Weekend plans
For the second week in a row, we are ending our news coverage with a story I personally find hilarious: after receiving a cease-and-desist order from President Donald Trump’s lawyers, publisher Henry Holt & Co. has actually moved up their publication date of...
Anglophile foodies
I'm always attracted to yearly round-up posts, and this list of 2017's best food books is intriguing: I like the use of the word "splenetic", the cover art for The Folio Book of Food & Drink, and I definitely want to know more...
Bowie Book Club
According to Nerdist, David Bowie's son, director Duncan Jones, recently announced an online book club that will read through Bowie's list of 100 favorite books. The first book pick is Peter Aykroyd's 1985 novel Hawksmoor, which...
Farewell, Ms. Grafton
I was very sorry to hear of the death of mystery/suspense writer Sue Grafton, who died last week at age 77 after a two-year-long battle with cancer. According to her family, Ms. Grafton did not wish for her books to be made into movie or TV adaptations, and would absolutely not approve of a ghostwriter...
Well-reviewed (but I have my doubts)
There's a review over on the Guardian of the first installment of BBC One's miniseries adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and it's downright glowing. I'm obviously not the right audience for this production, because...
HAHAHAHAHA
It's a year-end gift from the Gods. If you haven't read the editing notes for Milo Yiannopoulos's book Dangerous, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to read them now. Thanks to Yiannopoulos's ill-advised lawsuit against his former publishers, all of his editor's notes are now a matter of public record...
Anticipatory
I'm enjoying the various "Books to Look Forward To in 2018" lists (although I feel compelled to cross my fingers that our president doesn't do something that gets us all killed before they come out). Huffington Post recently posted their top 60(!!!) picks, and...
Touching
In a bit of weird-but-sweet news, Open Culture recently posted a supportive letter Albert Einstein sent to Marie Curie when the public discovery of an affair that Curie was having with a fellow scientist threatened to...
Don't you want to read this, based on the cover alone?!?
If you'd like to start off the new year on a hopeful, socially-mindful note, Electric Literature just posted a helpful list of 46 books by women of color to read in 2018. It's an ambitious, intriguing list, and...
Boooring
I recently ran across another "old book" scented candle. Like most of them, this one sounds like it smells nice (like vanilla, according to the description), but just once I'd like to see a candle...
Stretching the limits of "inspired by"
Oooohhhkay. I just watched this trailer for the upcoming Disney adaptation of The Nutcracker, and it doesn't seem to have much to do with the ballet or the book. Plus, no one seems to speak much, so I'm wondering if...
Gorgeous, still pricey
I recently ran across this Etsy shop that specializes in making embroidered or beaded clutches inspired by book covers. They're definitely not cheap (anywhere from $350 on up), but...
At least it's not Tolkien
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines, which will be directed by Christian Rivers, but...
High-concept
There's an article over on io9 about Every Day, the upcoming movie adaptation of the bestselling novel by David Levithan. The article's author is (justifiably) wigged out by the idea of the book—it's a romance between a teen girl and a body-swapping entity—but I'm...
I want these. All of them.
There's a great collection of reasonably-priced Harry Potter-themed bags being featured on Revelist, and I want pretty much all of them. I'm always attracted to Slytherin-themed items, but...
The Duke of Her Desire, by Sophie Barnes
As longtime readers of this site know, I periodically attempt to find a new-to-me great historical romance novelist by grabbing random books off Target shelves. I still haven't discovered the next Lisa Kleypas, but hope springs eternal and the romance section at Target is frequently re-stocked...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Duke of Her Desire, by Sophie Barnes
This week's Book Giveaway is Sophie Barnes's historical romance The Duke of Her Desire. I am weirdly irritated by the fact that the model on the cover doesn't appear to be wearing a corset or anything under her dress, but experience has taught me that this is probably not the biggest historical inaccuracy I will encounter. Our review will be posted shortly...
I don't know about the artwork, though...
Variety recently announced that actresses Kerry Washington and Rashida Jones are joining forces to make a film version of the graphic novel series Goldie Vance. Washington is producing, and Jones will write and direct the adaptation...
Might work, might not
According to Deadline, Netflix has acquired the movie rights to John Scalzi’s space opera Old Man’s War, the first novel in the six-book series of the same name. The production has been in stuck in development limbo...
Tug-o-war
There's an interesting article on Vulture about the court battle(s) brewing over Emma Cline's mega-successful 2016 novel The Girls. Cline and her ex, Chaz Reetz-Laiolo, recently filed dueling federal lawsuits over the book...
Cute! Except for one!
These little book-themed pins by artist Jane Mount are available via 20X200. They're adorable, and, at $11 a pop, they're affordable enough that you could afford both one for yourself and one as a gift...
Labyrinth, expanded
The Mary Sue recently posted a very positive review of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth 2017 Special #1, a collection of short comics about minor characters from the classic 80s fantasy. I'm not usually a fan of movie novelizations, but Labyrinth is different...
Red Sparrow, by Jason Matthews
If you are a big John le Carre fan, but have always wished that his books featured more female characters, Jason Matthews's Red Sparrow is the book for you. I, however, am not a le Carre fan, and as far as I'm concerned adding female characters just expands the scope of a fundamentally unpleasant story to include a bunch of new targets...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Red Sparrow, by Jason Matthews
This week's Book Giveaway is Red Sparrow, the first book in Jason Matthews's espionage trilogy. If you're looking for a heartwarming holiday read... you should probably keep looking. (Sorry.) But if you need a lot of literary violence to get through the season, you're in luck! A full review will follow shortly...
It just looks so juvenile.
LitHub recently posted J. Courtney Sullivan's lovely tribute to Anne of Green Gables: "Anne of Green Gables: Patron Saint of Girls Who Ask Too Many Questions". I'm not too sure about the "saint" part (one of the character's charms is how far she is from saintly), but...
Maybe the CGI is a work in progress...
If your brain, like mine, stalled out from trying to process all the information shoved into the bloated Avengers: Infinity War trailer, here's a helpful scene-by-scene guide. It's obviously jam-packed with spoilers, but...
And no dragons
According to io9, George R.R. Martin has confirmed that his horror novella Nightflyers is going to be adapted into a SyFy television series, with an 10-episode first season order. I'll be curious to see how well Martin's work is received when the contents are edited down for a non-premium cable channel...
Sure, okay.
According to Variety, Christina Ricci and Judith Light will co-star in a Lifetime biopic about famous journalist Nellie Bly. Ricci will play Bly...
Ugh. But also: ha
It's time for the 2017 Literary Bad Sex Awards, and you can see the shortlisted entries here. They're all pretty painful, but my favorites are the ones that obviously aspire to achieve something impressive on the sexual and artistic fronts, and fail equally at both...
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, by Samantha Irby
I have never understood why people buy crappy stuff to read on airplanes. I need something great to read on a plane—a book instantly absorbing enough to distract me from the many, many things that suck about flying. A People article about Chris Pratt is not going to cut it, so I was delighted to run across an A+ plane book recommendation for this upcoming holiday season: Samantha Irby's essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life...