Mini-reviews: Pigs Have Wings, by P.G. Wodehouse, and A Gathering of Shadows, by V. E. Schwab
Another quickie guided tour of the sequels and series installments I've read this week:
P.G. Wodehouse's 1952 novel Pigs Have Wings is one of the funnier standalone Blandings Castle stories. (Like most of the Blandings adventures, this one involves several thwarted love affairs and a threat to the health and well-being of Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's prize pig.) I usually...
Who knows?
I got an email this morning informing me that Random House/Penguin is planning to publish a young adult "adaptation" of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code this fall. The book will be available on September 8th in the UK and September 13th here in the States. Frankly, I found The Da Vinci Code damn near unreadable—it felt like a boring version of Katherine Neville's The Eight—but Brown's novel has sold approximately one zillion copies, so...
A bold move
There was a recent post on LaineyGossip about the upcoming AMC show Preacher, which premieres on May 22nd (we originally wrote about it here). According to Lainey, the premiere episode features "a specific joke...
Whelp.
So, that Nancy Drew-inspired TV series we wrote about back in January? The one featuring a 30-something Nancy with a job as a detective for the NYPD, where she "investigates and solves crimes using her uncanny observational skills"? I was kind of excited about that, but...
Off-brand
The trailer is out for Ang Lee's upcoming film adaptation of Ben Fountain's debut novel, 2012's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. I haven't read Billy Lynn, but I keep seeing it described as "razor-sharp satire". I can only say that that is really not the vibe I'm getting from this trailer...
Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal
The back cover of Mary Robinette Kowal's novel Shades of Milk and Honey describes it as “precisely the sort of tale we would expect from Jane Austen”. That comment is... a little hyperbolic, to put it mildly, but Kowal's book has its own virtue...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal
This week's Book Giveaway is Mary Robinette Kowal's fantasy novel Shades of Milk and Honey, which the back cover describes as "like wandering onto a secret picnic attended by Pride and Prejudice and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell". That sounds like a very tall order, but hopefully Ms. Kowal's book is up to the challenge. A full review will follow later today...
Mini-reviews: Lady Renegade, Forest of Ruin, and The Case of the Fire Inside
Today we are introducing a new feature here at Wordcandy: mini-reviews of the various sequels/series installments/comic books we've read during the week. Basically, I get tired of recapping everything that's happened in, say, the previous seven books in a particular series, but I still might want to complain or enthuse about book number eight...
On the edge
I got an email this morning about Book Mail, an upcoming "mystery box" offer from Book Riot and Out of Print Clothing. According to the official description, the box is a one-time thing (not a subscription service), will cost $60, is guaranteed to be worth more than the purchase price, and will contain...
Sticker shock
The Daily Mail just reported on a Texas couple's Harry Potter-themed wedding, which was lavish, expensive, and admittedly pretty amazing-looking. (They had a trained owl fly the wedding rings to the best man!) The shindig cost $65,000 and took a year and a half to plan. Sadly, the article fails to...
That's a full-length-novel-worthy cover, though.
io9 informs me that there is a short film adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s Pinocchio-goes-scifi story The Nostalgist, and it's now available (for free!) online. Here's the official plot description...
Salacious! (But not really.)
THR recently posted a juicy excerpt from Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich's recently-released book Moguls, Monsters and Madmen: An Uncensored Life in Show Business. It's well-worth checking out, particularly if you enjoy behind-the-scenes gossip...
The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle, by Rick Riordan
While I thoroughly enjoyed Rick Riordan's 'Heroes of Olympus' series, I was dismayed by the way the author handled Nico di Angelo, his first major gay character. I applauded Riordan's efforts to be more inclusive, but Nico seemed downright tortured by his sexuality, which—considering both modern attitudes towards sex and other, far more pressing problems in the poor kid's life—felt unnecessarily overwrought. I'm assuming I wasn't the only person to complain, because...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle, by Rick Riordan
This week's Book Giveaway is Rick Riordan's new book The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle. Riordan has a gift for making total Mary-Sues into appealing, sympathetic characters, but humanizing an actual god might be a tall order, even for him. Our review will follow later today...
Gothic romance dialed up to 11
The trailer is out for director Park Chan-wook's film Agasshi (The Handmaiden), and it looks incredible—dramatic, artistic, and creepy as hell. It's a loose adaptation of Sarah Waters's 2002 novel Fingersmith, and will debut at the Cannes Film Festival next week. Park, who is best known for his 2003 movie Oldboy, has...
