I miss you, bookstores
One of the things I have missed most during the pandemic has been my life-long habit of going into bookstores and looking for pretty new editions of classic books. My local bookstore offers a drive-through window, so I can easily order specific editions in safety, but it's not like I get a press release from the estates of long-dead authors telling me about specific reprints. (ALTHOUGH THAT WOULD BE NICE.) So...
Never forget
I have mostly ignored news about the upcoming Percy Jackson TV series, because the original movie adaptation was so terrible that it's still tainting my memories of the entire series, even a decade-plus later...
Amazing (but also pricey)
Okay, it costs more than a car payment, but I absolutely want this: it's the Beehive books version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. They have divided up the text into "an actual physical research dossier full of ephemera, correspondence, and...
Please please please
Oh, thank the TV Gods: the first reviews of Netflix's adaptation of my beloved Lockwood & Co. are coming in, and they're (mostly) positive: check here, here, and...
First world problems
I am not normally in the business of reviewing puzzles, but I recently received one of Laurence King Publishing's 1000-piece "The World of Jane Austen" puzzles for my birthday, and I HAVE SOME NOTES. (Incoherent notes, because I don't actually know puzzle terminology, but notes nonetheless!!!) Let me start with the positives: the artwork is adorable, and I love that...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, by Henry Fielding
This week's Book Giveaway is Henry Fielding's 1749 comedic novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. I'll be posting a review as soon as I finish reading it, but while I am a fast reader, this sucker clocks in at nearly 900 pages of small font, so, uh... please do not hold your breath.
Super cool (also free)
As of yesterday, the original manuscript for Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables is now publicly available online. The physical manuscript continues to be housed in a climate-controlled archive at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, but fans of the novel...
Sign me up
Ooh, I see PBS is hoping to take Masterpiece in an edgier direction with an upcoming adaptation of Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. If you haven't read Tom Jones, imagine an 18th century telenovela, complete with birth secrets...
I like the font, at least
Well, it's finally happening: Judy Blume's 1970 awkward-teen-girl classic Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is being made into a movie. The trailer looks good (in a painfully embarrassing way, but that's due to the source material), so...
Doesn't he have a real job?
Boris Johnson has apparently signed a hefty deal with HarperCollins to write a memoir about his time as Prime Minister of the UK. According to a friend of Johnson, the book will be "an important exercise in rescuing his reputation", so I'm interpreting that to mean it will be...
Yikes
I still haven't read a Colleen Hoover book, but have kept her novels on my mental list of stories to check out if I run across one in a Little Free Library. (The descriptions of her books really don't sound like my thing, but I'm willing to give them a chance... as long as they're free.) However, her recent attempt at producing a coloring book tie-in...
January perfection
January 12th is National Hot Tea Day, apparently, which makes it the ideal time to break out this P.G. Wodehouse quote (from The Code of the Woosters:
"The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs...
This is gonna be a busy TV week
Paramount Plus just dropped a trailer for their upcoming series Wolf Pack, based on the book series of the same name by Edo Van Belkom, and I am stoked. Sarah Michelle Gellar + werewolves + angsty, 24-year-old "teenagers"? Is it my...
Financial hijinks
There's a juicy article in The New Yorker about the recent sale (or... attempted sale?) of an English country house that once belonged to Evelyn Waugh. Waugh was not apparently a fan of the house himself (it was a gift from his in-laws), but...
Covetable
Another thing to request for my birthday: last year, Chronicle Books released The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen, and I want it. (Actually, I want many framed prints of the Provensens' work, but they're pretty pricey, so...
Mark your calendars
BookTrust recently compiled a helpful list of some of the many book-to-screen adaptations of kid books coming our way in 2023. I am, of course, most excited about Lockwood & Co. (although that comes burdened the weight of So Many Expectations), but...
The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray
I have read a lot of Jane Austen fanfiction, ranging from free stories on websites like AAO3 to published, high-profile efforts by well-known authors (those end up with fancier descriptors like “literary pastiche”, but whatever—they're totally fanfic). Claudia Gray's The Murder of Mr. Wickham is...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray
This week's Book Giveaway is Claudia Gray's Jane Austen-by-way-of-Agatha-Christie novel The Murder of Mr. Wickham. A full review will follow shortly, but here's my instant take: Ms. Gray is a successful author of Star Wars novels, and she knows what makes a good fanfiction work...
Waaay behind the scenes
As a staunch anti-monarchist (throw 'em all out; make them ALL sell their sob stories to Oprah), I am not the target audience for Harry Windsor's new memoir. I am, however, always in the market for obscure literary gossip, so I richly enjoyed this article on...
So many Nicolases
Well, Nicolas Cage might have repaid that infamous $6 million tax bill, but that's no reason for him to stop churning out insane movies. This time he's joined by another Nicolas (Hoult, in this case, who's really carving out a niche for himself in playing handsome weirdos) in a modern-day film about Renfield, Dracula's bug-eating henchman...
Finally
This past Sunday was 2023's Public Domain Day, which marked the end of US copyrights on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s last few Sherlock Holmes stories (also Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, but that's unlikely to make as much of a pop-culture-freebie splash). If you're attracted to falling down legal or literary nerd wormholes, I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article...
But why, though?
I am fond of reading all those January articles about cleaning and organization, but I just encountered a bewildering article on Well + Good on how and when we should be disinfecting old/used books. I have so many questions! Did they really need to tell us that...
Buy it for YOURSELF
If you received some gift cards over the holidays that are burning a hole in your pocket, allow me to recommend this extremely cute Bibliophile Vase from Chronicle Books. It's $29.95 and...
How do you hang them up, though?
I am not usually a fan of using books for anything other than reading material, but I am making an exception for the works of Alexander Korzer-Robinson, a UK-based artist who transforms old books into sculptural collages...
Aspirational self-gifting
We're just a few short days away from one of my favorite times of year: the time when I get to be shamelessly self-indulgent with the various Amazon gift cards my nearest and dearest always give me for the holidays. The first item on my to-be-purchased list is Emillie Farris's..
Dry January supplies
If you know anyone who's planning to participate in Dry January—or you're just looking for a festive New Year's Eve libation that won't leave you starting off 2023 with a hangover and regrets—I enthusiastically recommend picking up a copy of Julia Bainbridge's book Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You're Not Drinking for Whatever Reason...
Flowers in the Attic... but with witches
Earlier this month AMC released a trailer for their upcoming adaptation of Anne Rice's The Mayfair Witches series. It's been a long time since I read those books, and the series looks very glossy and well-cast and all, but...
Lockwood & Co. on TV
For fellow fans of my beloved Lockwood & Co. series, I'm assuming we're all counting down the days until the upcoming TV series, which will be released at the end of January. I'm still irritated with the teaser trailer...
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, Vol. 1, by Drew Weing
If you are shopping for any middle-grade readers this year, I highly recommend the collected volumes of Drew Weing's webtoon The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo. It boasts all the joys of an 80s kids movie (distracted parents! loads of adventure! legit brushes with danger!), but—thanks to being a comic—no worries about cheesy special effects or wooden acting...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, Vol. 1, by Drew Weing
Our current Book Giveaway is the first collected volume of Drew Weing's excellent middle-grade webcomic The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo. I sent a copy of this to some 10-year old cousins, but first I read it aloud to my preschool-age kid (with some light editing) and my retirement-age mother, both of whom listened with interest, so suffice to say it appeals to a wide variety of ages. A full review will follow shortly...