As you may have noticed, the Wordcandy main site is currently down. (Well, it's mostly down. You can click over if you want a sneak peek at the new colors and logo, but there's no actual data there.) This would be because we are finally working on our transfer over to the new site, and transferring seven years' worth of literature-related ranting takes time. Here's hoping we'll have everything up and running by the end of the week!
The Colbert Report recently aired an enjoyably salty two-part interview with famous children's author Maurice Sendak. Mr. Sendak provides quite the soundbite; I bet Stephen Colbert is sorry he's unlikely to become a reoccurring commentator for the show.
If you told me this entire line of books (from Penguin's Puffin Books imprint) was a tie-in for a new series of classic literature adaptations airing on ABC Family, I would totally believe you:
The Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a "mini-report" on the recent upswing in e-reader purchase and usage. According to the report, the number of Americans owning tablets and e-readers nearly doubled over the past month: from mid-December 2011 to early January 2012, the number of Americans owning a tablet computer and the number of people who identify themselves as e-book readers jumped from 10% to 19%.
Clearly, all those dead-cheap e-reader promotions over the holidays worked.
According to the Horn Book Blog, the 2012 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction has been given to Jack Gantos's book Dead End in Norvelt. When informed of this honor, the stunned Mr. Gantos apparently announced he was planning to celebrate by "eating a bunch of snacks". We approve.
The people who created the literature-inspired nail-polish art featured in this slideshow on Flavorwire clearly enjoy both A) more free time, and B) better fine-motor skills than 99% of the rest of people on the planet.
At long last, there is news on the film adaptation of Jeff Smith's Bone. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project has found a writer (Patrick Sean Smith, creator of the ABC Family show Greek), and director (P.J. Hogan, director of My Best Friend's Wedding and the 2003 version of Peter Pan). I still think there's a solid chance this project will never actually materialize—Warner Bros. has held the rights since 2008 without much movement—but these are definite signs of life.
We posted the announcement for the upcoming Hunger Games nail polish line a few weeks ago, but Buzzfeed has just posted a look at the actual colors... and they include a tone called "Foie Gras". Was there a shout-out to goose liver pâté in the books that I've forgotten, or are they just upping the grossness factor for fun?
According to the website GossipCop, Lionsgate Films would really like to find a way to continue the Twilight movie series after the final* installment is released this fall.
I'm never going to be a Stieg Larsson fan, but I was pleased to see that DC's Vertigo imprint will be handling the upcoming Girl With The Dragon Tattoo comic book adaptation, if for no other reason than I'm pretty sure most other big-name comics publishers would feel compelled to re-design Lisbeth Salander until she looked like a goth beer maiden.
The Barnes and Noble store in Seattle's University Village recently closed, and the Seattle Times is reporting that the furniture chain Room & Board is going to fill at least part of the (enormous) vacancy. I'd never heard of Room & Board, so I looked it up. Most of their stuff is A) way out of my price range, and B) not my style, but I did quite like thesepillows, inspired by classic European comic book characters:
Not enough to shell out $49 apiece, naturally. But if they ever went on sale for, say, $19.99 I'd probably be tempted.
On Tuesday, Amazon announced that it has launched a new series with well-known librarian and book critic Nancy Pearl. "Amazon’s Book Lust Rediscoveries" will publish print editions of approximately six of Pearl's favorite but currently out-of-print books per year.
We were slightly critical of Ms. Pearl's Book Crush, but we know she shares our love for the long-lost novel Greensleeves, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, so here's hoping that ends up high on her list of titles to resuscitate.
Comics Alliance recently posted a great interview with Chris Onstad, creator of our beloved Achewood, which recently revived after a nine-month-long hiatus. One cannot help but notice there are some pointed remarks in the comments section about Onstad failing to deliver the second Achewood cookbook to readers who pre-ordered it, but as we have no way of verifying these complaints we're just going to enjoy the interview itself, which is less fannish and more thoughtful than most.
This seems more than a little late, but Hyperion has finally released the cover art, title, and plot description for Rick Riordan's third and final Kane Chronicles book. According to Barnes and Noble, The Serpent's Shadow will be released on May 1, 2012 and will look like this:
Here's the publisher's plot description:
He's b-a-a-ack! Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sadie Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all. Unfortunately, the magicians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young initiates of Brooklyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos. The Kanes' only hope is an ancient spell that might turn the serpent's own shadow into a weapon, but the magic has been lost for a millennia. To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow... or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld.
Nothing less than the mortal world is at stake when the Kane family fulfills its destiny in this thrilling conclusion to the Kane Chronicles.
You can read a (poorly formatted) snippet of the first chapter here. Enjoy!
How did I miss this? I rarely go a day without Googling something, but I apparently had other things to do last Saturday, January 7th, when the fine people at Google (working with the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation) created this delightful tribute in honor of Charles Addams's 100th birthday:
When I first saw this, I totally thought it was a joke:
But no, it's apparently a real how-to guide... but if you need someplace sneaky to stash your "How to Take Over the World" schematics, may I put this forward as a solid bet?
Like they're not going to make money hand over fist...
According to THR, the American Federation of Musicians intended to picket a shoot of the TV show Mad Men yesterday. I have little interest in Mad Men, but the reason the musicians are angry is actually Wordcandy-related: Lionsgate Films produces both the AMC TV show and the upcoming Hunger Games movie, and they've apparently chosen to score their mega-blockbuster-to-be entirely in Europe–despite filling it with what they describe as “native Americana music".
If you're looking for help with your New Year's resolutions, the To Resolve Project offers a collection of downloadable designer wallpapers—including Matt McCraken's utterly awesome "Read More" design—to help us all stay strong in 2012.
According to NPR, nine of the top ten money-making movies of 2011* were "kiddie" films—movies based on YA books, comics, toys, or pulp fiction. I'm unconvinced by that definition (pulp fiction is automatically for kids now? Has anyone informed Stephen King?), but I'm even less clear on why this qualifies as a surprise. There were virtually identical numbers for 2010 (the top ten included six movies based on children's stories, three non-book-based animated pictures, and Inception) and they're likely to hold true for 2012. Guess what, NPR? People like to watch fun stuff, and comic books and children's stories are actually pretty solid sources of fun material.
NPR's Backseat Book Club pick for January is Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. According to NPR, the book was chosen because "[it] has the ability to entertain and inform young readers as the country remembers the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. for the national holiday in his name. It also provides some powerful lessons about following your dreams." I've read it—and unlike most books that aim to entertain, inform, and contain powerful lessons, this one is pretty readable, too.
And I'm sure the Hollywood version will be even deeper and more thoughtful than the original.
There's a fair amount of big-name casting news out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I've always disliked the book (I was particularly irritated by Card's introductory essay for his "Author's Definitive Edition", which implied that if you didn't like Ender's Game, it was probably because you weren't smart enough to grasp its brilliance), but my brother absolutely loves it, so I'm excited about the movie—well, sort of—on his behalf.
The company that represents the Diary of a Wimpy Kid brand recently won a temporary restraining order against the publisher of two Wimpy Kid-parodying graphic novels: the "Wimpy Zombie" series by Fred Perry and David Hutchison. According to Publishers Weekly, the zombie books strongly resemble the originals, and their publishers didn't include a "parody" stamp.
I'm sorry for Mr. Kinney and all... but I'm so relieved they've run out of ways to "improve" upon Jane Austen. Way to move on to fresh blood, parody publishers! But you might want to hire a lawyer—unlike Jane Austen, living authors are lot more likely to sue.
