James M. Cain novel coming soon to TV?
Kate Winslet, apparently feeling that she just hasn't won enough awards lately (or starred in enough super-depressing movies), is hoping to play the title role in a TV miniseries based on the Jame...
The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal, by Sean Dixon
Sean Dixon's debut novel The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is a sprawling, gorgeous mess of a book: a Canadian take on Latin American magical realism with a bunch of h...
Castration Celebration, by Jake Wizner
The cover of Jake Wizner’s new book looks like the promotional posters for Disney’s High School Musical. It features about 10,000 hokey musical numbers*, just like Hig...
Killer Summer, by Ridley Pearson
Ridley Pearson's Killer Summer is his third book featuring Walt Fleming, the sheriff of Sun Valley, a small Idaho resort town. I'm always hesitant about starting a ser...
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
A word of warning before we begin: on the Depression Scale, Carrie Ryan's debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth ranks somewhere between Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and Schopenhauer...
My wallet would cry.
Annnnd speaking of short roads to poverty, I was recently tempted by these little baubles from Tarina Tarantino's Queen Alice collection:Adorable, no? The combination of Tenniel's art and sparkly ...
By Invitation Only, by Jodi Della Femina and Sheri McInnis
By Invitation Only is a breezy romantic comedy co-written by Jodi Della Femina and Sheri McInnis, two authors with solid beach-reading street cred: Femina is the autho...
Poverty, here I come.
Speaking of things that make my world a better place, I have long been excited about the upcoming complete collection of Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County strips. Behold:But what's with this "Volum...
So. Awesome.
Once again, Penguin's Deluxe Editions make my world a better place, and this time even The New York Times has noticed. Aren't these new covers from artist Ruben Toledo adorable? Nothing's gonna co...
Alyzon Whitestarr, by Isobelle Carmody
The title of Isobelle Carmody's book Alyzon Whitestarr sounds like an eighties hair band, the cover model looks like Gossip Girl's Little J in a bad Goth wig, and the ...
The Unit, by Ninni Holmqvist
The Unit, the debut novel by Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist, is neither fish nor fowl nor good Swedish surströmming. It's half dystopian horror story and half mid-life...
All kinds of disgusting
Speaking of Salon.com, they just posted another bookgeek-friendly interview, this one with Everything Sucks: Losing My Mind and Finding Myself in a High School Quest for Cool author Hannah Friedma...
Laura Ingalls Wilder's name-taking, butt-kicking spawn
Salon.com has an article up about Rose Wilder Lane, the oldest daughter of beloved children's writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Salon piece draws on both an upcoming book by Wendy McClure about the...
Reason number #327 I want to go to Beijing...
...would be this bookstore.Sadly, I suspect I'm a mite too tall to fit in. Also, I don't speak Chinese. Oh, and I'm 30 years old. But I'd still go.
The Sweet Life of Stella Madison, by Lara M. Zeises
Stella Madison, the 17-year-old heroine of Lara M. Zeises's The Sweet Life of Stella Madison, has her hands full: her boyfriend has just professed his love, her long-s...
It strikes again...
Horrors! Another publisher has fallen prey to The Curse of the Georgette Heyer Back Cover Blurb, as Ace and Harlequin and Arrow have done before it! Here's what's written on the back cover of the ...
Break out the cake!
...because The Writer's Almanac informs me it's J.K. Rowling's birthday.Hey, any excuse for cake, right?
Kind of a stretch...
...but, hey, we love The Yellow Submarine, so we felt a need to do this shout-out. Heinz Edelmann, the art director for the incredibly distinctive 1968 Beatles film The Yellow Submarine, died last...
Laughing it up in the Middle East
Charlize Theron has acquired the screen rights to Christopher Buckley's satirical novel Florence of Arabia, which is apparently about "a State Dept. employee (to be played by Theron) who, after wa...
Drink like a vampire
True Blood geeks better start digging through their couch cushions, because HBO has bottles of Tru-Blood available for pre-order, and they cost a whopping $4 apiece. Also, this is a "uniquely carb...
Dial Emmy for Murder, by Eileen Davidson
Dial Emmy for Murder might not have the genre-hopping appeal of, say, a Janet Evanovich novel, but it's a perfectly respectable mystery with an amusing hook and an app...
Vintage books are the new neckties.
The latest J.Crew catalog recently showed up in my mailbox, and it has a literary theme! The shoot was called "East of Eden", and the models were photographed reading (er... "reading") vintage boo...
Beach Reading Giveaway
The Wordcandy staff is happy to announce that we are embarking on another contest (our most extensive to date!) and we're posting it here on the blog a full day early, giving our blog readers a 24...
Charmingly unique, or just ridiculous?
Eh, flip a coin, right?AustenBlog has just posted a review of a book called Prawn and Prejudice, and they seem to really like it... although I'd read it based on the title alone. I might be bored ...
Is it wrong...
...that I totally want these little cigarette-box books, even though I've never smoked and I don't like these particular titles? Proof, once again, that weirdly-sized things placed out of context...
Want to see the Alice in Wonderland teaser trailer a day early?
I'm not sure it's worth signing up for Facebook just to see a teaser trailer one day before the rest of us, but hardcore Alice fanatics with Facebook pages might want to check this out: MTV is rep...