This does not seem like a good use of funds.
If you're a hardcore James Bond fan with £2.75 million to spare and space in your garage, Aston Martin has announced the details of their limited run of 1964 DB5s, inspired by the one Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger. The cars will include...
It's her one big scene!
As longtime readers of the site know, I frequently find Neil Gaiman a little tough to take, but I'm happy to see that he held out for an important element of the upcoming Good Omens adaptation: the death scene of Agnes Nutter, which was written by co-author Terry Pratchett...
SCARY
The trailer is out for We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the upcoming adaptation of Shirley Jackson's horror/suspense novel of the same name. I tend to get this title confused with Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle...
Time to match some funds
There has been another twist in the saga of this particular copy of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, which belonged to the judge who presided over the book's 1960 obscenity trial: while the book was sold at auction last fall for £56,250, the UK government has blocked its release...
The Plotters, by Un-Su Kim
I am a big fan of the John Wick movies. They're stylish, they're fast-paced, and the violence is so over-the-top it is essentially meaningless. It's like a ballet about a bloodbath. Sadly (for my movie-watching plans, not for the rest of my life), I have a one-year-old baby, so my chances of seeing John Wick 3 are pretty remote right now, but the fine people at Doubleday sent me a copy of Un-Su Kim's The Plotters, which checks a lot of the same boxes...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Plotters, by Un-su Kim
This week's Book Giveaway is The Plotters, an action-and-suspense thriller that is as far from this as humanly possible, while still being shelved in roughly the same section. A full review will follow shortly...
READ TO YOUR KIDS.
There is a great article on WHYY about "Reach Out and Read", a program that hands out free books to parents of young children at well-child checkups, starting at six months of age...
That will be a big HELL NO.
Okay, even the trailer for IT: Chapter Two was waaaay too creepifying for me, so I will be skipping this movie. If I can't handle mediocre child actors looking scared...
A little adjustment
HAH: according the Huffington Post, Tony Schwartz (the man who ghost-wrote Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal) recently suggested that Random House either take the book out of print...
Boo, but also yay?
I was originally bummed to see an announcement on The Wrap that Disney was pushing back their Artemis Fowl movie update by nearly a year. But while I'm sorry to have to wait, a May release...
When a Duchess Says I Do, by Grace Burrowes
It's been several months since my last attempt at finding a new-to-me historical romance novelist whose work I actually like, so once again I'm choosing an author at random off a bookstore shelf. Sure, Grace Burrowes's When a Duchess Says I Do is covered in glowing testimonials from her fellow writers, but I've been misled before...
Weekly Book Giveaway: When a Duchess Says I Do, by Grace Burrowes
Our latest Book Giveaway is When a Duchess Says I Do, the second book in Grace Burrowes's Rogues to Riches series. A full review will follow shortly, and this giveaway will run through 5/15/19...
Printing money
Sick of Game of Thrones getting all that sweet, sweet merchandising tie-in money, Vans has just announced a Harry Potter-themed line of sneakers. Details are non-existent, but they seem to be modeled after the Hogwarts houses...
Promising combo
According to Tor.com, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (the duo behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End) are adapting Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series for TV...
Solid suggestions from a guy who knows
There's a great tip buried in this New York Times interview with James Holzhauer, the dude who has been busily cleaning up on Jeopardy! during the past few weeks...
Very cute
The official trailer is out for Lifetime's Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta, and it looks good—way less obnoxious than, say, this offering from the Hallmark Channel. I'm standing by what I said, though: this...
The Casket of Time, by Andri Snaer Magnason
More books are published in Iceland per capita than anywhere else in the world. A disproportionate number seem to be indistinguishable gloomy thrillers, but a few stand out. Admittedly, Andri Snaer Magnason's The Casket of Time is both thrilling and frequently gloomy, but in an impressively idiosyncratic way...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Casket of Time, by Andri Snaer Magnason
Our latest Book Giveaway is The Casket of Time, written by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason and translated by Björg Árnadóttir and Andrew Cauthery. A full review will follow shortly, but the cover art offers an excellent sense of the contents: 70% prettily imaginative, 30% creepy. This giveaway will run through 5/15/19...
More lost books
If you're in the market for more reflections upon violent misery, the BBC is reporting that a previously unseen manuscript for a sequel to Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange has been unearthed in his archive...
Unlooked-for treasures
There's a fascinating article on NPR about a lost book: the Libro de los Epítomes, a catalog of the massive library of Hernando Colón, Christopher Columbus's illegitimate son. It's a massive book—2000 pages—designed to help a user find books in Colon's collection...
Mourning
After the April 15th fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (in French, Notre-Dame de Paris) has leapt to the top of France’s online bestseller list. According to...
The Mystery Knight, by George R. R. Martin
With all the hype and thinkpieces and merchandising tie-ins, I sometimes wonder if I should be watching Game of Thrones, even though I have thoroughly disliked the bits of the books that I've read and I can't stomach depictions of sexual violence. Still, the fan reaction to the show is so enthusiastic and thoughtful that I almost caved—but then I was sent a copy of The Mystery Knight, and it was a helpful reminder of why I've bowed out...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Mystery Knight, by George R.R. Martin
This week's Book Giveaway is The Mystery Knight, a graphic novel adaptation of one of the Dunk and Egg novellas from George R. R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. (It's a distant prequel to the events in Game of Thrones.) A full review will follow shortly, and this giveaway will run through 5/15/19...
There's a hair/heir pun here somewhere...
Man, I gotta start watching Antiques Roadshow. It sounds exciting: according to Jezebel, a recent episode featured a woman who found a ring in her recently-deceased father-in-law’s attic, locked inside a "mysterious-looking" box. The ring was inscribed with Charlotte Bronte's name...
Ouch.
Remember when I was surprised by the intensely negative fan reaction to the Hellboy trailer? Well, if this Tor review is accurate, the trailer did what it was supposed to do...
Impressive
There was a staggering article published on Mental Floss about how important it is for parents to read out loud to their children. According to a recent study...
NO THANK YOU
If you are a braver person than I am, feel free to check out the teaser trailer for Guillermo del Toro's upcoming film adaptation of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark...
The Talisman Ring, by Georgette Heyer
First published in 1936, Georgette Heyer's The Talisman Ring is a story built around a MacGuffin, with a theatrical setting and a highly mannered cast of characters. It's a tribute to the author's skill that she manages to transform such a slight, silly confection of a story into one of her most endearing books...