Undoubtedly a scintillating read
Four pages of the seventh-century text De Laude Virginitatis (“In Praise of Virginity”) are going up for sale at Sotheby's next month. De Laude Virginitatis is England's earliest known book written for women. The author—an Anglo-Saxon cleric named Aldhelm—produced a book of advice for the abbess nuns of Barking Abbey, giving them specific pointers on avoiding the “untamed impulses of bodily wantonness”...
The end of an era
Yesterday, NPR posted a loving tribute to Matt Groening's weekly alt-comic Life in Hell, which ended last Saturday after 1,669(!) installments and more than 30 years...
No thank you.
Ugh. I'm not a fan of Anna Karenina, or Joe Wright, or Tom Stoppard, or Merchant-Ivory-lite literary adaptations in general. But this lavish new trailer certainly looks pretty, and I suspect the movie will win many awards (but not my hard-earned $10)...
Clear your schedule, Mr. Cronenberg. Please.
See, at first I thought Bret Easton Ellis (who recently announced that he would like to write a movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey) was describing the book's protagonists as "potentially great comedic characters", and that seemed fair. Sadly, I was wrong. He actually said...
Aiming for adorable
And speaking of art(ish stuff), here's a free font inspired by A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. According to How About Orange, the font, called "Winnie the Hoop", is the debut release of Finnish graphic designer Teo Tuominen, and "Using this font to communicate a sad or grave message is not recommended"...
Pretty!
Oooh, Kate Beaton (author of Hark! A Vagrant, which we reviewed recently) has illustrated a magazine cover for The Walrus...
I'm not buying it
The website A Koala's Playground recently posted a comprehensive update on the status of To The Beautiful You, the upcoming K-drama adaptation of the popular Japanese manga/drama Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (better known as Hana Kimi). Frankly, I have my doubts...
Uncanny
The Hairpin's "Texts from Scarlett O'Hara" is magical. It manages to sum up my feelings about Scarlett as a character and Gone With the Wind as a novel in less than a page: both are utterly shallow and rock-stupid...
Well, at least Nathan is thrilled.
Maybe the second time will be the charm? According to Deadline, the film adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s classic cyberpunk novel Snow Crash has been revived. The book was originally optioned for film in the early nineties, but...
Awkward
I must admit, I thought George W. Bush's head appearing on a stake on HBO's Game of Thrones was at least a little funny. Tasteless, sure... but still funny.
Read early, often
According to the Guardian, nearly two-thirds of parents don't read to their babies, thereby missing out on a "crucial window" for the children's language development...
Gorgeous, if a touch creepy
Okay, this dude's altered book sculptures are straight-up amazing. I have no idea how much they cost, but I suspect it's one of those "If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it" situations.
One more...
Here's another summer reading list, this one featuring 101 high school-appropriate choices. It, too, is largely devoted to depressing books, but at least it presents its misery-pushing in the form of a beautiful flow chart.
Spoiled for choice
The fine people at Publishers Weekly recently posted a list of recommended summer reading, and, as usual, a number of tearjerkers made the cut. Book critics always think they're being so original and daring when they recommend bleak summertime reading, but this list alone includes...
65% weird, 35% awesome
The online design community Imprint recently posted an article about a "typographical experiment" called Page 1: Great Expectations. Each page of Page 1 is devoted to the work of a different graphic designer, but they all feature the same text: the first page of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations...
Recycling
I'm never going to be fully comfortable with the idea of "repurposing" a book, no matter how terrible the story or how awesome the new product. That being said, some of these ideas for using up old books are kind of cool... but only if you're using, like, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss novels.
The perfect spot to watch TV
If you're looking for the ideal finishing touch for your living room, may I suggest this $30,000 Game of Thrones "Iron Throne" replica? I'm pretty sure it's exactly what your home decor needs to feel complete...
Ray Bradbury: August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012
Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and the hugely creepy Something Wicked This Way Comes, died yesterday at age 91. He apparently wanted to be buried on Mars; here's hoping he ends up there.
Perhaps an improvement?
For those you who seriously disliked the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's upcoming Great Gatsby adaptation, do you like it better featuring the characters from My Little Pony?
Swashbuckling, etc.
Guy Ritchie has been hired to direct a new film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. No word on whether or not it will be as smirkingly tongue-in-cheek as Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies, but since they're describing it as a "stylized" version of the novel, I'm assuming so...
Grimness abounds
NPR has started a new blog devoted to YA literature. It's called "PG-13: Risky Reads", and while I'm not overly impressed by the books they have featured to date (On The Beach, Rubyfruit Jungle, Gone With The Wind, and I Am The Cheese), I'll definitely be checking back to see if their subject matter improves...
Utterly generic
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's 1999 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I know people are excited about this, but I was rolling my eyes at the sight of Paul Rudd playing the requisite oddball-yet-understanding English teacher, and...
Busy, busy
Publishers Weekly is offering an exclusive sneak peek at the cover for The Mark of Athena, the third (or eighth, depending on how you look at it) installment in Rick Riordan's best-selling "Heroes of Olympus" series...
Meh.
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Les Misérables. I know some people are in a tizzy over the casting...
Could be worse, I guess
Esquire magazine recently announced it will be releasing a series of ebooks dedicated to men’s fiction. The first edition will be a collection of short stories that aspires to satiate "the literary appetite of the male mind–whatever that may be"....
Seriously abridged
If you're a fan of the Classics Illustrated series or the children's comics anthology Little Lit, you might want to check out the recently-released collection The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1. The trilogy will feature nearly 200 gorgeously-illustrated literary adaptions, ranging from the early epics...
Everything old
Lifetime Television is developing an ongoing drama featuring Clarice Starling, the main character from the horror/thriller The Silence of the Lambs. I'm not sure if the TV show will have much to do with Thomas Harris's books, but there's still obviously a lot of interest in the series...
Useful, adorable, and free
The website How About Orange has been on a bibliophile-friendly kick recently, posting links and how-to tips on a variety of book-related topics...
Sorry, Nordic Ware
Baking Bites gave this Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "cakelet" pan a good review, but I find it straight-up disturbing.
So clever...
Check out this entry to Dwell's Live/Work Design Contest. Pretty brilliant, huh? Although any bendy items (like, say, magazines) would probably flop over that short little stopper.