Meaningless awards
The American Book Review, a nonprofit journal published by the Illinois State University, recently compiled a list of the 100 best first lines from novels. As always, this is is totally subjective...
Seventy minutes seems more likely
I have long wondered how the upcoming The Hunger Games movie could possibly secure a PG-13 rating. And, at least in Great Britain, it hasn't. According to Entertainment Weekly, the British Board of Film Classification has required that seven seconds' worth of footage be cut from the film...
Patience is not one of my virtues
Two questions:
- What was wrong with this book's original, deeply awesome cover art?
Tacky, yet glorious
The fine staff at AbeBooks have put together a loving, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, guide to the cover art styles of vintage romance novels. "Romance novels", the author insists "...like their science fiction counterparts, have been done zero favors by designers of cover artwork." Personally, I love these covers...
New-old stories
According to the Guardian, 500 "new" fairytales were recently discovered in an archive in Regensburg, Germany, where they had been stored for over 150 years. The stories are part of the collection of folklore gathered during the mid-19th century by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz...
Christmas is coming... eventually
Behold the Albatros Bookmark, a new kind of bookmark that does the active page-marking for you. After you insert your Albatros bookmark, it automatically re-adjusts itself as you turn each page, so your book always opens to whichever page you were reading last....
Couldn't they find a more recent comparison?
Because Heathers came out in 1989, people. It's been quite some time.
New clothes inspired by old books
If you spend a lot of time in indie bookstores, you've probably already seen the line of t-shirts, hoodies, and bags created by Out of Print Clothing. Out of Print's products feature a variety of classic-book-cover-inspired images, and they're about to release several new designs taken from famous children's books...
Brace yourself
WHOA. Lisa Kleypas changed her website again! This time her web designer seems to be going for a magazine-inspired layout, which I think is... well, a mistake.
Toning down a King classic
NPR has a great article up about a recent revival of the musical version of Stephen King's Carrie. I had no idea there had ever been a Carrie musical, but apparently it was one of Broadway's biggest flops...
Dolores Umbridge would not approve
And speaking of propaganda posters, I want one of these Harry Potter-inspired prints from Blimp Cat Studio. I'm torn, though: should I go for creepy, or so-cheerful-it-goes-back-to-creepy? Or both?
What, no baby showers?
TresSugar recently put together a slideshow of Hunger Games-themed party ideas for birthdays, weddings, and bat/bar mitzvahs. The whole thing struck me as being in questionable taste (seriously? For a wedding? Were all the Walking Dead invites already taken?), but even I have to admit this Hunger Games-inspired propaganda poster is awesome.
A busy day for book nerds
Tomorrow (March 2nd) is the NEA's annual Read Across America Day, and there are a ton of events scheduled...
A different take
CBS is apparently planning a complete reboot of the Sherlock Holmes story: they've hired Jonny Lee Miller to be their Sherlock Holmes (which... okay), changed the setting to modern-day New York City, and cast Lucy Liu as Watson.
I... can't even.
A Twilight-themed engagement shoot? I am, oh, 20% appalled, 30% amused, and 50% impressed by the studio's savvy. Way to go, K&K Photography. You will clearly get a boatload of publicity for this.
Note: Props to the makeup artist, too. The couple looks half-dead, but in an attractive way. That's a fine line to walk, you know?
Catching up
According to The Guardian, a new British study claims that boys are no longer lagging behind girls when it comes to reading ability.
A legacy to be proud of
We were sorry to hear that Jan Berenstain, who co-wrote and illustrated the perennially popular Berenstain Bears series with her husband Stan, suffered a severe stroke on Thursday and died Friday without regaining consciousness. Ms. Berenstain was 88, and is survived by two sons and four grandchildren.
Half cute, half creepy
NPR described Studio Ghibli's new movie The Secret World of Arrietty (based on Mary Norton's book The Borrowers) as "gentle and meditative", but the trailer looks like something that would have given me nightmares as a kid.
Utterly bizarre
Scholastic Parent & Child magazine has trotted out their list of the 100 Greatest Books for Kids, awarding the top spot to Charlotte's Web, second place to Goodnight Moon, and third place to A Wrinkle in Time.
Big money
A month ago, cartoonist Rich Burlew set up Kickstarter account in order to raise $57,500, the amount needed to reprint one of the out-of-print collections of his Order of the Stick webcomic.
It was bound to happen eventually
J. K. Rowling has confirmed the rumor that she is writing a non-Harry Potter book for adult readers. No release date, title, or plot details have been released, but... there you have it.
Cookbooks of the future
Eater recently posted a preview of this spring's most-anticipated cookbooks, including one book graced by a cover-photo of the author with a dead pig draped over her shoulders.
A Sad Lack
Seriously, if I had any hand-eye coordination whatsoever, I would be all over this truly awesome (and free!) crochet pattern to make your own Hobbes doll. As it is... maybe Nathan will do it!
Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
While looking for something to read on a recent plane trip, I finally cracked open Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's Beautiful Creatures, a book that has been idling on my to-be-read shelf for over two years....
Re-heated noir
According to Variety, DreamWorks and Working Title Films are planning a new movie adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's 1938 novel Rebecca. This version will reportedly stick closer to the original source material than Alfred Hitchcock did when he adapted the story in 1940, but there's still no news on casting or a release date.
Persuasion: An Annotated Edition, edited by Robert Morrison
Before I get started, let me clarify something: this isn't a review of Jane Austen's Persuasion. It's more an extended hissyfit about the annotations featured in this particular edition of Persuasion, and therefore I'm going to assume it's only going to interest my fellow hardcore Austen nerds. (Sorry, non-hardcore-Austen-nerds. Try again tomorrow.) Anyway: VAGUE SPOILERS AHOY.
February Book Club Pick
I've never heard of NPR's current Back Seat Book Club pick—Shooting Kabul, by N.H. Senzai—but this month they're asking kids to send in both questions for the author and photographs of beloved people and places.
Return of the Comic Gods
Thanks to all those males ages 18-34 who watched the Super Bowl, several exciting-looking action movie trailers have been released recently. Behold:
The Amazing Spiderman
It doesn't look bad, per se, but was this movie really... necessary? I mean, the last Tobey Maguire version just came out five years ago.