Tell me more
Yesterday, someone on Jezebel posted a loving tribute to the 1946 film Dragonwyck, which I had never heard of but now need to watch immediately. The movie is based on a book by Anya Seton, and the plot sounds like it will be familiar to anyone who has ever read a gothic novel, but...
The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's The House of Binding Thorns is the sequel to last year's The House of Shattered Wings, a book I described as “more The Godfather than... sword-and-sorcery adventure”. In this installment, a handful of characters from the first book are still struggling to survive the mafioso-style wars between the various Houses of Paris...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard
This week's Book Giveaway is Aliette de Bodard's The House of Binding Thorns, the sequel to last year's The House of Shattered Wings. My review of the first book in this series was not unequivocally positive, but I am still intrigued by de Bodard's premise, and that cover art feels like an A+++ choice for the week before Halloween...
I think not.
Just what the world needs: more grim Scandinavian horror! The trailer is out for the Icelandic film I Remember You. The movie is based on a best-selling ghost story of the same name by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, described as "The Queen of Icelandic Crime"...
SO. AMAZING.
Adding to my ever-growing list of things I wish I could fly to England to see, the British Library's insanely awesome-sounding Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit is about to open. (The exhibit will run from the 20th of this month until the 28th of February, 2018...
Reworked, again
According to Deadline, the Nancy Drew TV series that failed to find a home last season has been put into development this year for NBC, albeit with a slightly altered premise. This version will apparently be a lot different from the books...
Terrifying but handy?
For those of us who are obsessing over President Trump's tweets about North Korea, Politico recently posted an article about T. R. Fehrenbach’s 1963 book This Kind of War. Apparently, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is a big fan of the book, and has been relying upon it to develop the US's military strategy...
Sneaking a peek at The Book of Dust
NPR recently posted an "exclusive first read" excerpt from Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, due out this week. I don't think this book is going to have any problems selling, but if you're still angry over the way the His Dark Materials trilogy ended...
Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
New comic series Misfit City sets out to recapture the oddball charms of 80s kids' adventure movies (specifically, The Goonies), but my favorite thing about this story is the way it depicts living in a real town that's best known as a nostalgia-driven tourist trap...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
Our latest Book Giveaway is the first two issues of Misfit City, a new comic series written by Kirsten "Kiwi" Smith and Kurt Lustgarten. The story features a lot of tributes to classic 80s kids' movies (particularly The Goonies), so if you're a fan of the kind of film that, looking back, you cannot believe was ever marketed to children, congratulations: you're in luck...
So jealous.
According to the Southwark News, the Dulwich Picture Gallery will be showing the first major UK retrospective of work by Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomin books. While she is regarded as one of the most iconic illustrators of the 20th century, Jansson's non-Moomin-work is rarely shown...
The Tell-Tale Heart (plus corn)
Here's the trailer for (yet another) Stephen King movie adaptation, in case you were longing for more. The movie is based on King's novella 1922, and is currently available to stream on Netflix. I haven't read the short story, but...
A little cheesy, but...
I checked out the first episode of Deadly Manners, a new 10-episode podcast that features a big-name cast (including LEVAR BURTON!!!) doing a radio-drama take on a vintage-style mystery. The concept is great, although I'm not 100% sold on their execution—there's too much variation in the quality of the voice acting, and...
I want it.
And speaking of cool visuals, check out this extraordinary Instagram video of an edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. If the video is to be believed, Bradbury's text only appears when the reader applies heat to the page. I have absolutely no idea how this book works...
Wasteful
The Seattle Repertory Theatre is currently running a theatrical adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The local paper recently posted a lukewarm review that killed any desire I had to see the play, but I still wanted to...
Immortally Yours, by Lynsay Sands
It's been years since I've read one of Lynsay Sands's vampire romance novels, but they have always stood out in my mind: in her long-running Argeneau series, vampires are not the result of dark magic or whatever, but rather the products of blood-powered nanotechnology first developed in Lost Atlantis. The quality of her individual installments might vary, but Sands gets all the gold stars for coming up with such a delightfully weird premise...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Immortally Yours, by Lynsay Sands
Keeping up with our Halloween theme, our current Book Giveaway is Lynsay Sands's latest Argeneau novel Immortally Yours. I'm not sure what installment this is (possibly #18,567), but Sands is a reliably fun writer, so my hopes are high. A full review will follow shortly...
