Weekly Book Giveaway: Maybe This Time, by Jennifer Crusie
Good morning! This week's giveaway pick is Jennifer Crusie's Maybe This Time, which we reviewed a couple of years ago. Maybe This Time isn't our absolute favorite Crusie, but (like all of her books) it's plenty entertaining...
I love every square, ridiculously overpriced inch of it.
Okay, this "Stacked Paperback" wallpaper costs a zillion dollars and it only covers 18 square feet and the description features the ominous phrase "Adhesive required" (which I suspect means "This is not idiot-proof, which means your life together can never be."), but I still covet it with all my heart and soul...
Clifford's big birthday
NPR recently posted an article celebrating the 50th "birthday" of Clifford the Big Red Dog. Created by author and illustrator Norman Bridwell in 1962, the Clifford series has sold more than 126 million copies and is available in 13 languages. The article includes a really sweet interview with Bridwell and his wife Norma...
I'm not sure this is going to translate to an hourly drama, guys.
Clearly hoping that if The Count of Monte Cristo could be re-worked into Revenge, NBC has decided to transform Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights into a drama series called Napa. There's not much information out yet...
A mystery worthy of its source material
NPR posted an article yesterday about the troubles besieging a prospective Broadway musical version of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca. According to the article, the production's major investor, a dude named Paul Abrams, allegedly died of malaria* shortly before the show was ready to start rehearsals...
The Little Woods, by McCormick Templeman
I was drawn to McCormick Templeman's debut novel The Little Woods as soon as I pulled it out of the publishers' box. The cover art and title managed to be simultaneously elegant, menacing, and teen-girl-friendly, and it appeared to be a murder mystery without a paranormal element—a rare beast, at least as far as YA books are concerned...
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Miracle Whip
Has anybody else seen this Miracle Whip commercial? Who on earth decided "fake mayonnaise" + The Scarlet Letter was a natural pairing?
Don't get me wrong: I actually think the idea is pretty great. But I'm choosing to believe...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Little Woods, by McCormick Templeman
Uh... this is less a recent review than a "book we're going to review tomorrow", but whatever: this week's Wordcandy Weekly Book Giveaway selection is McCormick Templeman's The Little Woods...
Literary speculation
There's a new biography out that claims–without any actual evidence, as far as I can tell–that the poet John Keats was an opium addict, and wrote many of his most famous poems under the influence of laudanum. There's no way to prove the situation either way, of course, but I can't help but think of Cold Comfort Farm's Mr. Mybug...
It's not how I'd choose to spend my weekend, but...
If you have the time, inclination, or need, you should check out the Moby Dick Big Read, a free online version of Melville’s masterpiece. Each of the book's 135 chapters is to be read aloud (featuring a mixture of famous and unknown readers) and broadcast online in a sequence of 135 publicly accessible downloads...
Camp classic in the making, perhaps?
The trailer is out for the upcoming adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's Beautiful Creatures, and I don't know, you guys. This movie looks like it takes itself super seriously, and the source material might not bear such close examination...
So many puns
Another day, another Fifty Shades of Grey parody–this one's a poultry-focused cookbook from "an established food industry professional". And yet another cover artist who put in the effort to far outstrip whoever designed the original series...
Weirdly, he does resemble Anthony Perkins.
When I saw a THR article about casting news for a new Psycho, I assumed the author was talking about Hitchcock, the upcoming movie adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the nonfiction book by Stephen Rebello. But no: clearly, the world needs another new Psycho-related project...
Hopefully they shell out for better cover art
Speaking of the erotic-novel publishing frenzy ignited by Fifty Shades of Grey, Publishers Weekly informs me that Penguin's Berkley Books imprint has picked up an erotic trilogy from romance novelist Maya Banks...
Uselessness is no barrier to cute
I have no idea what I'd do with these, but they're adorable nonetheless. The author of How About Orange used a tutorial from Paper Kawaii to make 1.5" square mini origami blank books...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Beautiful Disaster, by Jamie McGuire
This week's giveaway selection is Jamie McGuire's Beautiful Disaster, which we just reviewed this morning. If you absolutely must read this book, we definitely recommend doing so for free, so we're putting our copy on offer...
Beautiful Disaster, by Jamie McGuire
Now that E. L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has established itself as the new sales standard to beat, the publishing world is scrambling to fill bookshelves with titles that are as similar to the Grey series as possible, no matter how ridiculous they are. (After all, rampant ridiculousness was no barrier to the success of either Fifty Shades of Grey or its source material, Twilight.)...
An unrestful place
This is craziness: according to the BBC, British archaeologists may have found the bones of Richard III buried underneath a council car park. Nothing has been confirmed, but the remains indicate spinal abnormalities, a "cleaved-in skull", and an arrow head near the spine, all of which connect to what is known about Richard's death...
That's where all the fun books are.
In a not-particularly-shocking bit of news, Publishers Weekly just posted an article about a new study on so-called "Young Adult" books: according to Bowker Market Research, 55% of buyers of YA books are 18 or older...
Wonder Woman at last?
Well, NBC's attempt at a Wonder Woman TV series didn't work out, but that hasn't daunted the CW. According to Vulture, the CW (along with Warner Bros. and DC Comics) is working on a Wonder Woman origin story, currently called Amazon...
Still stupid
A trailer has been released for director Andrea Arnold's film adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and, while I have no desire to actually watch the movie, even I have to admit that this version looks beautiful...
Bits and pieces, manga edition
I have some manga-related odds and ends to cover, but none of 'em seem quite worthy of their own posts, so I'm settling for a quick and dirty list...
A brilliant notion
Okay, I love this transformation: when Wal-Mart ditched their original store in McAllen, Texas in favor of a larger property, the city transformed the abandoned space into a gorgeously colorful and beautifully designed 123,000-square-foot public library. Speaking as someone who lives in a city (Olympia, WA) that has needed a larger library for, oh, my entire lifetime...
Book-to-movie round up
The fine people at BuzzSugar have put together a helpful guide to the current crop of books being made into movies this fall...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Don't You Wish, by Roxanne St. Claire
Our current Weekly Book Giveaway selection is Roxanne St. Claire's Don't You Wish, which we reviewed here. Our review pretty much boils down to "...meh", but...
Anastasia Forever, by Joy Preble
I rarely participate in blog tours, because I'm so disorganized I break out in a cold sweat at the mere thought of having to meet a specific deadline. And Wordcandy typically only reviews series installments if we've already read all of the earlier books in the series, because we feel like we need to know the story's background in order to give the newest installment a fair shake...
Superheroes in cross-stitch
I'm always impressed by people with handicraft skills, as I was not blessed with A) hand-eye coordination, or B) patience. However, those of you who WERE blessed with the above should totally check out this free cross-stitch pattern from Kitschy Digitals inspired by The Avengers...
Cognitive skills vs. character
There's been a lot of online buzz recently about Paul Tough's new nonfiction book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. You can listen to a NPR interview here...
Hansel and Gretel: now with more leather corsets
The trailer is out for the upcoming Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters movie, and it looks truly, impressively terrible. I'm not sure if it will be terrible in a fun Underworld kind of way, or just straight-up terrible in an embarrassingly hokey Van Helsing kind of way, but let's face it: I'll probably see it regardless...
Best of luck, Ms. Blume
According to People magazine, author Judy Blume has (had?) breast cancer, but underwent a successful mastectomy on July 30th, and won't need chemotherapy. The article goes into some of Blume's health history as well...