Sep 24 2010

Consider that shark officially jumped

It's been a few weeks since I last experienced that "Wait. It's not April 1st, is it?" feeling, but it's back:Apparently, this Twilight-inspired road safety sign in Portland, Oregon is, like, a r...

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Sep 23 2010

Chatting about the common cold

Salon.com has a fascinating interview up with science journalist Jennifer Ackerman, author of Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold. I had no idea I'd find the subject so interesting, bu...

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Sep 23 2010

Why does Voldemort's hissing always, always make me laugh?

Speak of the new Harry Potter movie and a new trailer appears:

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Sep 22 2010

So many bad ideas in one place...

Speaking of the book-to-movie transition, the fine people at BuzzSugar have put together a list of 15 Books To Read Before They're Adapted For the Screen. At least at this point, I'm only plannin...

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Sep 21 2010

Artemis Fowl the movie: MIA

Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch column has posted an article guessing at the next YA book to be adapted for the big screen. Most of the story is pure speculation—will Hollywood ever made a 3-D ad...

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Sep 21 2010

Looking to waste some time?

Have I got the iTunes app for you: several "classic" Choose Your Own Adventure titles have been launched recently as interactive reading experiences for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Even as a...

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Sep 17 2010

Get thee to a bookstore

How did this slip by me? I know last month felt like it was all Mockingjay, all the time in the kids' lit world, but seriously: how did I miss this?Author Norton Juster and illustrator Jules Feif...

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Sep 16 2010

Just like in Scooby Doo

As you all know, I have many problems with fake books. One, they're fake books. Two, what are you supposed to keep in them? They're tiny! Three—and this is particularly true in this case—they'...

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Sep 14 2010

Ah, gimmicks

Yet another snippet of Disney Princess news has come my way: a sing-a-long version of Beauty and Beast will be shown in a limited number of theaters on September 29th and October 2nd. Hopefully t...

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Sep 14 2010

Romeo and Juliet + Zombies = Inevitable

NPR has posted a review of Anne Fortier's novel Juliet, a modern, completely re-imagined take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I'm not sure I'll read this—the cover is totally boring, and I am ...

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Sep 13 2010

Eat, Pray, Love, shop

Meg sent me this link to a limited-release line of three Eat, Pray, Love-inspired fragrances on Friday, but the maker has already sold out. The sprays are apparently still available in some store...

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Sep 10 2010

"Best of 2010" already?

The 2010 Hugo Awards for outstanding science fiction or fantasy works were given out this week. The best novel award was a tie this year—China Miéville's The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi'...

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Sep 9 2010

Safety first

Check out this owl-shaped bookend from Etsy artist Aprilfoss:Pretty cute, huh? And, at $26, relatively affordable. Aprilfoss's owls come in a wide variety of colors and fabrics, and each one sho...

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Sep 9 2010

Witch-hunting for fun and profit

Cinematical is linking Noomi Rapace (who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) to an upcoming American project called Hansel and Gretel: Witch ...

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Sep 8 2010

From one creepy extreme to another

These oddly melancholy images of obese Disney princesses are popping up all over the Internet. (They're drawn by Aly Bellissimo, the artist behind the questionably-SFW Creepy Miranda blog.) I wa...

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Sep 7 2010

Down for the count

PublishersWeekly recently posted an interesting article about chain bookstores' ongoing attempts to stay profitable during the economic downturn. Of the three major U.S. book chains (Books-A-Mill...

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Sep 7 2010

Now in glorious Technicolor

Cinematical informs me that Lionsgate Films is pondering three directors for their upcoming Hunger Games movie adaptation: Gary Ross (Pleasantville), David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse), and...

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Sep 3 2010

Like Gokusen, but even stranger?

AnimeNewsNetwork informs me that a live-action(!) television adaptation of Deka Wanko (the current manga from Gokusen creator Kozueko Morimoto) is in the works. Now, I haven't read Deka Wanko (l...

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Sep 2 2010

Don't do it, guys.

A television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series, created without involvement by the author?This, dear readers, is a Very Bad Idea.

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Sep 2 2010

Weirdness collides!

If you check out the website for Icelandic musician Bjork, you can see the video for her song "Moomins and the Comet Chase". It's part of the soundtrack for the movie based on Tove Jansson's chil...

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Sep 1 2010

Right there with you, NPH

Wow, this movie (based on the YA book Beastly by Alex Flinn, and inspired by the "Beauty and the Beast" fairytale) looks seriously terrible:I'm actually almost impressed by how bad this looks.

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Aug 31 2010

Sage advice for the young'uns

Ah, satirical advice from Disney's cartoon princesses! Check out these words of wisdom from "Belle" and "Ariel":To be fair, I feel like cherry-picking objectionable messages from Disney films is ...

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Aug 31 2010

Christmas (themed books) come early...

Oooh, Lisa Kleypas is releasing another holiday-themed novella (after 2008's A Wallflower Christmas). Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor will be out in late October, and appears to be the first entry...

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Aug 30 2010

A book club take on Mockingjay

Okay, one last post on Mockingjay, and then I'm done talking about it (at least until the inevitable movie* comes out). The online magazine Slate has chosen Mockingjay as the subject of one of th...

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Aug 30 2010

Edgar Allan Poe fights (or possibly commits) crime

John Cusack has apparently signed on to play Edgar Allan Poe in a (fictionalized) account of the poet's last few days of life. The description of the film on Cinematical mentions something about ...

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Aug 27 2010

The Walking Dead on AMC

Behold, the trailer's out for the upcoming AMC zombie series The Walking Dead, based on the comic book of the same name by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. Enjoy... but not right befo...

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Aug 26 2010

Aisha finally hits the big screen

AustenBlog has posted a review of Aisha, the Bollywood update of Jane Austen's Emma. The critique is positive but far from gushing, and the author notes that the movie appears to be a close remak...

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Aug 26 2010

Onwards and upwards

Now that one buzz-worthy summer release is behind us, it's time to move on to the next. The final book in the 39 Clues series comes out next week. Behold:Fans of this series know that only a fra...

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Aug 25 2010

Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

8-25-2010-catching-fire-and-mockingjay-by-suzanne-collins

Well, dear readers, I waded through both Catching Fire and Mockingjay yesterday, and my emotions were mixed. There were elements I liked, but the violence was so constant that I found myself actu...

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Aug 24 2010

Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese military expert. Writing his bio is somewhat complicated by the fact that scholars aren't certain if: A. He was a real historical figure, and if so, what his real n...

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