Rebel Belle, by Rachel Hawkins
Bestselling YA author Rachel Hawkins has a new iron in the fire. Her latest book Rebel Belle is the first installment in a projected trilogy, and thus far I'm pretty excited about it. It's action-packed, wryly funny, and romantic, and as long as it ends on a less irritating note than her Hex Hall series did, Ms. Hawkins should have an enormous hit on her hands...
Literary domiciles
The fine people at Flavorwire recently compiled a list of the 25 Greatest Houses in Literature. While their choices are solid, I'm afraid they left some critical picks out:
1. The boxcar in The Boxcar Children. Please note they don't say "nicest" structures; they said "most memorable". And God knows people remember the boxcar...
SO. COOL.
The humanitarian group WaterisLife and ad agency DDB have teamed up to promote and distribute a product called The Drinkable Book. Based on the research of Teri Dankovich, The Drinkable Book features...
Book decor
Despite my well-documented aversion to fake books, I quite like this book-shaped "Hanabunko" vase from Spoon & Tamago. It's $37, and currently on back-order until July, but...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Rebel Belle, by Rachel Hawkins
Our current Book Giveaway pick is Rebel Belle, the latest book from YA paranormal romance author Rachel Hawkins. In addition to writing solid action sequences, Ms. Hawkins has a gift for creating dialogue that manages to feel deliciously snappy, rather than annoyingly contrived (ahem, Sarah Rees Brennan), so I'm really looking forward to reading her book...
Up and coming TV
Loads of book-related TV news has come out this week, including the fact that NBC has green-lit a new adaptation of DC Comics' Hellblazer (to be called Constantine, like the 2005 Keanu Reeves movie), more info about the CW's upcoming take on the comic iZombie, and...
Like a Mr. Rogers sweater... but EVIL
If you're a big Stephen King fan, start saving your pennies now: Mondo Tees has announced a product line based on the iconic (and hideous) carpeting featured in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining...
The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Originally published in 1926, L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle is one of the most unabashedly sweet books I have ever read—an old-fashioned, utterly straightforward romance. It's the story of 29-year-old Valancy Stirling, a downtrodden spinster who has spent her life trying (and failing) to please her judgmental relatives. When she discovers she has a heart ailment that will almost certainly kill her within a year, Valancy decides to enjoy whatever time she has left...
Yet more Princess Diaries
According to the Wall Street Journal, Meg Cabot is returning to the world of her Princess Diaries books. She's planning on releasing two vaguely connected spin-offs: an adult novel featuring her previous heroine (Princess Mia Thermopolis, heir to the fictional kingdom of Genovia) and a middle-grade novel centering around Olivia Grace...
Ben McKenzie's real estate-based TV streak continues
I'm super excited about FOX's upcoming Gotham, which recently released its "Official Extended Trailer". I like both Ben McKenzie and Donal Logue, and seeing all the baby versions of Batman's various villains is fun. It's amazing, though: as soon as wee Batman introduces himself...
Daughters of the Sea: Hannah, by Kathryn Lasky
Kathryn Lasky's Daughters of the Sea: Hannah is a stitched-together Frankenstein's monster of a story—an Upstairs, Downstairs domestic drama featuring a mermaid, an evil debutante, and a potentially demonic cat. I realize that sounds insane, but to the author's credit, it slides down more smoothly than you'd think...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Daughters of the Sea: Hannah, by Kathryn Lasky
It seems I had more books on my to-be-read shelf about mermaids than I thought, including Kathryn Lasky's Daughters of the Sea: Hannah, which we're currently offering as our Weekly Book Giveaway title. It's the first installment of a three book series, so those of you who aren't totally over the whole mermaid-angst thing might want to check it out...
Yet more magical pants
I cannot believe this. DOES THE WORLD REALLY NEED ANOTHER MOVIE ABOUT MAGICAL PANTS?!? According to THR, it seems so: Alloy Entertainment is working on a movie adaptation of Sisterhood Everlasting, the third (and, hopefully, final) novel in Ann Brashares's inexplicably popular* Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series...
Ugh, no thank you.
Personally, I wouldn't trust Lost writer Damon Lindelof any further than I could throw him (and I have no upper-body strength), but HBO appears to have a lot more confidence in his abilities. Word & Film has just posted the first full-length trailer for Lindelof's upcoming adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel The Leftovers...
It all sounds better than wrestling.
