Feb 12 2009

Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud

For my money, Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy was the best young adult fantasy series of the past decade. Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass was better than any individual book in Stro...

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Feb 12 2009

The Hunger Games sequel gets an update

There's fresh news about the sequel to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games. Previously, the book was listed under the name 12, and was scheduled to be released in early May. Unfortunately, that's a...

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Feb 12 2009

Them's fightin' words

The List Universe has made a list of the 10 Most Overrated Novels, and number one is Jane Austen's Emma, which they describe as "light summer reading for teenage girls". Emma is my least favorite...

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Feb 11 2009

Literary fundraising

The Shirley Jackson Awards, honoring outstanding work in the genres of psychological suspense, horror, and the "dark fantastic", is currently holding an online lottery to raise money for their awa...

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Feb 11 2009

Jane Austen + zombies = comedy gold?

Coming soon to a bookstore near you:Man... couldn't they have started off with a book that actually would have been improved with a few zombies? Like, say, Wuthering Heights? Just the thought of...

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Feb 10 2009

Woot! (Part III)

Seriously. Today is a very good day, guys.Last but not least: Wordcandy favorite Nodame Cantabile will resume, starting in the March 10th issue of the magazine Kiss. The series has been on a sever...

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Feb 10 2009

Woot! (Part II)

And the good news keeps coming! Viz Media has announced that they've picked up the new, as-yet-unnamed Rumiko Takahashi title (as expected), AND they've licensed Boys Over Flowers: Jewelry Box, a ...

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Feb 10 2009

Woot! (Part I)

It is a day of wondrous anime- and manga-related news, dear readers. At its New York Comic Con panel, North American publisher Yen Press announced on Saturday that it has picked up the license for...

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Feb 9 2009

'Bloom County' fans rejoice

Thanks to the fine people at IDW Publishing, fans of the classic comic strip Bloom County are about to have a dream realized: a high-quality, five-volume-long collection of nearly two years' worth...

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Feb 9 2009

TV vampires strike again

GYAH! The CW has given the green light to a pilot of one of our favorite teen-girl vampire series from the mid-90s, L.J. Smith's slightly-hokey-but-still-delightful Vampire Diaries!Sadly, the pilo...

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Feb 6 2009

Reading between the lines

Publishers Weekly has posted a list of the winners of the 2009 "Off the Cuff" awards, and it's worth taking a gander at--for the publishing gossip, if nothing else. (Blueberries for Sal went out o...

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Feb 6 2009

The critics (heart) Coraline, but I have my doubts.

Lots of good reviews coming out about the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, due out in theaters today. But what's with this new character, "Wybie"? I hate it when they stick in complete...

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Feb 5 2009

Two upcoming King Lear movies?

Ugh. Just what the world needs.According to Cinematical, the first adaptation will star Anthony Hopkins, Keira Knightley, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Naomi Watts, and the second one is a "brilliant adap...

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Feb 5 2009

New work from Rumiko Takahashi!

AnimeNewsNetwork has posted a news item from Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday manga magazine. According to the post, it was announced on Wednesday that manga goddess Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura, Ma...

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Feb 4 2009

Tokyopop cancellations (yet again)

There's more news (confusing news, but news nonetheless) on which series the distressed manga publisher Tokyopop has actually cancelled, and which series they've only delayed. Sadly, as far as I c...

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Feb 4 2009

Keepin' it classy

Oooh, even more Twilight figurines--and this time, they come as a two-pack!These little charmers are priced at the equivalent of more than thirty dollars. Aren't we glad to see that the Twilight ...

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Feb 3 2009

Dan Simmons movie moves forward

According to the SCI FI Wire, Warner Brothers has picked Scott Derrickson (director of the recent The Day the Earth Stood Still remake) to direct the film adaptation of Dan Simmons's Hyperion seri...

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Feb 3 2009

Okay, I love these.

Check these out:Dude, I would buy that Japanese edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a heartbeat... sadly, it's not a real book.According to Cinematical, artist Mitch Ansara created the...

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Feb 2 2009

YALSA's list of great graphic novels

The Young Adult Library Services Association has assembled a list of over fifty great graphic novels for teens, and they've included several Wordcandy-approved titles, including one of our recent ...

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Feb 2 2009

It Started With a Kiss manga licensed

Hey, somebody finally picked up Itazura Na Kiss, the classic 1990s shojo manga that has been made into two enormously popular Taiwanese dramas and a anime. Digital Manga Publishing has acqu...

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Jan 30 2009

Bonnets are REVIVED!

Remember that post about the death of costumed dramas on the BBC? Well, apparently the BBC didn't mean it, because it has been CONFIRMED that they will be producing a FOUR-HOUR-LONG adaptation of ...

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Jan 30 2009

Movie news from around the 'net

Amanda Seyfried is going to star in an upcoming adaptation of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance...Jamie Bell will play the lead in Tintin and Daniel Craig will play Red Rackham......and they ...

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Jan 29 2009

Edward Gorey's screenplay

And speaking of delicious Dracula-related stuff, what is this?According to the product description:The Black Doll, a little-known and never-produced screenplay by the very well-known and often-pub...

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Jan 29 2009

Wordcandy loves the bargains!

Because an intro by Holly Black + Dracula + a dirt-cheap cover price = HAPPINESS.This awesome-looking edition from our beloved Puffin Classics is due out in early June.

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Jan 28 2009

Little Witches on the Prarie

And Patricia Wrede has a new book coming out, too! It's called Thirteenth Child, and it looks awesome-it's supposed to be a re-imagining of the settling of the American West, but with magic and st...

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Jan 28 2009

Dan Simmons remains awesome.

Dan Simmons (who is God's gift to sci-fi/fantasy fans, seriously) is taking on Charles Dickens:Here's the publisher's synopsis:On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret m...

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Jan 27 2009

Whoa.

According to the Arts Beat blog at the Times, Sara Nelson, the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, the main trade magazine for the book industry, has been laid off, along with an additional 7% o...

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Jan 27 2009

Bonnets: RIP

According to an article in The Guardian, the BBC is sidelining its production of lavish costume dramas in favor of "a grittier look at the period and a new focus on other historical eras". (They t...

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Jan 26 2009

The Un-Outlander

Okay, so they probably will make a movie adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's novel Outlander, but that Outlander is definitely not the same as this Outlander:Just wanted you to know.

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Jan 26 2009

Wordcandy at Sundance

I'm hearing good things about An Education, one of the movies that premiered at Sundance. It's a coming-of-age story set in the 1960s, and it has quite the literary cred: it was based on a memoir...

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