Cute and plausible
There's a great tutorial over at A Beautiful Mess about how to build your own quotation mark bookends. I cannot with organizing books by color—I don't care if it looks cool, what if different books in a series end up far apart?—but those bookends are awesome...
Added to my to-be-read pile
Last week, the Guardian published an article about the release of The Debs of Bletchley Park, a new collection of stories by Michael Smith. The book focuses on the largely female group of World War II code-breakers who worked at the UK's Government Code and Cypher School, which was run out of Buckinghamshire's Bletchley Park mansion...
All Fall Down, by Ally Carter
It pains me to say this, but All Fall Down is one of Ally Carter's weaker efforts. I have no doubt things will improve as the series progresses, but so far things are only fair-to-middling on... well, almost every front.
Weekly Book Giveaway: All Fall Down, by Ally Carter
This week we're giving away a copy of All Fall Down, the first book in Ally Carter's Embassy Row series. Carter has yet to write anything that full-on knocks my socks off, but she's one of the most consistently entertaining YA authors we follow, so I'm sincerely looking forward to reading this sucker...
Ugly but true
If you enjoyed the 2012 cinematic hot mess Snow White and the Huntsman, there's been some fascinating—and probably accurate—speculation about the future of the series posted at LaineyGossip...
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo
My birthday was this week, and my mother gave me a copy of Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. No, this was not a pointed hint—I have done some work as a professional organizer, and I am a huge, huge nerd, so my mom thought I would legitimately enjoy reading it...
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation is simultaneously clever and pretentious, engaging and irritating as hell. I am by no means certain I actually liked it, but I'm definitely going to read the sequels...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer
This week's Book Giveaway is Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, the first book in his Southern Reach Trilogy. I'm not sure that I buy other reviewers' comparisons between this book and the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but I will give Annihilation this: that cover is awesome...
Musical fans take note.
According to FilmDivider, producer Marc Platt has confirmed that a film adaptation of Wicked is trotting along towards a 2016 release. The adaptation will be of the Broadway musical based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, rather than the book itself...
About time.
According to People, the Harry Potter Alliance (a HP fan organization dedicated to social justice issues) has successfully pressured Warner Bros. into guaranteeing that by the end of 2015, all chocolate sold at their "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" theme park will be certified 100% Fair Trade...
Autumn Falls, by Bella Thorne (and Elise Allen)
I can't believe I'm writing this, but I'm giving Disney Channel actress Bella Thorne's debut novel Autumn Falls a glowing “Nowhere near as terrible as I thought it would be”. I'm not saying it's actually good, mind you, but I've read way worse...
It is a mystery.
Okay, I had no idea a Gone With The Wind musical even existed, but I am sincerely impressed by the cheese factor of this South Korean version. K-pop idol Seohyun plays Scarlett O'Hara, and while she makes a lovely stand-in for Vivien Leigh, I really don't understand...
SO. EXCITED.
Hark! A Vagrant author Kate Beaton recently announced that she has written her first book for children, and clearly she knows her audience: the book will be called The Princess and the Pony. I have no idea if said pony is THIS pony, but...
Shut Out, by Kody Keplinger
Kody Keplinger has received a lot of attention for her complicated, thoughtful, sex-positive YA novels. Admittedly, I've only read one of her books, but so far I'm not seeing where this praise is coming from—her 2011 novel Shut Out is neither particularly thoughtful nor complex, and it's only “sex-positive” in the sense that her sexually-active teen characters aren't constantly beset by the pregnancy/marriage/infidelity crises featured on ABC Family shows...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Shut Out, by Kody Keplinger
After last week's over-the-top dramafest, we wanted to offer something cheerier, so our new Book Giveaway is Kody Keplinger's Shut Out. It's loose retelling of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, with a modern high school setting. Parts of it work surprisingly well... and other (much bigger) parts don't...
Depressing!
The trailer is out for the BBC's upcoming miniseries adaptation of Hilary Mantel's 2009 Booker Prize-winning novel Wolf Hall, which depicts Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII...
Book sacrifice
The crafty people over at A Beautiful Mess just posted a tutorial about how to transform an old book into a clutch. As longtime readers of the site know, I always feel a sense of mourning for the loss of any book (no matter how terrible or tattered), but—as luck would have it—their sample book happens to be the perfect literary victim...
