen editions. (Clearly, my friends and family accept that A) I am a huge nerd, and B) they need to shop accordingly.)...
Rough Justice, by Alex Ross
Comic book artist Alex Ross is best known for his work on Kingdom Come, a 1996 DC miniseries about a group of middle-aged superheroes battling a gang of new, amoral vigilantes (including, in some cases, their own children). Pantheon Books recently released a paperback edition of Rough Justice, a collection of images pulled from Ross's private sketchbooks, deleted scenes, and published work...
My Christmas list is complete!
Man, this has been a great year for Pride and Prejudice cover art. (You wouldn't think you could measure years that way, but you totally can.) I'm currently staring in awe at this edition...
What You See in the Dark, by Manuel Munoz
It's been several days of teen-oriented books, so today was time for a literary palate cleanser. After poking through some of the older titles on our “To Be Read” shelves, I pulled out Manuel Munoz's 2011 book What You See in the Dark, equally attracted by the novel's absolutely stunning black-and-white cover art and its official description, which sounds about as far from most YA novels as you can get...
Yesterday, by C.K. Kelly Martin
C. K. Kelly Martin's novel Yesterday opens with a prologue set in a dystopian version of 2063, but after six drama-stuffed pages the action shifts to Ontario, 1985, a (possibly even weirder) world full of New Wave music, enormous shoulder pads, and MacGyver. Martin's protagonist is Freya Kallas, a 16-year-old girl whose diplomat father recently died in an explosion. When her mother moves the family back to Canada after years of living abroad, Freya assumes...
Jane Austen and Lifetime
I am straight-up appalled by this idea: Jennifer Love Hewitt is teaming up with Lifetime to develop Darcy's Town, a "modern retelling of Jane Austen's literary classic Pride and Prejudice set in a small Virginia town". I was much less horrified by the article's mention of another Austen-inspired TV project...
Shadowfell, by Juliet Marillier
New Zealand author Juliet Marillier's Shadowfell, the first book in a projected trilogy, takes several done-to-death fairytale tropes—a girl on a solitary journey, an evil king, helpful magical creatures—and transforms them into an entertaining and thoughtful YA fantasy novel...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Book of Blood and Shadow, by Robin Wasserman
Today's Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Robin Wasserman's The Book of Blood and Shadow, which we reviewed here. Just a reminder: entries for this drawing are due by the end of the day on Friday, December 21st, and entries for last week's Fairy Tale drawing are due by...
The Book of Blood and Shadow, by Robin Wasserman
Robin Wasserman's novel The Book of Blood and Shadow is ambitious in a way that few YA novels attempt. Everything from the somber cover art to the sheer heft of the book (a solid 432 pages) clearly indicates that this is a novel that wants to be taken seriously, despite its melodramatic tag line: "One Girl. One Night. Centuries of Secrets."...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Fairy Tale, by Cyn Balog
Our second Book Giveaway of the week is Cyn Balog's Fairy Tale, which we reviewed here. Again, while entries for Monday's giveaway (C.J. Skuse's Rockoholic) are due by 5 o'clock today, entries for Fairy Tale aren't due until next Wednesday...
Starstruck, Sleepless, and Fairy Tale, by Cyn Balog
For a genre that should be all about creativity, most YA paranormal romance is actually pretty standardized. Wearing Converse is proof positive of an artistic nature. It's not at all creepy for a zillion-year-old magical being to continue attending high school. And in any given love triangle, the heroine is always better off choosing the more emotionally constipated option...
Not a total waste, then.
Wow. According to The New York Times, all of the employees of Random House, "from top editors to warehouse workers", will be receiving a $5,000 bonus this year, thanks largely to the success of the Fifty Shades of Grey series...
Don't Expect Magic, by Kathy McCullough
Kathy McCullough's debut novel Don't Expect Magic has a lot going for it: it's suitable for a wide variety of ages, it manages to be inspirational without being cloying, and—best of all—it's a standalone! (You guys know how I love those...
Rockoholic, by C.J. Skuse
C.J. Skuse's YA novel Rockoholic centers around Jody, a British teenager totally obsessed with rock star Jackson Gatlin. Jody is convinced the meaning of life can be found in Jackson's music, but when she kidnaps him from one of his concerts (accidentally!), she discovers her idol has feet of clay. Actually, he's practically made of clay...