Original-flavor dystopia
Nightmares, ahoy: according to THR, Hulu is planning a 10-episode-long miniseries adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The series will air in 2017 and star Mad Men actress Elizabeth Moss. I've never been able to finish The Handmaid's Tale...
Gross, but maybe better than normal fruitcake
The Guardian recently posted Kate Young's tribute to the early Philip Pullman series The Ruby in the Smoke, complete with a recipe for a fruit cake mentioned in the series. I wasn't a huge fan of the Ruby series, and I'm even less...
Selfish
Okay, I really, really want this $14 notebook from the Whitney Museum gift shop, but why is it so tiny? What if the list of people I'd like to punch in the face is long? And why is it unlined? What if...
Done and done
According to io9, Robert Jordan's widow Harriet McDougal has announced that the weird legal situation surrounding the TV rights to Jordan's Wheel of Time series has been resolved, and an approved adaptation is on its way...
The Wallflower, by Tomoko Hayakawa
Tomoko Hayakawa's The Wallflower ran from 2000 to 2015, spanning 36 volumes. That's at least twenty volumes longer than the actual storytelling could support, but there is no denying that the series' main character is one of the most memorable heroines in manga...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Wallflower Vol. 36, by Tomoko Hayakawa
This week's Book Giveaway is the last volume of The Wallflower, the long-running romantic comedy manga by Tomoko Hayakawa. The Wallflower has always been a little flimsy (there was enough story for a ten-volume series, tops, but it ran for thirty six), but it also brought me one of my all-time favorite manga heroines, so I will always have a soft spot for it in my heart...
Good luck
And in one last bit of movie-adaptation news, Emily Blunt and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda have been confirmed as the stars of a sequel to Disney's Mary Poppins. I've never actually seen the original Mary Poppins, but just typing the name is enough to get some of the music stuck in my head, so...
Sorry, Meg.
In news that will undoubtedly traumatize Wordcandy staff member Megan (who hates the book with a fiery passion), the Guardian is reporting that there will be a new film adaptation of Richard Adams’s 1972 novel Watership Down. The movie will be a co-production of the BBC and Netflix, and features...
Yes, that's really what they call themselves.
Ugh: once again, the Hugo Awards have been hijacked by two groups known as "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies". While there are slight differences between the Puppy factions, both are determined to defeat what the Guardian tactfully refers to as "a perceived bias towards liberal and left-wing science-fiction and fantasy authors". Put less tactfully, the Puppies are...
Isn't this already a Japanese movie?
The trailer is out for The Cell, the movie adaptation of the 2006 novel of the same name by Stephen King. I've never read it, but I treasure that dated cover and delightfully cheesy tagline. ("YOUR NUMBER IS UP!") Plus, I like John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, so...
Surprisingly elegant
According to the website Disney Style, Neff Headwear has partnered with Disney on a Pinocchio-themed collection of "classic surf tees and Hawaiian shirts, as well as... snapback and boonie [hats]." I have no idea what boonie hats are, and I find the Pinocchio story to be creepy as hell, but...
Night Shift, by Charlaine Harris
Night Shift, the third book in Charlaine Harris's highly entertaining Midnight, Texas series, has the same strengths and weaknesses as its predecessors. With each installment, I grow more invested in the personal lives of Harris's characters... and with each installment, I grow more pained by her idea of what serves as romantic chemistry...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Night Shift, by Charlaine Harris
This week's Book Giveaway is Charlaine Harris's Night Shift, the third book in her excellent Midnight, Texas series. (Our reviews of the first two are available here and here.) While I would never call Harris "the Mark Twain of things that live under your bed"...
Down and possibly out
Comic Book Resources posted an article yesterday about a major shake-up at DC's Vertigo Comics, which will apparently involve "re-examining the direction and focus of the Vertigo imprint" and cutting loose their longtime Executive Editor...
They'll get my $9.50
And in other trailer news, they're releasing yet another Bourne thriller, this one simply called Jason Bourne. Thankfully, they're back to Matt Damon in the title role. Apparently casting Jeremy Renner in a Bourne spin-off that felt like a slap-happy take on Flowers For Algernon didn't work out...