YA fantasy fans rejoice!
The publishing industry's spring catalogs are beginning to trickle in, and there is some seriously good stuff coming down the pike, dear readers.Just out:Perennial Wordcandy favorite Michael Buckl...
Easy come, easy go
I've spent a fair amount of time complaining about ADV. Their biggest fault, of course, was sitting on volume 4 of my beloved Yotsuba&! for the better part of two years, but they've committed ple...
Love of Reading Second Annual Online Book Fair
Next week (Nov. 14-16), FSB Associates will be holding the second annual Love of Reading online bookfair, and we, your humble neighborhood book critics, will be guest-blogging! Mark your calendars...
Wordcandy odds and ends
Well, dear readers, we're finally finished: it wasn't quite a week, but we did get through nine book reviews in eight days, so we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves. Meanwhile, though, other Wo...
Tales From the Teachers' Lounge, by Robert Wilder
Robert Wilder (author of the whimsical parenting book Daddy Needs a Drink) has written another book, and it’s just as funny, profanity-laden, and stomach-churning as his first. Tales From the Teachers’ Lounge is a series of humorous essays about the questionable joys of teaching...
Never Surrender, by Michael Dobbs
While we here at Wordcandy usually prefer our books to be straight-up flufftastic fiction, we periodically feel the need to broaden our horizons. Sometimes this leads to misery and regret...
The Chopin Manuscript, by assorted authors
Since going live in 1997, Audible.com has become the leading provider of spoken entertainment and information on the Internet, allowing users to download digital audio editions of books, newspaper...
Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, by Thomas Holtz, Jr.
Professional paleontologist Thomas Holtz, Jr. has just released Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, and dinophiles everywhere better start clearing space on their bookshelves, because this is not one of those illustration-heavy, text-light picture books. With contributions from over thirty of his fellow paleontologists, Holtz’s 432 pages...
Out of Line: Growing Up Soviet, by Tina Grimberg
Tina Grimberg’s Out Of Line: Growing Up Soviet is an excellent, surprisingly optimistic account of her childhood in the Ukrainian city of Kiev in the sixties and seventies. Grimberg’s book...
Babymouse: Skater Girl, by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Brother/sister creative team Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm’s Babymouse books are a series of witty, girl-friendly graphic novels starring Babymouse, a anthropomorphic young mouse obsessed with...
Poetry Speaks Expanded, edited by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson Mosby
Poetry Speaks Expanded, edited by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson Mosby, is an updated version of the 2001 collection Poetry Speaks. This remarkable book features poems from 47 of the greatest ...
The Tokyo Look Book, by Philomena Keet and Yuri Manabe
With text by anthropologist Philomena Keet and pictures by Yuri Manabe, The Tokyo Look Book attempts to give readers a complete tour of the Tokyo fashion scene. While it doesn’t quite manage to c...
Regency revisited
Michèle Ann Young’s No Regrets features one of the most tantalizing opening sequences I’ve seen in ages, and a plot that borrows heavily from Georgette Heyer. (Hey, if you’re going to borrow your ...
The Birds redux
In surprisingly positive movie adaptation news, Naomi Watts is said to be starring in an upcoming remake of The Birds. According to the article I saw, this time they're apparently trying to stick...
Exit Strategy, by Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstrong can pack a lot of story into a 480-page paperback. Exit Strategy, the first book in her series about a hitwoman-with-a-heart-of-slightly-tarnished-gold, features more plot twists, setting changes, and major characters than you can shake a stick at...
New and (much, much) improved
I've been waiting a long time for somebody to give Lucy Maud Montgomery's books new cover art. I've seen a few decent-looking editions of Anne of Green Gables recently, but nobody seems to be lea...
Manga news
Wired magazine is currently featuring an article called "How Manga Conquered the U.S.—A Graphic Guide to Japan's Coolest Export". The article, which is told through manga-style text and artwork, ...
Rowling shocks the easily shockable (and thrills legions of fanfic writers)
...by announcing over the weekend that beloved wizarding icon Dumbledore was gay!GO, J.K. ROWLING! Hell, if your books are going to be banned left and right anyway, why not strike a blow for equa...
M.T. Anderson Speaks! (Part II)
(Here's the link to Part I of this interview. Again, the High School TV reporter is referred to in this interview as "HSR", the interviewer from George Mason University is referred to as "GMU", a...
Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl, by John Feinstein
John Feinstein’s Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl offers an appealing alternative to the majority of books aimed at preteen male readers (most of which seem to feature wizards, spies, and/or laser-toting aliens). While Cover-Up includes its fair share of armed thugs and sneering bad guys, it’s basically a thoughtful, entertaining novel about the world of sports journalism...
Celebrities reading, part II
It's not as deliciously apropos as Paris Hilton carrying around a copy of Valley of the Dolls, but trainwreck-at-large Britney Spears was recently photographed reading a copy of The Lion, the Witc...
Bookseller news
Barnes and Noble is currently featuring a video interview with Terry Pratchett. (I'm finding that their new site is about 20% slower and fifty times more irritating than their old one. Is any on...
Awards season
Well, the National Book Awards finalists have been announced, and—surprise!—we've read exactly one of 'em. (And it's a picture book: Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, in case you wer...