Cookie decorating not for beginners
The Kitchn just posted a list of 18 Harry Potter-inspired Halloween recipes. I can resist most of these ideas (they're very heavy on pumpkin and butterscotch flavors, neither of which are my favorite), but I am in love with the Weasley Sweater cookies idea...
Maybe on TV?
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's Crooked House. It has a great cast and the sets look amazing, but if you haven't read the book, be warned: Crooked House is one of Christie's most...
Promo-worthy
I rarely use the website Thread Reader, but occasionally it's super useful. I was fascinated by this thread (by nonfiction author Jason Fagone) about Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a Shakespearean scholar-turned-codebreaker who spent decades working on some of the most complicated codes of the 20th century...
Every bit helps
There was a recent article on BigThink about the health benefits of reading—specifically, the ways in which it strengthens your brain. Some of the stuff about white matter and enhanced empathy was beyond my ken, but the article confirms my basic belief about the mental boost...
Nerd scandal
This is very book-world-specific, as dramatics go, but apparently people are quite worked up over the authors chosen for 2018's World Book Day lineup. According to the Guardian, too many of the featured books (which will be given away to children) are the products of celebrity writers, rather than children's authors...
Haunted Love, Vol. 1: Tales of Gothic Romance, by assorted authors
When I ran across a copy of Haunted Love #1 (first published in 1973) at a local antique store, I was hoping for something enjoyably terrible. In my head, I was picturing an illustrated vintage Harlequin novel, but with, like, vampires or whatever. Sadly, the contents were neither as trashy nor as entertaining as I expected, and never came close to living up to the cheeseball promise of that cover...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Haunted Love Vol. 1
In honor of Halloween, our first Book Giveaway in October is Haunted Love Vol.1: Tales of Gothic Romance, first published in 1973. You can't judge this book by its cover, guys: sadly, it falls short on both the gothic and romantic fronts. A full review will follow shortly...
I'm more adventurous when things are free.
The Guardian just posted a fairly positive review of Ever, Jane, a Jane-Austen-inspired online role-playing game created by Judy L Tyrer, formerly of Linden Labs (the studio behind the online world Second Life). I'm not a fan of online role-playing, but I might give Ever, Jane a shot...
Win some; lose some
I have trouble taking magazines like GQ seriously, but once in a while they surprise me, as they did with their utterly gripping recent longform article "The Untold Story of Kim Jong-nam’s Assassination", by Doug Bock Clark. The article is gruesome but fascinating, and well worth both your time and the embarrassment of...
Ouch.
Whoa: an elementary school librarian named Liz Phipps Soeiro just published an open letter to Melania Trump, responding to Trump's gift of ten Dr. Seuss books. The tone of the letter is civil, and many (though not all) of the author's criticisms are valid, but... but... I just can't get behind responding to a gift with a condescending explanation of where the gift-giver went wrong...
Mad props
Last week, NASA dedicated the new Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Katherine Johnson herself, one of the key figures in Margot Lee Shetterly's bestselling nonfiction book Hidden Figures. In 2015, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
That doesn't sound promising.
According to NPR, Indian Country Today—a 30-year-old-weekly newspaper that focused on the work of indigenous journalists—is "on hiatus". Over the last six years, the paper has been transformed into a multi-platform digital media network, which Oneida Nation Enterprises CEO Ray Halbritter says reached more than a million readers each month...
The Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer
It's tough for most Georgette Heyer fans to choose their favorite of her novels*, but I think it's telling that The Grand Sophy is her first book to get a big-budget movie adaptation. (Allegedly, although I'm not getting my hopes up.) The Grand Sophy is a lively, witty, unabashedly good time, and perfectly encapsulates Heyer's appeal...