Nisekoi Vol. 1, by Naoshi Komi
Naoshi Komi's Nisekoi is the manga equivalent of vanilla frozen yogurt: a sub-par take on an already boring flavor. It's not wholly unreadable, but it would be so easy to find something better...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Nisekoi Vol. 1, by Naoshi Komi
This week's Book Giveaway is the first volume of Naoshi Komi's series Nisekoi, originally serialized in Shonen Jump magazine. The back cover promises a "laugh-out-loud feel-good" time. (Here's hoping this series can deliver on all those hyphens.) A full review will follow shortly...
At the press of a button
According to LitHub, the number of Short Story Dispensers in the United States is about to grow. The machines were introduced in France a few years ago, and print a one-, three-, or five-minute story, for free, with the press of a button. The first American dispenser is located in Francis Ford Coppola’s Café Zoetrope in San Francisco...
I don't know about strangEST, but strange, sure.
Crimereads recently posted a list of "Fiction's 10 Strangest Crimes". I'm not sure I agree with their choices (most of which sound like they fall obnoxiously close to "...and it was all in his head!" territory), but it serves as a reminder that I do want to read Tana French's The Likeness...
School = books (usually)
There's an interesting article on Hyperalleric about the scaled-back role of actual books in some universities' fine arts libraries, two of which have recently moved to reduce or relocate large portions of their collections...
If only Edward Gorey was still around to illustrate the credits...
And speaking of Neil Gaiman, Deadline has just announced that FremantleMedia North America has purchased the rights to the adapt Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, and Gaiman will serve as a "non-writing executive producer" on the project...
Unexpected
Hmm. There's going to be a film based on Neil Gaiman's short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties", and it appears to have a much bigger-name cast (Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman) than its premise or somewhat low-budget-looking production values...
Rivers of London: Body Work, by Ben Aaronovitch
Ben Aaronovitch has many of the same strengths and weaknesses as Janet Evanovich: his Rivers of London mysteries rarely make much sense, but they don't need to. His fans read them for the characters, his distinctive sense of humor, and setting, not the cleverly-laid clues...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Rivers of London: Body Work, by Ben Aaronovitch
This week's Book Giveaway is Body Work, the first graphic novel spin-off from Ben Aaronovitch's highly entertaining (if occasionally problematic) Rivers of London series. Body Work is co-written by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, and illustrated by Lee Sullivan. A full review will be posted soon...
A little cheesy, but whatever.
The trailer is out for The Darkest Minds, based on the YA novel of the same name by Alexandra Bracken and starring The Hunger Games actress Amandla Stenberg. I hear they're delaying some of the X-Men reboots...
Hard pass
Is this... a real book? More importantly, did Sean Penn get a real advance for it? This review suggests it is a real book (and that it's horrible), but I don't want to accept it. In a world where it took Madeleine L'Engle at least 27 tries to find a publisher for A Wrinkle in Time, this...
Bad idea
The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point recently announced it is eliminating more than a dozen majors in the humanities and social sciences, including English, history, and philosophy. They apparently want to focus on "areas with high-demand career paths" instead, despite...
Coraline, in song
There's a New York Times article up about the London Royal Opera's attempt to turn Neil Gaiman's children's book Coraline into an opera, despite several logistical challenges created by the story's contents (performing mice, children stuck in mirrors, etc.)...
Warcross, by Marie Lu
When I first picked up Marie Lu's Warcross, my hopes were simple: I wanted a less aggressively self-indulgent version of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. This definitely qualifies (of course, it's hard to imagine a more self-indulgent version of Ready Player One), but Lu's story has problems of its own...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Warcross, by Marie Lu
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Marie Lu's Warcross, which I chose because I've been wanting to read one of Lu's books for a while, and I mistakenly thought this was a standalone. (You win some, you lose some.) A full review will follow shortly...
Implausible
Fellow cookbook nerds take note: there's a fascinating article in The New Yorker about the ongoing battle between the descendants of Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking, and...
Grim but intriguing
Esquire recently put together an list of the 25 best True Crime novels. True Crime isn't my favorite genre, but some of these books look intriguing (and a lot of the covers are great). I'm adding...
Oscar bait
It's a little weird to see Melissa McCarthy in a serious period picture, but the movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? has awards-show-bait written all over it: it's an adaptation of a memoir, it features an impressively de-glammed actress, and appears to have been filmed mostly in the dark...
If I'm feeling brave
I clicked on this article about an upcoming stop-motion kids' movie because of my love for Jordan Peele, but I'm less interested in the kids' movie than the Peele-produced project mentioned at the very end: Lovecraft Country, based on the novel by Matt Ruff...
RIP, books
I always feel a pang when I see fake books that used to be real books, and this "Secret Book Panel Hidden Storage" shelf is no different. Thankfully, the books I can see look pretty bad...
Tricks for Free, by Seanan McGuire
This is a unusual thing to say about the seventh book in an ongoing series, but Seanan McGuire's Tricks for Free surprised me. This story is much different in tone and content from McGuire's previous installments, but plenty entertaining in its own right...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tricks for Free, by Seanan McGuire
This week's Book Giveaway is Tricks For Free, the seventh book in Seanan McGuire's wildly entertaining InCryptid series. After a brief but welcome detour into non-sexy cover art, my mother will be disappointed to see that the cover model is back to a bulging, ripped tank-top, but one cannot have everything...
To be expected
I missed this news last month (and I was definitely happier for it): according to Publishers Weekly, the Trump administration has once again proposed "the permanent elimination of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, as...
The thin line between gossip and news
According to Deadline, David A. Neuman’s Blackrock Productions wants to turn Ryan Holiday’s new book Conspiracy–Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue into a movie or miniseries. The book covers the legal battle that lead to Gawker's dissolution: one involving a Hulk Hogan sex tape, a vengeful billionaire, and...
Nope!
The official teaser trailer is out for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and once again it looks great. Unfortunately, these movies seem more worried about aesthetics than storytelling—and the filmmakers' (and Rowling's) insistence...
From page to screen
Pajiba recently posted an article about the various book-related movie projects being produced by Reese Witherspoon. It's quite a list, ranging from Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere to S.J. Watson's Second Life. Not all of Witherspoon's choices appeal to me, but...
Scifi fairytales
And speaking of Persuasion, I'm interested in this upcoming film starring Ciaran Hinds. Elizabeth Harvest appears to be a sci-fi take on the Bluebeard story with a little Rebecca thrown in, and despite my reservations about that poster art...
Persuasion (Modern Library Edition), by Jane Austen
As longtime readers of the site know, every few months I indulge myself by reviewing specific editions of Jane Austen's novels. These are not meant to be reviews of the stories (hot take: Austen's books are great! You should totally read 'em!), they are reviews of the supplementary materials included by various publishers. I am a raging nerd, so...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Persuasion (Modern Library Edition), by Jane Austen
This week's Book Giveaway is the 2001 Modern Library edition of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I'm only a few pages in, but I'm already irritated by the foreword, so brace yourselves for a lot of very nerd-specific ranting. Our review will be posted shortly...