Seems like a solid pick
There's an interview over on Slate with Lin-Manuel Miranda about his next big project: adapting Patrick Rothfuss's epic fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicles into a TV show for Showtime...
Sure...?
I know The New York Times is infamous for their out-of-touch "trend" stories, but I'm going to have to take their word on this: according to the paper, Arnold Lobel's classic 'Frog and Toad' stories have become a popular meme. I'm...
Ouch
Bon Appétit magazine recently posted a great review of France Is a Feast, a new book of Paul Child’s personal photographs taken between 1948 and 1954, when he and his wife, the famous Julia Child, were living in Paris and Julia was mastering the art of cooking French food...
Sad that I can't hear her thoughts on the Trump casino, though.
I had wondered if the controversy surrounding Go Set a Watchman would cast a shadow over Harper Lee's legacy, but it appears she's still a money-maker, at least: a collection of her letters recently fetched more than $12,000 at auction...
Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero
Edgar Cantero's novel Meddling Kids is clever, creative, and funny. It is also profoundly self-indulgent and only occasionally creepy. Individual readers' mileage will vary, based on their tolerance for pointless stylistic quirks and their love for the book's many pop-culture sources...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero
This week's Book Giveaway is Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids, which has a great cover and an even greater hook: it's being sold as a subverted, grown-up version of works like Scooby-Do, The Hardy Boys, and Enid Blyton's "Famous Five" series. I have no idea how well that combination will actually work, but it sounds like my idea of note-perfect Halloween reading. A full review will follow shortly...
Envious
Man, every time I read about a cute-sounding Korean webtoon, a fresh wave of resentment rolls over me. I hate missing out on fun stuff, and I have a strong suspicion that my inability to read Korean is holding me back from a lot of Wordcandy-friendly stories...
I can hold myself back.
Great news, guys: you can now read Stephen Hawking's 1966 Ph.D. thesis! For free! And people were so excited by this news (or optimistic about their own ability to understand a 134-page-long paper on "“Properties of Expanding Universes”) that...
This woman's accomplishments merited a BIG tombstone.
I was listening to The Writer's Almanac today, and Garrison Keillor's soothing voice introduced me to the wonder that was Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor and poet who is widely credited with successfully campaigning to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Hale was also a major force behind...
Tell me more
Yesterday, someone on Jezebel posted a loving tribute to the 1946 film Dragonwyck, which I had never heard of but now need to watch immediately. The movie is based on a book by Anya Seton, and the plot sounds like it will be familiar to anyone who has ever read a gothic novel, but...
The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's The House of Binding Thorns is the sequel to last year's The House of Shattered Wings, a book I described as “more The Godfather than... sword-and-sorcery adventure”. In this installment, a handful of characters from the first book are still struggling to survive the mafioso-style wars between the various Houses of Paris...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard
This week's Book Giveaway is Aliette de Bodard's The House of Binding Thorns, the sequel to last year's The House of Shattered Wings. My review of the first book in this series was not unequivocally positive, but I am still intrigued by de Bodard's premise, and that cover art feels like an A+++ choice for the week before Halloween...
I think not.
Just what the world needs: more grim Scandinavian horror! The trailer is out for the Icelandic film I Remember You. The movie is based on a best-selling ghost story of the same name by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, described as "The Queen of Icelandic Crime"...
SO. AMAZING.
Adding to my ever-growing list of things I wish I could fly to England to see, the British Library's insanely awesome-sounding Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit is about to open. (The exhibit will run from the 20th of this month until the 28th of February, 2018...
Reworked, again
According to Deadline, the Nancy Drew TV series that failed to find a home last season has been put into development this year for NBC, albeit with a slightly altered premise. This version will apparently be a lot different from the books...
Terrifying but handy?
For those of us who are obsessing over President Trump's tweets about North Korea, Politico recently posted an article about T. R. Fehrenbach’s 1963 book This Kind of War. Apparently, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is a big fan of the book, and has been relying upon it to develop the US's military strategy...
Sneaking a peek at The Book of Dust
NPR recently posted an "exclusive first read" excerpt from Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, due out this week. I don't think this book is going to have any problems selling, but if you're still angry over the way the His Dark Materials trilogy ended...
Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
New comic series Misfit City sets out to recapture the oddball charms of 80s kids' adventure movies (specifically, The Goonies), but my favorite thing about this story is the way it depicts living in a real town that's best known as a nostalgia-driven tourist trap...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
Our latest Book Giveaway is the first two issues of Misfit City, a new comic series written by Kirsten "Kiwi" Smith and Kurt Lustgarten. The story features a lot of tributes to classic 80s kids' movies (particularly The Goonies), so if you're a fan of the kind of film that, looking back, you cannot believe was ever marketed to children, congratulations: you're in luck...
So jealous.
According to the Southwark News, the Dulwich Picture Gallery will be showing the first major UK retrospective of work by Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomin books. While she is regarded as one of the most iconic illustrators of the 20th century, Jansson's non-Moomin-work is rarely shown...
The Tell-Tale Heart (plus corn)
Here's the trailer for (yet another) Stephen King movie adaptation, in case you were longing for more. The movie is based on King's novella 1922, and is currently available to stream on Netflix. I haven't read the short story, but...
A little cheesy, but...
I checked out the first episode of Deadly Manners, a new 10-episode podcast that features a big-name cast (including LEVAR BURTON!!!) doing a radio-drama take on a vintage-style mystery. The concept is great, although I'm not 100% sold on their execution—there's too much variation in the quality of the voice acting, and...
I want it.
And speaking of cool visuals, check out this extraordinary Instagram video of an edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. If the video is to be believed, Bradbury's text only appears when the reader applies heat to the page. I have absolutely no idea how this book works...
Wasteful
The Seattle Repertory Theatre is currently running a theatrical adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The local paper recently posted a lukewarm review that killed any desire I had to see the play, but I still wanted to...
Immortally Yours, by Lynsay Sands
It's been years since I've read one of Lynsay Sands's vampire romance novels, but they have always stood out in my mind: in her long-running Argeneau series, vampires are not the result of dark magic or whatever, but rather the products of blood-powered nanotechnology first developed in Lost Atlantis. The quality of her individual installments might vary, but Sands gets all the gold stars for coming up with such a delightfully weird premise...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Immortally Yours, by Lynsay Sands
Keeping up with our Halloween theme, our current Book Giveaway is Lynsay Sands's latest Argeneau novel Immortally Yours. I'm not sure what installment this is (possibly #18,567), but Sands is a reliably fun writer, so my hopes are high. A full review will follow shortly...
Cookie decorating not for beginners
The Kitchn just posted a list of 18 Harry Potter-inspired Halloween recipes. I can resist most of these ideas (they're very heavy on pumpkin and butterscotch flavors, neither of which are my favorite), but I am in love with the Weasley Sweater cookies idea...
Maybe on TV?
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's Crooked House. It has a great cast and the sets look amazing, but if you haven't read the book, be warned: Crooked House is one of Christie's most...
Promo-worthy
I rarely use the website Thread Reader, but occasionally it's super useful. I was fascinated by this thread (by nonfiction author Jason Fagone) about Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a Shakespearean scholar-turned-codebreaker who spent decades working on some of the most complicated codes of the 20th century...