The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, by Jeanne Birdsall
Jeanne Birdsall’s National Book Award-winning novel The Penderwicks, the story of four sisters' summertime adventure at a Massachusetts estate, is the literary equivalent of Disney’s Celebrat...
Where is the chihuahua?
My mother doesn't even like the title of this book (and I'm sure she's dreaded the time when I'm actually reading it, as I have a bad habit--inherited from her, by the way--of sharing every revolt...
Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro
I'm really enjoying the anime version of Yūsei Matsui's manga series Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro. It's gory, and violent, and the artwork is totally creepy, and it only makes sense about every third...
Most of my paperbacks are too worn for this, but...
Meg sent me this book storage idea:[From ApartmentTherapy.com]The books are secured to the door with a contraption called a Sticklebook, and you can order one of your very own for around $30 (USD)...
Peace, Part II
Below is an excerpt from Barry Miles's Peace: 50 Years of Protest, reprinted with permission. Click here for our review of Mr. Miles's book."In the new century the peace symbol has been evident w...
Peace: 50 Years of Protest, by Barry Miles
Like many of the articles in National Geographic, Barry Miles's book Peace: 50 Years of Protest features a fascinating subject, overflows with amazing photographs, and appears to have been organiz...
Sakura-Con 2008: The event itself...
I recently attended the first day of Sakura-Con 2008, a festival celebrating anime and manga held March 28th through the 30th at Seattle's Washington State Convention & Trade Center.If there's a s...
Blue-Eyed Devil, by Lisa Kleypas
Lisa Kleypas has just released Blue-Eyed Devil, the highly anticipated sequel to her first contemporary romance release, 2007’s Sugar Daddy. As with Sugar Daddy, Blue Eyed-Devil features a few eyebrow-raising plot and characterization decisions, but the final product is romantic drama at its best...
J-Shakespeare?
The fine people at Wiley Books (the publishers of the For Dummies books) have recently released manga-style editions of some of Shakespeare's best-known plays:I fell into conversation with a Latin...
Now with pictures
Publishers Weekly recently interviewed fantasy author Terry Brooks, asking him several questions about his latest release, Dark Wraith of Shannara. Dark Wraith is the first book in Brooks's Shanna...
The Once and Future Sweet Valley High
I would like to think that this is an April Fools' joke, but, sadly, it's still March.With typical elegance and restraint, Gawker is reporting that the Sweet Valley High books have been updated. (...
Sakura-Con 2008
Forgive the short blog post today, dear readers, but I'm heading to Sakura-Con, the big Northwest anime/manga convention. So if any of you happen to be attending, and you see a tall, confused-loo...
Upward Spiral
When Mary Street’s The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy was first published in the U.K. in 1999, it looked like this:Now, almost ten years later, it is finally being published in the United States....
Downward spiral
We're a little behind on the calendar, so I was surprised to learn that Kelley Armstrong's new book Personal Demon is already out... and I was even more surprised to learn that this is the cover:A...
I will undoubtedly regret watching this, but at least it's free.
PBS's The Complete Jane Austen is concluding with the only Austen adaptation I haven't already watched on YouTube: the 2008 TV miniseries version of Sense and Sensibility, adapted by screenwriter ...
ADV falls off the wagon (again)
We're hearing distressing rumors that ADV is once again in financial difficulties, which means that we'll have to wait even longer to get our hands on the sixth volume of Yotsuba&!. The original ...
Freeing Tibet
The BBC/NPR program The World aired an interview with novelist Eliot Pattison yesterday as part of a series of stories on the recent unrest in Tibet. I've never read one of Pattison's mysteries, ...
The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall
I have long avoided reading Jeanne Birdsall's National Book Award-winning The Penderwicks, mostly because of its tastefully retro cover (which I felt was shamelessly derivative of the silhouette i...
Hana Yori Dango Version 3.0
While reading the excellent Dramabeans blog, I was delighted to see that there's going to be a K-drama adaptation of the cheese-tastic shojo manga Hana Yori Dango. I enjoyed the recent Japanese v...
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, by James Patterson
James Patterson’s Maximum Ride books are an action-adventure/science fiction series featuring a group of genetically engineered bird-human children. There are currently three books in the series*...
Kamikaze Girls, by Novala Takemoto
I hunted down a copy of Novala Takemoto’s 2002 novel Kamikaze Girls after I saw the film adaptation a few months ago, and—for once!—I’m not sure which I recommend picking up first. There are slig...
The Fug Girls are at Powell's
Well, kinda. Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, creators of GoFugYourself are the guest bloggers this week for Powells.com. Sadly, they haven't talked much about books at this point (although ref...
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winnifred Watson
Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day has just been made into a movie, and—for once!—we’re totally grateful. We’re usually the first in line to complain about film adaptations, but if it wasn’t for the fine people at Focus Features we might never have heard of this charmingly optimistic romantic comedy...