Anata ni Hana o Sasagemasho, by Tomu Ohmi
I have a soft spot for Tomu Ohmi's 1970s-Harlequin-novel-meets-Twilight manga Midnight Secretary, so I was happy to hear a rumor that another of Ohmi's works, Anata ni Hana o Sasagemashō, will soon be licensed. Nobody seems to have confirmed this, but I decided to read and review the series anyway, just in case...
Doom, gloom, cyborgs
And speaking of dystopian futures with creepy digital mind-control, they're making an American live-action version of Masamune Shirow's classic manga/anime Ghost in the Shell...
I choose to take this as a celebration of me.
Beginning on January 21st (my birthday!), the DC Public Library is launching a 10-day-long series of events called "Orwellian America? Government Transparency and Personal Privacy in the Digital Age". The program will kick off with a live-streamed marathon reading of George Orwell's novel 1984, and...
The Year of Luminous Love and The Year of Chasing Dreams, by Lurlene McDaniel
Lurlene McDaniel's novels The Year of Luminous Love and The Year of Chasing Dreams boast more melodrama than a Mexican telenovela. These books have everything: natural disasters! Forbidden love! Lingering illnesses! Birth secrets! Personally, I felt like I was trapped in an interminable game of “Pin the tail on the soap opera cliché”, but...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Year of Luminous Love and The Year of Chasing Dreams, by Lurlene McDaniel
This week's Book Giveaway is a twofer: Lurlene McDaniel's The Year of Luminous Love and its companion novel, The Year of Chasing Dreams. These have been collecting dust on the ol' To-Be-Read shelf for quite a while, but I've been hesitant about actually opening them—the cover art and titles read a little ABC Family-meets-Nicholas Sparks to me, and that's not really my kind of thing...
War and Peace on TV
The BBC recently posted a bunch of casting news about Andrew Davies's upcoming adaptation of War and Peace. Davies is best known for his widely beloved 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but his record of thoughtful literary adaptations is inconsistent, and I have some biiiiig concerns about his take on War and Peace...
Blandings Castle, by P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse's short story collection Blandings Castle is divided between six stories set at Blandings, the country estate of the ninth Earl of Elmsworth, one story about Bertie Wooster inamorata Bobbie Wickham, and five stories about the Mulliners of Hollywood. The Mulliner and Wickham stories have a little bite to them, but the Blandings section represents Wodehouse at his most shamelessly soothing...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Blandings Castle, by P.G. Wodehouse
Let's ease into 2015, shall we? In the interest of kicking off the new year with a little comfort reading, this week's Book Giveaway is Blandings Castle, a collection of non-Jeeves-and-Wooster short stories by P.G. Wodehouse. A full review will follow shortly, but here's a spoiler: it's Wodehouse at his most Wodehousian...
Holiday reading for all
Before we take off for the rest of the week, I've put together a short list of holiday-themed book recommendations for a variety of tastes. (Never say I'm not here for you, dear readers—this list covers the holiday mood from schmaltzy to murderous.) And another tip: if you need to visit a bookstore, don't go until about an hour before closing on Christmas Eve. Apart from a handful of relatively mellow dad-types wandering around—guys who do 100% of their Christmas shopping between...
Waterfall, by Lauren Kate
After reading Stacey Jay's latest novel, I decided it was time to give Lauren Kate another shot. I've complained about Kate's writing before, but Jay's book left me feeling hopeful. Contrary to some previously-held fears, YA writers can improve over time... but, alas, Kate does not seem to be one of them. Actually, I'm worried her books may be getting worse...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Waterfall, by Lauren Kate
This week we're giving away a copy of Lauren Kate's Waterfall, the sequel to last year's Teardrop, which we complained about at length here. A full review will follow later today, but (SPOILER) we didn't like Waterfall, either, so we strongly encourage our readers to enter this drawing and pick up this book for the only worthwhile price: free...
Shenanigans
Also on NPR: a thrilling account of a literary-award beatdown! (Not really.) Anyway, Australia's top book prize, the Prime Minister's Literary Award, was given out last week, and there were a pair of winners in the fiction category...
Rowling on TV
According to NPR, the BBC is planning to adapt two more of J.K. Rowling's novels for television: The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm. Rowling wrote both books under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, and...