Weekly Book Giveaway: Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, by Stephan Pastis
This week's Book Giveaway is Stephan Pastis's Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. I chose it both because I'm fond of Pastis's Pearls Before Swine comic strip, and because I'm hoping it will be a less excruciating but thematically-similar version of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. A full review will follow later today...
I keep falling for it!
Jezebel recently posted a really nice interview with author Meg Cabot. I'm always a little disappointed by Cabot's books—I think she has the talent to write something truly spectacular, but too often falls back on "Eh, it's cute enough to justify the cover price"—but this interview is so charming...
The umlaut really adds something.
Deadline informs me that Fox has hired Josh Schwartz (of The O.C., Gossip Girl, Chuck fame) to develop an hourlong "dramedy" inspired by Grady Hendrix's supernatural mystery novel Horrorstör...
London omake
According to the design blog Creative Review, London's Tube passengers can currently take advantage of a limited-time offer from Penguin UK: from August 3 - 28, commuters with wi-fi can read "exclusive excerpts from novels, as well as author interviews and audio content" via the website...
I have no self control.
The Penguin Classics Deluxe line continues to quietly release reprints of classic novels with cover art that ranges from "totally respectable" to "I COVET THEE"...
No Billboard of Destiny, though?
According to NPR, The Strand editor Andrew Gulli has hunted down a previously unpublished F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called "Temperature", which appears in the current issue of his magazine...
The Raven's Child, by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Thomas E. Sniegoski's standalone graphic novel The Raven's Child has all the right ingredients for an epic fantasy: an inspiring protagonist, a memorable cast of evildoers, and a detailed, visually striking world...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Raven's Child, by Thomas E. Sniegoski
This week's Book Giveaway is Thomas E. Sniegoski's graphic novel The Raven's Child. I'm pretty excited about this one; the artwork isn't exactly my style*, but Sniegoski is apparently the only writer to work on Jeff Smith's Bone series (apart from Smith himself, obviously)...
Gross, creepy, no thank you.
This is... discomfiting. Newsweek informs me that the College Board has bowed to conservative political pressure, and is revising their A.P. U.S. History standards to "emphasize American Exceptionalism"...
Oh, the cover art
Hey, finally! At long last, NPR has released the list they compiled of 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances. I've been waiting for this all summer, and I'm genuinely impressed by a lot of their choices...
Genre-riffic
There's a long and loving tribute to Wordcandy favorite Mary Stewart over on Jezebel. I don't agree with the author's suggestion that the 60s-era paperback covers always did a Grade-A job of conveying the charms of Ms. Stewart's mid-century Gothics...
Maybe they could hire a woman? For something?
According to THR, novelist Michael Chabon is in talks to work on Disney’s Bob the Musical, a movie that has been languishing in development hell for more than a decade...
Dead Ice, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Laurell K. Hamilton has a gift. You wouldn't think a novel featuring vampires, werewolves, necromancers, polyamory, and—no joke—zombie porn could be dead boring, but somehow, inexplicably, Ms. Hamilton is capable of proving you wrong...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Dead Ice, by Laurell K. Hamilton
There's a 98% chance I'm going to regret this, but it's time for me to woman up: this week's Book Giveaway is Laurell K. Hamilton's Dead Ice. A full review will follow shortly, which means I'm going to have to actually read it...
Unexpectedly apropos
WELL THEN. According to AnimeNewsNetwork, there was apparently enough demand to justify not one but two(!!!) lines of Sailor Moon-themed feminine hygiene products...
Next up: hovercars
In another recent NPR post, there's a discussion of an early childhood test that claims to be a clear indicator of a person's eventual reading ability...
Modern classics?
NPR recently featured a list of books that various colleges have chosen as required reading for their incoming college freshmen. I am only familiar with one of them—Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, which I found highly overrated...
Agree, like, 1000%
NYMag's "Science of Us" section published an article earlier this month about the small but growing number of schools and professors who have chosen to ban laptops and smartphones from their classrooms, feeling that the technology is more of a hindrance than a help...
Spot on
Mallory Ortberg's literary tributes over at The Toast are always a pleasure to read, but I was particularly excited about her latest effort, "The Sequel To Rebecca The Second Mrs. de Winter Deserves"...
The Diviners, by Libba Bray
Libba Bray's books remind me of cheesecake—good cheesecake, sure, but the basic kind without bittersweet chocolate or lime zest or whatever. Her writing is always rich, carefully crafted, and satisfying, but despite her many excellent qualities, it's just not that memorable...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Diviners, by Libba Bray
In the spirit of summer vacation, this week's Book Giveaway pick is Libba Bray's The Diviners. I was looking for something both satisfyingly hefty and sufficiently entertaining to offset my other beach reading choice—a book about the plague outbreak in the 14th century. At 608 presumably Black-Death-free pages, Ms. Bray's book seems like just the ticket. A review will follow shortly...
If only he was a fur-trapping zombie.
Whelp, the trailer for the upcoming film The Revenant is out (based "in part" on Michael Punke's 2003 novel of the same name), and it does absolutely nothing for me. I'm not impressed by Leonardo DiCaprio's goofy beard, the panting "soundtrack", or the CGI bear...
Another fine candidate for the $10 bill
If you were impressed by the recent Google Doodle featuring Ida B. Wells, I encourage you to check out Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant strip about her, too...
75% less creepy than Pinocchio, but still...
Another week, another inexplicable live-action Disney film: according to THR, they're making a live-action prequel to Aladdin called Genies...
Raisins, corn syrup, and 8 whole eggs?
I find the vast majority of recent Harper Lee news to be very depressing, but NPR recently posted a recipe for a "Lane Cake" (the boozy, eggy dish baked by To Kill a Mockingbird's Maudie Atkinson)...
Still meh.
It was news to me that this miniseries is even happening, but better-informed people seem pleased to learn that Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall, Mirror Mirror, Self/Less) has been hired to direct NBC's upcoming 10-episode-long Wizard of Oz prequel The Emerald City...
Tales Too Ticklish To Tell, by Berkeley Breathed
When it comes to 1980s comics, Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County was the odd one out. Doonesbury was political, The Far Side surreal, and Calvin and Hobbes genuinely moving—Bloom County veered wildly between all three, and the end result was 70% amazing, 25% mediocre, and (it must be said) 5% terrible...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tales Too Ticklish to Tell, by Berke Breathed
In honor of the unexpected but super exciting rebirth of Berkeley "Berke" Breathed's Bloom County, this week's Book Giveaway is my copy of Breathed's 1988 collection Tales Too Ticklish To Tell, the only one of my Bloom County collections that still has enough glue left in its spine to hold together...
Just saying.
THR has posted interesting article about the difficulty of handling security for Comic-Con. Apparently, they're expecting costumed attendees to show up with around 3,000 "weapons", each one of which needs to be carefully inspected...