THR has posted a round-up of the various projects currently being developed for Syfy, which is doing its best to win back the crowd that should have been their bread and butter: actual sci-fi nerds. Don't get me wrong, everybody likes a good episode of Ghost Adventures...
How do these people keep getting mislaid?
In an effort to avoid any kind of carpark-burial-style shenanigans, Spain is searching for the remains of Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes. The writer died in poverty in 1616, and while they know the date of his death—April 22nd, 1616—no one is sure exactly where he is buried, other than somewhere on the grounds of Madrid's Convent of Trinitarians...
Lu-piiiin!
There's going to be a live-action version of Lupin the Third (one of Japan's most enduring manga series), and the promotional images look GREAT...
Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator, by Josh Berk
I absolutely loved Josh Berk's first novel, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, so my hopes were high for his second, Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator. Like Dark Days, it's a mystery/coming-of-age story told from a convincing teen-boy perspective, complete with bouts of insecurity, an obsession with the opposite sex, and a positive gift for saying the wrong thing...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator
This week we're giving away Josh Berk's novel Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator. I have super-high hopes for this one, as I found Berk's novel The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin impressively creative and endearing. (I was even happier with it when Berk's publishers changed the cover art, and I could stop fretting about it falling into the hands of third graders...
Early but unhelpful
Publishers Weekly has already compiled their "Best Summer Books of 2014" list, because they are revoltingly well-organized. As usual, though, I can comfort myself with the thought that while I won't come up with a recommended summer reading list until late June (and possibly not even by the end of July), at least none of my picks...
Apart from my overdue fees, this applies to me.
This is a bit difficult for me to swallow, but according to a study commissioned by the U.K.'s Department for Culture, Media & Sport, visiting a library gives people the same pleasure getting a raise does (a £1,359 raise, specifically). The study looked at ways "cultural engagement" affects overall health and happiness...
We're overdue, really.
io9 recently compiled a list of 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories that Editors are Tired of Seeing. My thoughts...
Intimidating
Wow. This is quite the eye-catcher: according to Boston Magazine, the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston has chosen sculptor Stefanie Rocknak to create sculpture bronze, life-sized statue honoring author and poet Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is depicted with a suitcase in hand, a raven in front of him, and a dramatically flapping coat...
WHATEVER.
There's an article in the Times of London about author and illustrator Jonathan Emmett's suggestion that boys aren't reading because "the majority of publishers, editors, librarians, judges and reviewers of children’s books" are women, and this disparity is apparently enough to convince boys that Books Are For Girls. To which I reply: riiiight...
Meant to Be, by Lauren Morrill
Like most YA novels that aren't straight-up angstfests, Lauren Morrill's Meant to Be has its fair share of cringe-worthy moments. But if you can disengage your sense of secondhand embarrassment, Morrill's novel is an engaging opposites-attract love story, offering readers a fun alternative to the current overabundance of supernatural romances and dystopian horror stories...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Meant to Be, by Lauren Morrill
This week's Book Giveaway is Lauren Morrill's Meant To Be, which I have to admit I chose pretty much because of the gloriously Easter-candy-colored cover. As near as I can tell, it's a secret admirer/Cyrano de Bergerac story. I usually avoid those, due to a crippling fear of secondhand embarrassment caused by fictional romantic hijinks, but I will do my best to be brave...
Yet more crying at the movies this summer
The trailer is out for the upcoming adaptation of Gayle Forman's 2009 YA novel If I Stay. I considered reviewing it, but I'm not into tearjerkers, and the allure of the central question (would the comatose heroine choose to survive, or join her family in death?) was somewhat lessened by the fact that I heard there was going to be a sequel...
Unfortunate
An author over at The Atlantic recently pointed out that Amazon.com's data-mining techniques seem to have inadvertently created a recommended-purchase list that serves as a helpful guide to setting up your own drug-dealing kit.
Alien monkeys!
According to THR, Twentieth Century Fox has picked up Mark Millar's comic Superior, intending to transform it into a big-screen adaptation produced by Matthew Vaughn. The comic ran for seven issues and centers around a 12-year-old boy who has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis...
Testing, testing
Slate recently posted an interesting article by David Z. Hambrick and Christopher Chabris about the effectiveness of the SAT. The authors feel the test is far more effective (and that SAT prep companies are far less effective) than many recent articles have made them out to be...