Alert: Johnny Dixon & eReads

We’ve discovered the four additional books in the Johnny Dixon series have been released by eReads. The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie and the three titles written by Brad Strickland - The Hand of Necromancer, The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder and The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost - all have colorful covers similar to the other titles in the eReads editions of the series.

Who's Who: Marius Ambrose

When Anthony and Miss Eells stumble upon an all-too-familiar mansion in New Stockholm, Wisconsin, they discover its former owner, Marius Ambrose, disappeared mysteriously in the mid-1930s [The Mansion in the Mist; 105].

Memoriam: Laurie Main

Australian actor Laurence "Laurie" Main died February 8. He was 89.

Dickens, Schuler & Bellairs

We’re celebrating the 200th anniversary of celebrated author Charles Dickens’ birth this year. Born February 7, 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth, England, Dickens created a plethora of memorable characters with whimsical names across a dozen major novels and numerous short stories. In a 1983 autobiographical sketch, John Bellairs confessed to being quite a fan and "read[ing] and re-read[ing] Dickens" often, as well as mixing "the everyday and the fantastic" into his own books: "...the common ordinary stuff - the bullies, the scaredy-cat kid Lewis, the grown-ups, the everyday incidents - all come from my own experience."

Time Capsule: 1952

February, 1952: Come one, come all! Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire beckons you to visit the quintessential New England village, complete with the prominent town common and twelve surrounding homes all on the National Register for Historic Places.

Bibliofile: Das Gesicht im Eis

When you think of foreign language editions of John’s work the first thing that doesn’t come to mind is The Face in the Frost. The adventures of Lewis and Johnny (and Anthony, once) are the usual tales translated for overseas readers, not the escapades of Prospero and Roger Bacon, the two main characters in a story that seemed crammed with wizards because they were wizards. This was rectified with the publication of Das Gesicht im Eis in 2009.