Weekly Book Giveaway: Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
In an effort to erase last week's disastrous choice from my brain, this week's Book Giveaway is a classic: Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. It's been entertaining readers for nearly 150 years; I'm hoping it will be enough to wipe The Darkest Torment from my "recently read" memory bank. A full review will follow shortly...
Maybe too specific?
Two Harry Potter + food articles in as many days! According to the Gothamist, there's a new Harry Potter-themed pasta restaurant in Williamsburg. It's tough to tell from the Pasta Wiz website, but the Potter connection looks a little tenuous...
Ch-ch-changes
International Business Times recently posted an article about the differences between Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale and Hulu's upcoming TV adaptation of the story. The article features some spoilers (obviously), but I'm glad I read it. I'm wrestling with the TV producers' decision to...
Their spelling is pretty terrible, though.
Refinery29 recently featured an article about the Llety Cynin bed-and-breakfast in South Wales, which is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by...
Financial hijinks
Well, this is hinky. According to Publishers Weekly, the once-popular online e-book retailer AllRomanceEbooks shut down operations at the end of December. Unfortunately, there's a lot of mystery surrounding the whys and wherefores of this shut down...
Sibling rivalry: classics edition
Classic book nerds take note: Samantha Ellis recently wrote an interesting article about Anne Brontë ("the sister who got there first") for the Guardian. While I've never read Agnes Grey, the novel Brontë wrote about her experiences as a governess, I have read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and enjoyed it more than either of Brontë's sisters' novels...
The Darkest Torment, by Gena Showalter
Gena Showalter's The Darkest Torment is the literary equivalent of a music video—flashy and evocative, but short on coherent plot. Admittedly, this is the twelfth installment in an ongoing series, so I didn't expect to grasp the minutiae of Showalter's world, but the standalone elements of this story (including the entire romantic story arc) didn't make much sense, either...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Darkest Torment, by Gena Showalter
It's been quite some time since we last reviewed a straight-up romance novel, so this week's Book Giveaway is Gena Showalter's The Darkest Torment. Apparently, and all appearances to the contrary, that dude on the cover isn't a professional surfer/part-time model, he's a demon! (Or something. The back cover is not 100% clear on this point.) A full review will follow shortly...
Judgy
Rachel Vorona Cote just posted an essay called "The Many Bad Moms of Charles Dickens" over on LitHub. It's an interesting read, although anyone who truly wants to wrap their heads around Charles Dickens's opinions on True Womanhood really owes it to themselves to read Phyllis Rose's Parallel Lives. Alternatively...
YAY!
Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter informed me that Netflix is planning to create its first original Korean drama. Based on a popular romantic-fantasy webtoon by Kye Young Chon called Love Alarm, the 12-episode series is set to debut in 2018...
Ugh times a million
I've been struggling to choose what makes me the angriest about Simon & Schuster's decision to pay Milo Yiannopoulos (editor of Breitbart Tech, alt-right pundit, and all-around racist asshole) what Yiannopoulos described as "a wheelbarrow full of money" for his upcoming book, Dangerous, and I think I've finally figured it out: it's Simon & Schuster's...
The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee
Barb and J.C. Hendee's new novel The Dead Seekers has a very specific target audience: people hoping for a serious take on movies like Van Helsing or Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Set in the same world as the Hendees' best-selling Noble Dead series, The Dead Seekers features a vaguely Eastern European setting, loads of ghosts, and two gloomy protagonists—Tris, an uptight ghost-slayer for hire, and Mari, a young woman determined to avenge her murdered family...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee
This week's Book Giveaway is The Dead Seekers, the first book in a new series by Barb and J.C. Hendee. The Dead Seekers is set in the same world as the authors' bestselling Noble Dead saga, but should (hopefully) work as a standalone. A full review will follow shortly...
Big budget
According to LaineyGossip, Julia Roberts has signed on to a TV adaptation of Maria Semple’s recent novel Today Will Be Different. Between this, that Reese Witherspoon show, and...
Shopping for Slackers: 2.0
Last year we posted a list called "Shopping for Slackers", aimed squarely at people who do most of their holiday shopping Christmas Eve. We actually stand by most of last year's picks, with a handful of updates, so we thought we would both link to the old list and post a couple of new ideas...
