Dec 19 2011

Rating downgrade

According the Horn Book Blog, Akashic Books is releasing a G-rated version of their best-selling humor book Go the [Expletive] to Sleep entitled Seriously, Just Go to Sleep. This confuses me. My...

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Dec 15 2011

Skip Beat! goes live-action (but remains pretty cartoony)

The website Koala's Playground has posted a 20-minute-long "preview" (although it's more like promotional music video... on crack) of the upcoming Taiwanese drama adaptation of my beloved Skip Bea...

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Dec 14 2011

The anti-James Bond

And speaking of dour movies, the new adaptation of John le Carré's 1974 espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has hit theaters:It's getting great reviews, so if you'd like to see something ...

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Dec 13 2011

Schmaltzy

The new trailer is out for the upcoming adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Behold:Dead dads, 9-11 victims, and WWII survivors? Yep. Won't be seeing...

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Dec 12 2011

The gift of library signage

One last gift idea:I totally covet this vintage-style wooden "Library" sign from Three Potato Four. The sign was inspired by public library signage from the 1950s, and costs a (relatively) reason...

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Dec 12 2011

A worthy sacrifice

The always-entertaining design blog Swiss-Miss recently introduced me to Isaac G. Salazar's "Book of Art" pieces. Behold:Pretty amazing, huh? Being me, I immediately wondered how you could dust ...

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Dec 9 2011

I hope those were all recycled.

According to Refinery29, Australian skincare line Aesop's New York store was constructed out of 400,000 strips of the New York Times. Newspaper strips, it turns out, make for remarkably beautifu...

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Dec 8 2011

What's with the New Age cover art?

If you're looking forward to the upcoming Lisa Kleypas novel Rainshadow Road, the website HeroesandHeartbreakers.com has an exclusive excerpt of the first two chapters. They're also running a swe...

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Dec 8 2011

Congratulations...?

It's that time of year again, dear readers: time for the 19th annual Literary Review "Bad Sex in Fiction" Award. This year's prize was given to David Guterson's novel Ed King, which they describe...

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Dec 7 2011

Them's fighting words

There appears to be a lively feud brewing between comics-world superstars Frank Miller and Alan Moore, sparked by their very different views on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Both authors are t...

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Dec 6 2011

Why so far away, May 8th?

At long, long, long last, the book cover and plot description for the final (sobs) Sisters Grimm book are out:"In the final volume in the Sisters Grimm series, Sabrina, Daphne, and the rest of t...

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Dec 6 2011

Gasp!

We're with AustenBlog on this one: regardless of British crime novelist Lindsay Ashford's claim that "Jane Austen was poisoned by arsenic", Austen is still dead, Sanditon and The Watsons are still...

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Dec 5 2011

Cusack has made worse-looking movies

Okay, so this movie isn't based on a book, but it does feature a fictionalized version of Edgar Allan Poe:

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Dec 5 2011

Sex sells (even olive oil!)

Presented without comment:

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Dec 2 2011

Wordcandy's Holiday Gift List: 2011 Edition

It's December, and that means it's time for Wordcandy to release our annual Holiday Gift Guide! We've chosen a variety of deeply awesome potential gifts for the bibliophiles on your shopping list...

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Dec 1 2011

Oooh, cheesy!

The first full-length trailer is out for Disney's John Carter (based on the "Barsoom" series by Edgar Rice Burroughs), and it looks like it's staying pretty close to its space-western roots:Barrin...

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Dec 1 2011

A nod to the pulp factor

Publishers Weekly did a great post recently about the many and varied cover art choices for John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I can't say I agree with their statement "If you haven’t yet read East o...

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Nov 29 2011

Neil Gaiman gets animated

Last year, it was an episode of Arthur. This year, it's an episode of The Simpsons. Do they give Emmys to people who guest-star on cartoons, and if so, is Neil Gaiman gunning for one?

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Nov 29 2011

Revisiting Firefly

If you're a big Joss Whedon fan, you should save some wall space for these awesome (and totally affordable) vintage-travel-style posters designed by Adam Levermore-Rich and inspired by Whedon's sh...

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Nov 28 2011

Sickening

According to ABC News, Twilight: Breaking Dawn-induced seizures are a Real Thing, so if your significant other is dragging you to see it for the third time this week, you can now fake a plausible ...

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Nov 28 2011

Politically pointed

Well-known fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin has written a depressing-but-effective short story called "Ninety-Nine Weeks: A Fairy Tale". You can read it (for free!) at the Book View Cafe.

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Nov 22 2011

At long last, more Cold Comfort

For the first time since its original publication fifty years ago, a reprint of Stella Gibbons's short story collection Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is going hit bookshelves next week. Cold Com...

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Nov 22 2011

The holiday meal of your nightmares

Publishers Weekly has posted a great list of The 10 Weirdest Cookbooks, just in time to remind you that whatever you're stuck eating this Thanksgiving, it could always be worse.Seriously. Much worse.

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Nov 21 2011

Beating a dead, zombi-fied horse?

I haven't looked up the sales numbers for The Death Cure, the third novel in James Dashner’s bestselling Maze Runner trilogy, but I'm assuming they're amazing... seeing as I just opened a press re...

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Nov 18 2011

Drink like a vampire

If you're both A) a big Twilight fan, and B) of legal drinking age, you might want to celebrate today's big movie release with People magazine's suggestions for Twilight-themed cocktails, includin...

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Nov 17 2011

Need to open a secret passageway, Scooby-Doo-style?

Okay, I want one:B.Light Design has created a "Secret Passageway Switch" that uses a hard-bound book (without damaging it) to conceal its true function as an electrical switch. Sadly, it's alread...

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Nov 17 2011

Ranma 1/2 gets promoted

Rumiko Takahashi has drawn a poster for the upcoming live-action adaptation of her classic manga Ranma 1/2, and while I'm feeling most of it, what is up with Genma's panda suit?!? I understand no...

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Nov 16 2011

Kitschy!

The trailer's out for the other Snow White adaptation, too. I don't think anyone is going to confuse these two movies:

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Nov 15 2011

Would-be authors take note

There's another writing competition in the works: the Serendipity Literary Agency and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop are hosting their second "Young Adult Novel Discovery Competition". Aspiring YA ...

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Nov 15 2011

A story in stuff

Speaking of NPR, they recently posted an enthusiastic review of Caroline Preston's The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, a novel told via a scrapbook-style collection of vintage memorabilia. (The revie...

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