There's a fine line between optimism and stupidity...
...and I frequently find myself walking it. After all, it's not like I enjoyed the first Narnia film adaptation, but I have a sinking feeling I'll end up seeing the second one. Click here for th...
Wordcandy's 2007 Gift List
Well, the holiday season is upon us. On the one hand, that means we're broke. But on the other, it also means that we get to compile our annual list of elegant, affordable, Wordcandy-worthy gift...
Porn for Women
Check out this awesome (and totally holiday-worthy) offering from Chronicle Books and the Cambridge Women's Pornography Collective:Here's the publisher's description:"Prepare to enter a fantasy wo...
Blood Brothers, by Nora Roberts
As someone who has never learned to appreciate delayed gratification, I was pretty excited about the one-book-release-per-month schedule Nora Roberts adhered to for her last trilogy, 2006’s...
Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
I spent Sunday morning reading Brandon Mull’s debut children’s fantasy novel Fablehaven, and found it to be something of an emotional rollercoaster: this imaginative, fast-moving story had a lot g...
Bad movies abound.
New York Times book reviewer Rachel Donadio just wrote an article about the increasingly tangled relationship between books and movies. According to Donadio's article, some publishers are now part...
Welcome to the O.Z.
Pros: I like Zooey Deschanel well enough, and I like the concept of updating The Wonderful Wizard of OZ. Cons: Unfortunately, this trailer looks like 100% pure Velveeta.
How much would plane tickets cost, anyway?
I just got this mega-exciting press release in my in-box:VIZ PICTURES BECOMES PARTNER IN BAY AREA MOVIE THEATRE TO PROMOTEJAPANESE POP CULTUREThe J-Pop Center In Heart Of Japan Town To Offer Lates...
The Devil's Whisper, by Miyuki Miyabe
Miyuki Miyabe’s deliciously creepy mystery/thriller The Devil’s Whisper opens with three young women dying in quick succession: one throws herself off a building, another falls in front of a train...
Audiobook Obsession 101
My idea of the perfect afternoon is curling up on my couch with a huge mug of tea and a paperback romance novel. Recently, though, I've become obsessed with audiobooks, and while I'm not tossing t...
A swift (visual) punch to the eye
Slate is currently featuring an entertaining but much too short slide show about the evolution of children's book art from the dull "improving" stories of the mid-19th century to the weirder and m...
Black Friday
We usually encourage our readers to buy books from local, non-chain sources, but there's no denying that there are some excellent book deals to be found online today:Amazon.com has a Black Friday ...
Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.
Here's a picture of the only Thanksgiving book I could think of:Frankly, that's a fairly accurate portrayal of the way I feel after a full day with the relatives.
Tools of the trade
As a vegetarian, Thanksgiving is fraught with peril. I don't want to be that girl who wanders around poking at everything, asking "Is there lard in this?", so it's easier if I just handle a lot ...
Austen don'ts
Austen fans take note: There are currently two books out entitled Mr. Darcy's Diary. One (which we are planning on reviewing in a few weeks) is by Amanda Grange, and one is by Maya Slater. We s...
Freakout ahoy!
Bestselling Japanese horror/mystery author Miyuki Miyabe has a new book out. Here's the publisher's description of The Devil's Whisper:"The three deaths come in quick succession: one girl jumps f...
Thanksgiving is coming, people.
Check out these titles from OldCookbooks.com, which, according to its website, is "is the internet's largest [resource] devoted to out-of-print, vintage and rare cookbooks offering thousands of co...
The real question is: will they be buried in Westminster Abbey?
The guest bloggers for FSB’s Love of Reading Online Bookfair were given a list of suggested topics, and I picked this one:"What current authors do you believe will come to be added to the canon of...
Cotillion, by Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer's Cotillion is romantic, hilarious, delightfully unconventional, and one of my all-time favorite books. For some unfathomable reason, Cotillion is rarely reprinted, so I was thrilled when Sourcebooks announced that this outstanding historical romance would be one of their Fall titles...
Why, Borders? Why?
According to this article (from the business section of The New York Times), the Borders Group is planning to install two flat-screen TVs per bookstore, allowing them to broadcast "original progra...
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...