Feb 10 2011

GYAH!

My beloved Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon laid off 31 employees (a full 7% of their unionized workforce) on Tuesday. Powell's management released a statement explaining that the layoffs were ...

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Feb 10 2011

Oddness

Check out the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator, yet another testament to the total (and sometimes glorious) randomness of the Internet.The North Korean one's my favorite, but this one's good, too:

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Feb 9 2011

It's been so long.

Thank goodness: someone's making a movie adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story! It's been, what, fifteen minutes since the last one? I was beginning to worry the Hollywood PTB had run out of sour...

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Feb 8 2011
Feb 8 2011

Holiday contest

In honor of Valentine's Day, romance novelists Lisa Kleypas and Teresa Medeiros are giving away a wi-fi Kindle and a wi-fi Nook. To enter, make sure you're a member (Fan? Follower? Whatever they ...

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Feb 7 2011

Gallager Girls (Books 1-3), by Ally Carter

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I charged through Ally Carter's YA caper novel Heist Society like a rhinoceros on a mission, so I was hoping her Gallagher Girls series would prove equally absorbing. Unfortunately, I'd Tell You ...

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Feb 7 2011

Like a Ken doll on steriods

I don't know why, but I'm totally excited about this, even though I actually found the beefed-up version of Chris Evans a little off-putting. (Hey, those mega-shoulders make his head look tiny.) ...

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Feb 3 2011

The fall of civilization

According to Publishers Weekly, second-quarter earnings at HarperCollins have fallen, although they claim their children's department (which produces titles ranging from the Pretty Little Liars se...

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Feb 3 2011

Snow White and Jet Li

And speaking of poorly-conceived reworkings of classic plots, Disney is apparently in talks to develop a new live-action version of Snow White. This fresh take on the fairytale would feature seve...

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Feb 2 2011

Wonder Woman pining in her pajamas?

Here's hoping this description of David E. Kelley's script for his upcoming Wonder Woman TV show is grossly exaggerating things. Or a joke. Or something. Because that just sounds embarrassing.

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Feb 1 2011

Hopefully he'll wear something pretty...

Award-winning graphic novelist (and Wordcandy favorite) Shaun Tan's movie The Lost Thing has been nominated for an Oscar in the Short Film (Animated) category. Behold:Our sincerest congratulation...

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Feb 1 2011

Painful to behold

Whoo boy: Borders is now delaying January's payments to vendors and landlords. Things are not looking good.

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Jan 31 2011

I'm actually surprised they haven't already made this.

According to the MTV Movies Blog, the long-rumored film adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game might finally be happening. Nothing has officially been greenlit, but the project has apparen...

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Jan 31 2011

Encyclopedias for the people

In the ten years of its existence, Wikipedia has posted more than 3.5 million articles in English, but a recent New York Times article pointed out that barely 13 percent of its hundreds of thousan...

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Jan 28 2011

Grim signs

The NY Times has posted another article about the struggles of independent booksellers. The American Booksellers Association just hosted its 6th annual Winter Institute, and the store owners who ...

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Jan 27 2011

The stomach churns

And in far, far more horrifying movie news, when I was looking up Hunger Games director Gary Ross, I found out that his next film (after HG) is apparently going to be a movie adaptation of one of ...

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Jan 27 2011

Coming soon to (every) theater near you...

According to Cinematical, Lionsgate Films has announced a release date for their upcoming adaptation of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games: March 23, 2012. As far as I know, they have a director ...

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Jan 26 2011

Trendy and cheap!

Budget-minded readers take note: UrbanOutfitters' sale section is currently boasting loads of heavily-discounted and hipster-friendly reading material, including the recent reprints of the first t...

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Jan 25 2011

Classy.

I haven't seen many episodes of the CW's Vampire Diaries, but I was surprised by how much the few I have watched reminded me of mid-90s TV. Thankfully, the female stars of Vampire Diaries wear be...

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Jan 25 2011

Bargain basement goods, still-ridiculous prices

Remember those Anthropologie fake books we were trashing back in September? Well, they were $188, but now they have been marked down to a mere $99.95, which means the price only needs to drop by ...

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Jan 24 2011

Kiss that diet goodbye

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Anthony Hopkins is in talks to star in a film adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Stephen Rebello's 1998 non-fiction book. I'm havin...

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Jan 24 2011

Because a little Gogol goes a long way

NPR aired a story this morning on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's classical theater season, which includes plays by Ibsen, Gogol, and Shakespeare, and features such big-name draws as Fiona Shaw an...

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Jan 21 2011

2011: A Preview

Well, dear readers, it's time* for our annual list of stuff to get excited about in the upcoming year. Here's our list of the ten literary events and releases we're most looking forward to 2011:1...

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Jan 20 2011

Just what the interior designer ordered

The fine people at Bluewater Productions have expanded their booming line of biographical comics to include the affianced pair of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Behold:And just think: if you ...

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Jan 20 2011

What people want to read... when it's free.

TresSugar has provided us with a list of last week's top 10 ten free e-Book downloads, according to Project Gutenberg. I was okay with the fact that I haven't read all ten of these books (particu...

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Jan 19 2011

Seriously, does her publisher hate her?

As longtime Wordcandy readers know, my affection for the books of romance novelist Eloisa James is lukewarm at best. However, I was mildly tempted by her latest series, which apparently blends Re...

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Jan 18 2011

Josh Berk

Josh Berk is a Pennsylvania-based librarian with a professed (and, in our opinion, inexplicable) love of the Hardy Boys mysteries. His debut novel, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, is one of ou...

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Jan 18 2011

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, by Josh Berk

2011-01-18-the-dark-days-of-hamburger-halpin-by-josh-berk

When I opened the package containing Josh Berk's debut novel The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, I assumed it was a book aimed at elementary school students. The colorful cover, the goofy nam...

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Jan 18 2011

What a waste of great cover art.

While poking around my local Target store over the weekend, I ran across the newly-released "motion comic" Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight DVD. I had never heard of the motion comic format...

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Jan 18 2011

This is a gift from fate.

Thank you, GoFugYourself ladies, for introducing me to this, which in turn lead me to this. My week has now been made.

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