Behind (way behind) the times
In a little bit of magazine news, Salon.com's Broadsheet points out that Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year" coverstory hasn't featured a standalone female pick since 1986(!!!). They go o...
Overplayed
sigh I am so tired of the lady-in-a-long-skirt-fights-evil trend, you guys:I realize that the book industry is suffering, but taking every mildly successful book formula and copying it into the ...
The gift that keeps on giving
It's Wordcandy Goddess Jane Austen's birthday today, dear readers! Let's celebrate with something appropriate, shall we?Ah... soggy Colin Firth. It's better than cake!
My wallet is crying already.
Man, I am going to waste so much money at the movie theater this spring, aren't I?Here's the newest Alice in Wonderland trailer:
Greeks gone wild
But if you prefer your ancient mythology with more earnest expressions and even hokier CGI, Warner Bros. is releasing their remake of Clash of the Titans in March. It looks pretty bad, too... but ...
Percy Jackson's High School Musical
Well, they've released another Percy Jackson and the Olympians trailer:sigh I laughed at the pen line, but otherwise it just looks so hokey. Also, I find myself totally distracted by that kid's...
Well played, Mr. (and Mrs.) King.
In a classy move, Stephen King and wife Tabitha have apparently donated $13,000 (well, $12,999--they worried about the unlucky "13") to allow 150 soldiers from the Maine Army National Guard to tra...
Double ugh.
Man, not only are they making a movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it's going to star (and be produced by) Natalie Portman, an actress I have always found hugely overrated*. I don't...
Literary gifts for our fellow procrastinators...
It's that time of year again, dear readers: time for us to post our list of Wordcandy-approved holiday gifts! Most of these presents are inexpensive, available online, and (should y'all get your a...
Holiday cheer on tap
The fine people at Bookreporter.com have kicked off their second annual "Author Holiday Blogs" feature--a collection of holiday-themed posts by authors ranging from Stephen Coonts to Barbara Delin...
"Best of" goes graphic
Amazon's posted their nominees for the Best Book Covers of 2009, and while I've got to give a shout-out to Cynthia Rylant's All in a Day, which features lovely artwork by Nikki McClure (one of my ...
Inappropriate in so many ways...
Little known fact: the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, that creepy bit in Fantasia with Mickey Mouse battling the brooms (which terrified me as a child, BTW), is actually based on a poem by Go...
Critics at work
Now that December's here, we're beginning to see all the "Best of 2009" lists roll in. Normally I end up sneering at these (hi, Salon!), but there are a couple from sources I trust. I was pretty s...
Out at Night, by Susan Arnout Smith
Susan Arnout Smith's Out at Night, the second novel to feature San Diego crime-scene tech Grace Descanso, opens with a bit of stomach-churning violence: a middle-aged college professor crawls thro...
Speculation abounds
Katherine White, of the Addison's Disease Self-Help Group, has published an article in the British Medical Journal's Medical Humanities magazine that questions the commonly held belief that Jane A...
Harsh, man.
A 22-year-old Chicago woman has spent two nights in jail and now faces up to three years in prison after taping less than four minutes of New Moon. The young woman was visiting a Rosemont movie th...
Bigger and better things?
Ooooooh... the teaser trailer for the seventh Harry Potter movie is out! I can't find a decent video to embed, but you can watch it here.I just realized, though: if they're going to call this suc...
I have limited wall space, but...
I love Jen Bekman's 20X200. This budget-friendly site sells 8x10 inch limited-edition prints for twenty bucks apiece, and recently added a couple of bibliophile-friendly pieces by artist Jane Moun...
Signs of life
And speaking of reprints, I see they're finally reproduced something of Stella Gibbons' other than my beloved Cold Comfort Farm! Thanks to the fine people at Virago Press, the first edition of Ni...
Rick Riordan speaks!
Publishers Weekly recently interviewed Rick Riordan about his upcoming book The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid, the first story in a middle-grade fantasy series about two siblings—the descendant...
At even longer last...
After weeks of procrastination, I spent yesterday afternoon updating our Upcoming Books page. It took forever (sobs), but I consider myself richly rewarded by the news that the publishing gods ...
Jumping the gun
Warner Bros. has acquired the movie rights to Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's young adult novel Beautiful Creatures (the first book in a projected five-book-long series), despite the fact that it...
At long last...
Megan Whalen Turner has finally announced another book. It's been three and a half years since the superb The King of Attolia came out (and I thought the series was over, frankly), so this news is...
Made of win.
I can only read FailBlog for short periods of time. (I usually get queasy around the five-minute mark.) But I can certainly see why other people like it—at its best, it's insanely, painfully funny...
Stretching your dollars
Well, dear readers, today is Cyber Monday, the pseudo-holiday devoted to online shopping. We totally respect the fact that the whole appeal of shopping from home is that it's low-effort, but we ST...
Well, *I* would pay to see it.
While looking up Jane Austen stuff surrounding the New York exhibition, I noticed that Lady Susan is being adapted by playwright Lucy Prebble (best known as the creator of the Secret Diary of a Ca...
Time for a second mortgage?
TODAY is reporting that several famous children's books from the collection of U.S. professional football player Pat McInally are going up for auction next month, including a copy of Through the L...
Adios, allowance.
I've never approved of Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi's Spiderwick Chronicles. At $10.99 per (short and v. unsatisfying) book, the series has always seemed like a total money sink. But when I saw...
Jane Austen's Real! Live! Stuff!
The Morgan Library & Museum is currently holding a Jane Austen exhibit featuring "more than 100 works, including her manuscripts, personal letters, and related materials". They've got letters bot...