My birthday's coming up.
I was flipping through the artwork featured on the Creative Action Network's website, and in addition to many gorgeous images inspired by our national parks, their stable of artists have also produced some really great literary images. I'm particularly impressed by this Don Quixote print, but...
Holiday Housekeeping
A quick note to our readers: posting will be sporadic over the next two weeks. New material will appear... but when and how often is a mystery (even to us). So if you don't get a chance to stop by, please accept our best wishes for...
The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily is the sequel to 2010's Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. Once again, the authors flip between the two title characters' points of view, as Dash and Lily drift around New York at the holidays. A year into their relationship, the once-devoted couple is struggling on several fronts, but don't worry—in Cohn and Levithan's books, there are few problems that can't be fixed with an impossibly twee grand gesture...
Holiday Book Giveaway: The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily, by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
Today's Holiday Book Giveaway is David Levithan and Rachel Cohn's The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily, the sequel to 2010's Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, which we reviewed here. It's also the first book we've read all week that isn't about murder or mayhem...
Holiday Book Giveaway: Santa, Baby, by Jennifer Crusie and others
Today's Holiday Book Giveaway pick is the 2006 romantic short story collection Santa, Baby, which we originally reviewed here. The highlight of this collection was undoubtedly Jennifer Crusie's novella Hot Toy, which I see has recently been...
Envious Casca, by Georgette Heyer
If you find Georgette Heyer's best-known romance novels, to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen, rather too light and bright and sparkling, her mysteries are considerably nastier. Heyer had a gift for creating caustic, almost misanthropic characters, and nowhere is this displayed to better effect than in the pages of Envious Casca, her 1941 locked-room whodunit...
Holiday Book Giveaway: Envious Casca/The Christmas Party, by Georgette Heyer
Today's Book Giveaway is Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca, possibly my favorite country-house mystery of all time. Please note: Sourcebooks has recently reprinted this novel as A Christmas Party. I sympathize with any publisher's desire to get their hands on some of that sweet Christmas-book money (who doesn't want to read about murdering relatives during the holidays?), but...
Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays, by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon
Written by Onion alums Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon, Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays is an R-rated choose-your-own-adventure story that takes you through countless holiday misadventures, ranging from moderately gloomy to gross as hell. The set-up is simple: your family is out of town, and your relationship is too new for a shared Christmas, so...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays, by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon
Last week was devoted to our suggestions for stuff that we want for Christmas; this week we're thinking about others (occasionally, in between cookie breaks). Brace yourselves for five days of holiday-themed book giveaways, dear readers, beginning with Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon's Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays. A review will follow shortly...
Holiday Gift Pick #8
Gift Idea #8: Girls Next Door mugs
Okay, this one is both a little hard to explain and aimed squarely at the most hardcore nerds among us (me included; I already requested one of these for Christmas). French artist Rebecca Morse's webcomic Girls Next Door started life...
Holiday Gift Pick #7
Gift Idea #7: Pop Chart Lab's 100 Essential Novels Scratch-off Chart
I'm not a gambler, so I've never been able to experience the mysterious delights of scratch-off tickets. This gorgeous poster...
Holiday Gift Pick #6
Gift Idea #6: See America: A Celebration of Our National Parks & Treasured Sites
2016 is the centennial anniversary of the National Parks Service, In celebration, the artists at the Creative Action Network partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to create this book...
Holiday Gift Pick #5
Gift Idea #5: Uncle Goose Alphabet Blocks
Okay, this suggestion IS for little kids. Uncle Goose produces absolutely gorgeous, 100% made-in-America wooden blocks. Their classic ABC blocks are lovely, but they make a wide variety of...
Holiday Gift Pick #4
Gift Idea #4: Jason Porath's Rejected Princesses: Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics
Porath is a former professional animator, and his website Rejected Princesses is a fascinating, informative, and frequently genuinely moving read. This book tie-in features...
Holiday Gift Pick #3
Gift Idea #3: Mini Lumio Book Lamp
At $125, this is the most expensive item on this year's list, but it's just so cool. Here's the item description...