Despite Economy, Fan Turnout Big for New York Comic-Con 2009

The country may be reeling from the worst economy in years, but you couldn’t tell it from the tens of thousands of fans pouring into the Jacob Javits Center for the fourth annual New York Comic-Con.

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 2/9/2009

Picture Books Hello, Good-bye Arlene Alda . Tundra , $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-88776-900-9 Alda (Here a Face, There a Face) attempts to enter a very crowded shelf with her photography book of opposites. For “push” and “pull,” she uses the example of a street crew trying to move a huge stone statue of Buddha; on the left side of the spread, they're shown exerting their w...

Three's Scandalous Company

An Indecent Proposition Emma Wildes . Signet Eclipse , $6.99 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-451-22662-4 Regency fans will thrill to this superbly sensual tale of an icy widow and two decadent rakes. When the duke of Rothay and the earl of Manderville make a foolish and scandalously public wager over which of them is the more skillful lover, the firmly respectable and notoriously unavailable Lady C...

Fiction Reviews

A Short History of Women Kate Walbert . Scribner , $24 (224p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9498-7 Walbert—2004 National Book Award nominee for Our Kind—offers a beautiful and kaleidoscopic view of the 20th century through the eyes of several generations of women in the Townsend family. The story begins with Dorothy Townsend, a turn-of-the-century British suffragist who dies in a hunger strike.

Nonfiction Reviews

The American Future: A History Simon Schama . Ecco , $29.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-053923-8 Past performance may not guarantee future returns, but it's the best we have to go on, contends this lively meditation on American history. Looking back from the tumultuous 2008 election campaign, historian Schama (NBCC-award winner for Rough Crossings) ponders four themes in American history as they pl...

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 2/09/2009

TCP to Publish Graphic Adaptation of Bill Ayers Memoir

Teachers College Press has reached agreement with William Ayers, the controversial University of Illinois at Chicago professor, lauded educational theorist and former leader of the radical 1960s Weather Underground, to publish a graphic novel adaptation of his acclaimed teaching memoir To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher.

Still Hungry After All These Years

Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar turns 40 this spring, and Philomel is commemorating its birthday with the first-ever pop-up edition of this international bestseller.

Q & A with Virginia Euwer Wolff

With the much anticipated release of This Full House, the final installment of the Make Lemonade trilogy, award-winning author Virginia Euwer Wolff spoke about creating the three books featuring LaVaughn, a teenage girl growing up in the projects, and Jolly, a young, single mother.

Deluxe Young Adult Series Delivers

Dangerous gossip, star-crossed lovers, backstabbing friends, a notorious cad, an upstairs-downstairs romance. All are woven into Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe, set in 1899 Manhattan, which HarperCollins published in 2007.

Los Angeles Conference Focuses on Children’s Holocaust Literature

“The truth of the Holocaust shatters the idea that the world is a trustworthy place and that we’re here to protect children. When it comes to literature, we must first tell the truth to the age of the child,” said Sinai Temple librarian Lisa Silverman in her opening remarks on Sunday, February 1, at the Jewish Literature for Children Western Conference in Los Angeles.

Image Adding All-Ages Focus

Image Comics is adding children's comics to its mix with a line of news books from Silverline.

Tor.com Offers New Sci-fi and Fantasy Webcomics

Partnering with another Macmillan imprint, the comics and graphic novel publisher First Second Books, sci-fi and fantasy publisher Tor Books has launched, Tor.com, its own online comics imprint.

Sex, Costumes and Videotape: The Comics of Koren Shadmi

Moody, thoughtful and rich in emotion and nuance, Koren Shadmi's comics combine gripping, surreal imagery with narrative scenarios that chronicle the vivid, alluring power of sex and the frustration and comedy of quirky relationships

Reed Launches New Chicago Con; Moves NYCC to Fall 2010

Reed Exhibitions plans to launch a new comics and pop culture convention, in April of 2010 at the McCormick Place convention facility in downtown Chicago and plans to move the New York Comic-con permanently to the fall in 2010.

Comics Briefly

Reed Launches New Chicago Con; Moves NYCC to Fall 2010; Blutch Wins Angoulême Grand Prix; CBLDR at NYCC ; PWCW Editors at NYCC ; Way Hosts Fresh Ink Online; Whedon’s Dollhouse at NYCC; British Porn Laws Target Comics; MySpace Comics Layoffs; Graphic Novel Buyers Survey; Jerry Craft Children's Book; Murder of Abraham Lincoln Reprint ; and Unlovable Book Launch; Exhibition

February Comics Bestsellers

The Last Straw, the newest volume in Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid Series takes the #1 spot followed by Naruto at #2 and the Azzarello/Bermejo Joker at #3

Funnies Business: The 2008 Retailers Survey

Our columnist surveys comics specialty retailers on their sell-through on both periodicals and graphic novels.

Children's Book Reviews: Week of 2/2/2009

Picture Books Mama Says: A Book of Love for Mothers and Sons Rob D. Walker , illus. by Leo and Diane Dillon. Scholastic/Blue Sky , $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-439-93208-4 A sure-fire hit for Mother's Day, this elegantly designed book pairs a series of poems with stunning illustrations to celebrate the bond between mothers and sons.

Fiction Reviews

Ugly Man Dennis Cooper . Harper Perennial , $13.99 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-171544-0 The cult novelist's collection of short stories plumbs veins of dark humor amid the sex and gore his fans have come to expect. The contents range from short shorts—a rumination on “The Fifteen Worst Russian Gay Porn Web Sites” and an abortive episode entitled “One Night in 1979 I Di...