Nov 03, 2009 -
As far as I knew, literary characters already came in all different shapes and sizes, but apparently there's a "publishing phenomenon" sweeping America like a fad diet: curvy chick lit characters who fully accept their weight.
The UK Guardian explains that average-sized women want to relate to the heroines they read about — and they don't want the stories to be all about dieting. Titles that fit under the "big chit lit" umbrella include The Wife's Tale, a book about a woman who turns her life around (not by losing weight!) after her universe shrunk "to a well-worn path from the bedroom to the refrigerator," and Last-Minute Proposal, the story of cake-baker Tilly and the man who loves her cozy curves.
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Nov 02, 2009 -
Hundreds of new books clamor for attention on the already-packed shelves at bookstores each month, so we've slushed through all the new titles to bring you the most promising pages of November. Once you've checked out the latest must reads, explore some of the most influential books of all time in our Battle of the Books faceoff.
Source: Flickr User Issac Leedom
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Oct 21, 2009 -
Mad Men creator Matt Weiner has said Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique are major influences on the show, but we have yet to get a gander at any characters reading those books. Yet the characters do read plenty, and thankfully, the books of Mad Men are as carefully chosen, as we'd hope. Each tells us something about the character and the time.
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Oct 12, 2009 -
When I was in college, in addition to all the books I had to read for school, I was an avid fiction reader. Even then, if I read a book a week, I felt I was doing pretty well.
Forty-six-year-old Nina Sankovitch of Westport, CT, made it her goal to read book a day while blogging (naturally!) about her activities, in part to share her love of books with others and as a way to get through the pain of her sister's death in 2005.
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Oct 01, 2009 -
Hundreds of new books clamor for attention on the already-packed shelves at bookstores each month, so we've slushed through all the new titles to bring you the most promising pages of October. Once you've checked out the latest must reads, explore some of the most influential books of all time in our Battle of the Books faceoff.
Source: Photo by Flickr User Issac Leedom
View Slideshow ›
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Oct 01, 2009 -
It's Banned Books Week and time to honor some of the most reviled books in America. While book-banning may sound like a throwback to Victorian times, censoring books continues to flourish in 21st-century schools. What's most surprising is a book can be removed from a curriculum, reading list, or school library with the complaint of just one parent.
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Sep 29, 2009 -
Attention lucky readers! Sarah Palin has finished her book Going Rogue: An American Life, just four months after she announced the book deal. The memoir will be released on Nov.
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Sep 24, 2009 -
Sweet Valley High, a book series that had a twenty-year run starting in 1983, centered on the lives of teen twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield from — you guessed it — Sweet Valley, CA. There was even a television show based on the books.
Word on the street is that Jennifer's Body screenwriter Diablo Cody will be at the helm of a project to produce and direct an adaptation of the Sweet Valley High books.
- 35 Comments
Sep 10, 2009 -
Vampires are no longer the only ones who can't have sex in romance novels, now the Amish can — or can't — too. Dubbed "bonnet books," Amish romances are a new subgenre in the ever-multiplying species of romance novels.
The G-rated love stories always contain the most essential ingredient of any romantic page-turner — forbidden love.
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