WHY
This seems like a waste of Jake Gyllenhaal, but whatever: he's not going to go hungry without a sweet Marvel multi-picture deal. According to LaineyGossip, Gyllenhaal has signed up to play Mysterio, the villain in the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel...
Act Like It, by Lucy Parker
In a year when most of the romance novels I've read have been a mild disappointment—even those that came highly recommended or were written by old favorites—I was thrilled to discover Lucy Parker's Act Like It. This short, ridiculously cute read by a new-to-me author more than meets my #1 romance novel requirement...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Act Like It, by Lucy Parker
This week's Book Giveaway is Lucy Parker's debut romance novel Act Like It, published in 2016. It's been a while since I've discovered such a promising new-to-me author, so I'm both excited (yay, she has two more books out!) and chagrined that I just started a month-long shopping ban (delayed gratification is for suckers!). A full review will follow shortly...
Farewell, Interview
According to The New York Times, Andy Warhol's Interview magazine is folding, nearly 50 years after it was founded. There have been rumors swirling for months about financial mismanagement (and, to be fair, it's a tough time for any magazine to survive), but...
I'd even pay FULL PRICE.
There are some big, awesome names indicating interest in making a movie adaptation of Marvel's Ms. Marvel: Mindy Khaling, Riz Ahmed, Jameela Jamil. Right now, I suspect the similarity of the Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel names would cause confusion...
Historical romance with under-explored history
I was recently skimming the romance reviews on the website Dear Author, and I ran across the historical romance A Delicate Affair, written by Lindsay Evans and set in 1902. This is an unusual era for romance writers to explore, and I was even more intrigued by the novel's backstory...
A+++ choice
According to Publishers Weekly, the American Library Association has convinced former First Lady Michelle Obama to keynote the opening general session of their 2018 annual conference in New Orleans...
Big ideas, illustrated
io9 has an interview up with Jim Ottaviani, an author (and former nuclear engineer) who has written about several well-known scientists: Jane Goodall, Niels Bohr, and Richard Feynman...
The Sky is Yours, by Chandler Klang Smith
I picked up Chandler Klang Smith's novel The Sky is Yours for two reasons: I liked the cover art, and several reviewers compared it to a Jane Austen novel. I still like the cover art, but the Austen comparison is a total bait-and-switch. Both novelists touch on similar issues—sex, marriage, social position—but they're about as similar as cherry cough syrup and an actual cherry...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Sky is Yours, by Chandler Klang Smith
This week's Book Giveaway is Chandler Klang Smith's debut novel The Sky Is Yours, which I fully admit I picked due to its awesome cover art. Of course, I've been burned by seductive covers in the past, but hope springs eternal. A full review will follow shortly...
The story could have used some fresh blood (pardon the pun)
Slashfilm just informed me that Bryan Fuller is no longer attached to upcoming TV series adaptation of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I had no idea there was going to be a TV adaptation of these books, so there's nothing for me to mourn, but apparently it's still going to happen, albeit with Rice's son Christopher (also a writer) as executive producer...
Boooo
Another day, another depressing Stan Lee-related lawsuit. According to the BBC, Lee is suing Pow! Entertainment, the entertainment company he co-founded, for one billion dollars, alleging that...
He's a nice guy, though!
Man, there's so much to admire about James Patterson. He's ambitious and hard-working and, as this example proves, extremely generous... but he's still a straight-up terrible writer...
An overdue honor
Uh, I'm really not sure how I feel about the actual look of this portrait, but I thoroughly approve of the subject matter: Henrietta Lacks, unwitting cell donor and the subject of Rebecca Skloot's award-winning nonfiction book...
Captain Marvel, explained
LaineyGossip recently posted an article about the upcoming Captain Marvel film. This article is ostensibly about casting updates (Annette Bening is gonna be in it!), but it also offers a helpful guide to...
Burn Bright, by Patricia Briggs
Burn Bright is the fifth entry in Patricia Briggs' Alpha and Omega series, a spin-off from her popular Mercy Thompson books. The series centers around Charles and Anna, a mated werewolf pair. Anna is an Omega wolf, blessed (or cursed) with the ability to calm other werewolves. Charles, the son of the world's most famous werewolf, has spent countless years as his father's in-house assassin...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Burn Bright, by Patricia Briggs
This week's Book Giveaway is Patricia Briggs's latest Alpha and Omega novel, Burn Bright. I'm hoping this cover art isn't literal, because the idea of being tangled up in thorns is legit creepy. A full review will follow shortly...
Goals
Celebrating the re-release of her essay collection Meaty, author Samantha Irby was just featured on The New York Times' "By the Book" segment. Her answers, as ever, are refreshingly weird...
Meh.
The long-simmering effort to turn John Green's debut novel Looking For Alaska has finally borne fruit: Hulu shelled out for an eight-episode limited series based on the book, which will be produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire...
MST3K, take note
And speaking of awful movie adaptations, check out this trailer for an upcoming retelling of The Little Mermaid. It looks spectacularly terrible: the acting, the sets, the plot, everything. I thought it was difficult to sit through the trailer, so my heart goes out to all the parents who will be forced to sit through...
Maybe...
Entertainment Weekly just rounded up 14 recent or currently-airing TV series based on books, in case you're looking for something cinematic to read. I'm mildly interested in Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle...
Lies in advertising
The reviews for this movie adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull have been glowing, but the trailer is not enticing, despite the big-name cast. What's up with that music? And that font?!? Anyone...
Not If I Save You First, by Ally Carter
Ally Carter's Not If I Save You First sounded like a PG-13 version of Meg Cabot's 2002 romance novel She Went All the Way, and since that's one of my favorite contemporary romances, I was pretty stoked to read it. Carter's take isn't quite as funny as Cabot's, but there's more than enough charm and action to satisfy her many fans...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Not If I Save You First, by Ally Carter
This week's Book Giveaway is Ally Carter's latest YA thriller, Not If I Save You First. I usually like Carter's books, but I'm a little confused about this cover art. Are those letters... popsicles? Candy? Jello shots? It's a mystery. A full review will be posted shortly...
A bit of a stretch
The title of this Dangerous Minds article ("MEET THE PRIEST WHO WAS OSCAR WILDE’S LOVER AND PARTLY THE BASIS FOR ‘DORIAN GRAY’") is a little misleading. The guy in question became a priest well after his alleged affair with Wilde, and he doesn't seem to have had much to do with the character of Dorian Gray...
Helpful!
GQ recently put together a list of 20 classic novels you can totally skip reading, with suggestions for books you should read instead. I don't agree with all of their alternate picks, but I love how nasty some of their initial descriptions are...
"Upending" is still more of a goal, I think.
Yesterday, Buzzfeed published an article called "Meet The Black Women Upending The Romance Novel Industry". I read the whole thing with tremendous interest: it's an interview with author Alyssa Cole, editor Esi Sogah, and art director Kris Noble...
Wow
According to The New York Times, Zora Neale Hurston's first book, a nonfiction title called Barracoon, was rejected by publishers in 1931. Barracoon was the story of Cudjo Lewis, believed to be the last living person captured in Africa and brought to America on a slave ship...
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, by George Saunders
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a fable written by George Saunders and illustrated by Lane Smith. It's a story about the tiny village of Frip—consisting of three families and a bunch of goats—which is infested with gappers: tiny, orange, goat-loving puffballs. Every night the gappers crawl out of the sea and terrorize Frip's goats with their screams of affection, and every morning the children of Frip spend hours picking them off and tossing them back into the ocean...