Posts tagged with classic-books
I need to re-read this.
The BBC is making a miniseries adaptation of War and Peace, and THR has some early images of the production. The pictures are elegant and tasteful (if totally boring), although I'm still a little confused about the broadcasting schedule...
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"...
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"...
Misfit toys
I'm a little dubious about this, because... why? Why would anyone want this? But if THR is to be believed, Robert Downey Jr. and director Paul Thomas Anderson are working on a live-action version of Pinocchio. Pinocchio is perhaps history's creepiest children's book...
Creepy yet intriguing
Donna Zuckerberg, editor of the online Classics journal Eidolon, recently contributed a fascinating article to Jezebel recently called "How To Teach An Ancient Rape Joke"...
Classics
Okay, this is adorable: there's a website run by the SAG Foundation (the charitable arm of the Screen Actor’s Guild) called Storyline Online that features videos of stars and celebrities reading famous children's books out loud. The catalog of books isn't very big, but...
Little Women Strike Back
According to THR, Sony is planning another film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with Sara Polley as the probable writer/director. I'm not much of a Little Women fan, but it is an important piece of American literature, so I guess I'm in favor of another movie version...
Ranma ½, by Rumiko Takahashi
I have spent the past few days wondering how to describe Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ without making it sound like a 36-volume-long fever dream, and I've finally decided it's an impossible task. Just... bear with me, okay?
Editing a sacred cow
There's an interesting article in The New York Times about a decision by the Swedish national broadcaster to edit out two scenes in a newly-restored DVD version of the 1969 TV series Pippi Longstocking...
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
The 75th anniversary edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None opens with a smug quote from Christie's autobiography. In it, she describes the book's premise as “perfectly reasonable”, mentions that it was well received by critics, and announces that she was the person who was most pleased with it, as she alone knew how difficult writing it had been. Having now re-read And Then There Were None for...
Weekly Book Giveaway: And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
This week's Book Giveaway is the 75th anniversary edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I hadn't read this novel since I was a child, and I have to say: if it is truly one of Christie's best books, I am now really bewildered by the comparative lack of interest in Georgette Heyer's mysteries...
Hokey or not, I'm out.
The trailer is out for In The Heart of the Sea, the movie based on the true(ish) story that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. Setting aside my usual eye-rolling over the obvious CGI, I think this movie looks terrifying...
Elmer + Undine 4-EVER
According to Deadline, Scarlett Johansson is planning to produce and star in an adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1913 novel The Custom of the Country (the novel which is rumored to have inspired Julian Fellowes to write Downton Abbey)...
Good omens indeed.
According to io9, BBC Radio has announced that Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are collaborating on the first successful dramatization (after many, many attempts) of their 1990 classic Good Omens, to air this December...
Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
Carry On, Jeeves is a collection of ten of P.G. Wodehouse's early Jeeves and Wooster short stories. Nine are told from the point of view of Bertie Wooster, a wealthy, genial, mentally negligible young Englishman; the tenth is narrated by Jeeves, Bertie's unflappable and infinitely resourceful valet. There are no surprises in a Jeeves and Wooster short story...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
In honor of back-to-school week, I've chosen something soothing for this week's Book Giveaway: Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse. It isn't my favorite Jeeves-and-Wooster collection, but it's pretty much ideal reading for anyone feeling overwhelmed by constant demands for calculators, kleenex, and signed permission slips...
The Lowly Worm returns
NPR informs me that there's a new Richard Scarry book coming out this month (despite Scarry's death in 1994). Scarry's son, Richard "Huck" Scarry Jr., claims to have found the partially-finished manuscript for Richard Scarry's Best Lowly Worm Book Ever! in his father's Swiss chalet, and decided to complete it himself...
Mollocking
I suspect this will be (unintentionally) hilarious: according to Variety, BBC One has announced the cast for its upcoming adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley’s Lover...
Harriet the Spy: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Louise Fitzhugh
Before I get started, I should make something clear: this is a review of a specific edition of Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, not the book itself. I am constitutionally incapable of saying anything about the actual story beyond “If you haven't read it, seriously, drop everything and do so IMMEDIATELY...
A CGI BFG
Roald Dahl's official website recently posted an announcement about the upcoming film adaptation of Dahl's 1982 novel The BFG. According to the site, the movie will be co-produced by DreamWorks and Disney, directed by Steven Spielberg, and released on July 1, 2016...
Expect many new reprints
According to The New York Times, Circuit Judge Richard Posner, writing for a three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, has declared that most (but not all) of Arthur Conan Doyle's dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories are now part of the public domain...
Lost opportunity
Novelist and playwright Niall Williams recently compiled a list of the top ten books "that manage to make heroes out of readers" for the Guardian. His famous-bookworm choices aren't terrible (Matilda, Jo March, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.), but...
Lost: the family-friendly version
According to THR, Sony has bought a pitch for a "family adventure project" called Stranded, to star The King of Queens actor Kevin James. The project is apparently loosely based on Johann David Wyss's 1812 adventure classic The Swiss Family Robinson...
It doesn't look creepy, but...
If you're a classic sci-fi fan with $1,495,000 lying around, Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury's house in the Cheviot Hill neighborhood in Los Angeles is for sale...
The Annotated Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is her earliest completed novel—she started writing it in 1798—but one of her last to be published. (It was released posthumously, along with Persuasion, in 1817.) Some critics lump it in with her juvenilia, but it's a remarkably ambitious and entertaining work, even if it isn't quite on par with her later books. Last fall, Anchor Books released a handsome paperback edition of Northanger Abbey featuring annotations by David M. Shapard...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Annotated Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
This week we're giving away a copy of The Annotated Northanger Abbey, written by Jane Austen and edited by David Shapard. According to his official bio, Mr. Shapard has a Ph.D. in European History from the University of California at Berkeley, and specialized in the eighteenth century. I've read his work before; like most annotated editions, his writing tends to...
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...
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...
Little Lulu: Vol. 1, by John Stanley and Irving Tripp
The character of Little Lulu was created in 1935 by Marjorie Henderson Buell, beginning life as the subject of a series of gag panels in The Saturday Evening Post and eventually becoming the star of an ongoing comic strip. In 1945, she graduated to her own comic book series, written by John Stanley and illustrated by Irving Tripp. In 2004, Dark Horse Books picked up the rights to reprint the Little Lulu stories, making Lulu's adventures available to a new generation of readers...