Philip Marlowe drinks again
According to The Guardian, acclaimed novelist John Banville (using his mystery-writing pseudonym, Benjamin Black) has been hired to write a new novel featuring Raymond Chandler's legendary detective Philip Marlowe and his friend, Chief Inspector Bernie Ohls...
Joe Kubert: 1926-2012
Another obituary to post this week, sadly: Joe Kubert, one of comic books' most respected and prolific artists, died last Sunday at the age of 85. In addition to his long and successful career as an artist and writer, in 1976 Kubert and his wife co-founded the Kubert School, the only accredited trade school devoted entirely to cartooning...
Just what the world needs
Painful news: Gossip Cop informs me that author E. L. James has recently struck three North American licensing deals to sell official Fifty Shades of Grey underwear, shirts, stockings, bathrobes, garters, pajamas and other apparel...
The Boxcar Children, pre-Boxcar
Holy cats: seventy years after its debut, the Boxcar Children series is getting a prequel. Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan, author of Sarah Plain and Tall has written The Boxcar Children Beginning: The Aldens of Fair Meadow Farm, due out September 1st...
Helen Gurley Brown: 1922-2012
Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, died yesterday at the age of 90. Brown was a polarizing figure, but she will be remembered as the author of the 1962 advice book Sex and the Single Girl...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Lies Beneath, by Anne Greenwood Brown
Okay, here's our first Weekly Book Giveaway selection: Lies Beneath, by Anne Greenwood Brown, which we reviewed here. We had our problems with this title, but let's face it: how wrong can you go with a story about murderous mermaids from Wisconsin...
Weekly Book Giveaway Rules
We're introducing a new feature to Wordcandy.net: weekly book giveaways. Each Monday we will choose a recently-reviewed title, and all you have to do to enter to win is either A) send us an e-mail with your name and contact information, or B) leave a comment in the post connected to a functioning e-mail address...
Still terrible after all these years
The fine people at The Hairpin recently posted an interview with Ryan Nerz, a late-90s-era ghostwriter for the Sweet Valley High series. Mr. Nerz offers quite the eye-opening look behind the scenes, let me tell you...
Infinite shades of embarrassing
How sad: some graphic artist clearly devoted way more effort to the cover art for this parody of Fifty Shades of Grey than the original designer(s) put into all three of the actual books...
The (still) walking dead
According to THR.com, Robert Kirkman’s comic-turned-TV-show-turned-video-game The Walking Dead will live on in yet another incarnation: a Facebook social media game...
Crack open the college fund?
According to Variety, Target is planning to sell several high-priced pieces of Hunger Games merchandise via their website, including a 14-carat gold reproduction of Katniss Everdeen's Mockingjay pin ($999), a replica of her leather hunting jacket ($349), and a lithograph signed by film's cast ($699)...
So painful. Seriously.
Yet another day when I find myself wishing it was actually April 1st: according to The Independent, E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey is the best-selling British book of all time, beating out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows...
Another (non-princess) princess movie
The rumor that Disney was giving up on princess movies was apparently untrue: according to DisneyFandom.net, the studio is planning to release a film inspired by The Snow Queen in 2013...
Quite the wait
I see they've pushed back the release date for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby from December 25th to next summer. According to THR's interview with Warner Bros., the official reason is because...
Iconic yet strangely boring (except for #9)
If you're having a slow Monday (or if, like me, you need to do something soothing after watching the nerve-wracking US/Canada women's soccer match), you should give the latest round of Publishers Weekly's "Guess The Phantom Book Covers!" game a shot...
Avast ye, literary pirates!
Publishers Weekly recently posted an article about non-English-language publishers' struggles with J.K. Rowling's upcoming adult novel The Casual Vacancy...
If it remained a miniseries, it might have a chance.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC has ordered 10 episodes of a new drama based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. The series will feature The Tudors' Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the title character, and offers a new take on the story...
All sneaky and awesome...
The always-fascinating site Instructables is featuring a tutorial on how to make a Secret Bookcase Box of your very own. As always, I'm sorry they had to sacrifice so many decent books (several Dick Francis novels and a copy of Joy of Cooking) for the project, but the idea is great...
WHHHYYY???
Speaking of TV reboots, the world does NOT NEED a new version of the excellent Canadian television adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, but, alas, it's getting one anyway...
Milking the cash cow dry
The Hollywood Reporter informs me that the CW is looking into acquiring the rights to Battle Royale, the late-90s Japanese manga/novel/movie series that boasts a very (some say suspiciously) similar plot to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games...
The Greek Myths go deliciously pulp fiction
I love this cover art with all my heart and soul. I already own half a dozen collections of Greek myths, and this edition costs a zillion bucks (well, $25...
In these troubled economic times, I know I should be grateful.
Washington State tourism: first boosted by the Twilight books, and now (apparently) by the dread Fifty Shades of Grey. WHY? Why can't people visit us because of their burning desire to trace the scenes in Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide, or Kat Richardson's Greywalker books...
The Master of Misrule, by Laura Powell
The Master of Misrule is the sequel to Laura Powell's novel The Game of Triumphs, which we enthusiastically recommended last October. Like The Game of Triumphs, The Master of Misrule is a fast-paced and richly imagined fantasy inspired by the rules of the Tarot...
Dead End Deal, by Allen Wyler
Allen Wyler embraces that dictum about writing what you know: he's a Seattle-based neurosurgeon who writes suspense novels about Seattle-based neurosurgeons. His latest effort, Dead End Deal, is the story of Professor Jon Ritter, a neurosurgeon hovering on the brink of a major advancement in the fight against Alzheimer's...
Flora's Fury, by Ysabeau S. Wilce
I have been waiting for Flora's Fury, the third book in Ysabeau S. Wilce's Flora Segunda series, for what feels like forever. Happily, the book has finally been released, and I am delighted to report that it is totally worth the (damn near interminable) wait...
Lies Beneath, by Anne Greenwood Brown
Before I read Anne Greenwood Brown's novel Lies Beneath, I would have assumed that any book about killer mermaids from Wisconsin had to be campy. Ms. Brown's book has proved me wrong; Lies Beneath has its faults (and plenty of 'em), but it takes itself quite seriously...
Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our Lives, by Albert Marrin
The vast majority of the books we receive here at Wordcandy are fiction, but every few weeks the odd nonfiction title turns up. I usually choose to review the ones on subjects I enjoy reading about (read: food preparation and money management, both of which I love... in theory, anyway, if not in practice), but Albert Marrin's informative-yet-totally-readable Black Gold: The Story of Oil In Our Lives is the kind of thing everyone should read...
Fever Moon, by Karen Marie Moning
First, a word of warning: Fever Moon is the only Karen Marie Moning book that I have ever read, so while I'm finally capable of evaluating a graphic novel without a boatload of preconceived notions about how everyone should look and behave, I'm flying blind when it comes to the series' larger story arc...
Dust Girl, by Sarah Zettel
Sarah Zettel's Dust Girl has been criticized for its cover art, which several reviewers felt failed to convey an important element of the book—that the heroine is biracial. I wasn't hugely bothered by this, as the character is supposed to be able to “pass” as white and the cover model resembles the book's description, but I do have my own objections to the cover: A) it doesn't do much to evoke the book's Dust Bowl-era setting, and B) it's ridiculously boring...
That is some low-budget cover art, too.
According to E!Online, some e-book company called Clandestine Classics has taken a bunch of classic novels and sexed 'em up. The article name-drops the Brontes, Austen, Melville, and Conan Doyle as potential subjects (victims?)...