Murderous yuppies
I don't understand why this book has so much longevity, but Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho lives again, this time in the form of a musical. According to THR, Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) will star as serial killer Patrick Bateman...
Devoted in Death, by J.D. Robb
Devoted in Death is the 41st installment of J.D. Robb's futuristic mystery/suspense “In Death” series, and—unsurprisingly—things are getting pretty damn stale. There are a couple of nice moments in this book, but 99% of it is the literary equivalent of a filler episode...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Devoted in Death, by J.D. Robb
This week's Book Giveaway is Devoted in Death, the most recent installment in J.D. Robb's looooong-running Eve Dallas series. A full review will follow later today, but thus far it's 40% entertaining, 60% torture porn. Not my favorite ratio...
Sci-fi smorgasbord
I'm not totally sure how this works, but the website StoryBundle is currently offering a Philip K. Dick Award Bundle, featuring 11 e-books by Philip K. Dick Award winners and finalists. The site runs on a pay-what-you-want basis, although if you go above $15 you also receive five bonus novels, including one by Wordcandy-approved author Sarah Zettel...
LOVE
As a person who makes 100% of her alcohol purchases based on attractive packaging*, these are right up my alley: Publishers Weekly informs me that Harlequin Books has released a line of inexpensive wines (chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, and red) called "Vintages by Harlequin"...
At least release the music
According to THR, the Park Avenue Armory recently featured a week-long "visual art, electro-pop, and contemporary dance" program called Tree of Codes, inspired by Jonathan Safran Foer's novel of the same name...
Not exactly burning questions
According to THR, J.K. Rowling has released yet another Harry Potter short story on Pottermore.com. This installment promises to explain more about "the history of the Potter family, including its origins in the 12th century" and...
Maybe a nice teen comedy?
According to io9, Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams is going to star in an upcoming film adaptation of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth, which we reviewed (not super enthusiastically) in 2009...
The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud
I absolutely loved The Screaming Staircase and The Whispering Skull, the first two installments in Jonathan Stroud's horror/adventure series Lockwood & Co. The third book in the series is more problematic than the first two...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud
This week we're giving away a copy of The Screaming Staircase, the first book in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Co. series. We reviewed this a couple of years ago...
Historical romances with routine bathing
There's an interesting article (with a terrible, misleading title) over on Jezebel: "The Regency Romance: How Jane Austen (Kinda) Created a New Subgenre". The article has less to do with Austen than Georgette Heyer...
Lovely
There's a site up for Scholastic's upcoming illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, featuring over 100 illustrations by Jim Kay. If the nine "Special Preview" images featured on the site are a good representative sample, this book might actually be worth the jaw-dropping $39.99 cover price...
How much will I regret this?
According to Koala's Playground, there's a fun-looking upcoming J-drama called 5-ji Kara 9-ji Made, based on the josei manga of the same name by Miki Aihara. I like the trailer, I like the main actress, I'm okay with the premise (an arranged marriage between a modern young teacher and a Buddhist monk), but...
Why bother?
The first trailer was released for Disney's upcoming live-action remake of The Jungle Book. It looks very... CGI. I can't believe there's really that much of a demand for this movie. I mean, if Disney is so hard up...
Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde
Like my beloved Ysabeau S. Wilce, Jasper Fforde has a gift: his endlessly inventive books feel coherent, even when his actual plots are totally nuts...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Shades of Grey, by Jasper FForde
This week's Book Giveaway is Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, which is not to be confused with any other shades-of-grey-related books. Instead, it's one of Fforde's trademark blends of fantasy, sci-fi, cultural commentary, and 100-proof weirdness, and I am quite looking forward to reading it. A full review will follow shortly...
Geek joy on tap
I need to go to this new Harry Potter-themed bar in Toronto, like, immediately. Sure, I don't drink alcohol, but I don't care. I will order whatever their themed version of a Designated Driver special is (and they better have one, damn it), and admire the decor...
Sad facts
SplitSider writer Priyanka Mattoo recently wrote a helpful explanatory article called "How Does a Book Get Optioned and Become a Movie?" If, like me, you don't really care about the how-to stuff for writers looking to sell their book(s) to Hollywood, skip to the paragraph that..
Sex, aliens, and videotape
And speaking of fantasy novels, io9 recently put together a great interview about the challenges (which range from "exciting" to, uh, "just plain challenging") facing the people attempting to adapt Octavia Butler’s novel Dawn into a TV show...
Silver Eve, by Sandra Waugh
Last year's Lark Rising was a delight—a dreamy, thoughtful classic fantasy novel aimed at middle- and high-school readers, with a complex heroine and compelling larger world. The novel wasn't perfect (it was too short to do full justice to the material, leaving large sections underdeveloped), but...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Silver Eve, by Sandra Waugh
This week's Book Giveaway is Sandra Waugh's Silver Eve, the sequel to last year's excellent Lark Rising. I'm still a little sad this book will shift the focus to a new heroine, but I'm hoping I'll like her just as well...
Devoted in Death, by J.D. Robb
Devoted in Death is the 41st installment of J.D. Robb's futuristic mystery/suspense “In Death” series, and—unsurprisingly—things are getting pretty damn stale. There are a couple of nice moments in this book, but 99% of it is the literary equivalent of a filler episode...
Ouch.
I've read some surprisingly positive reviews of Anthony Horowitz's new James Bond continuation, Trigger Mortis. Unfortunately (for him), most of the recent buzz around Horowitz...
Will I buy a ticket? Probably.
Funimation has released an English-language trailer for the live-action film adaptations of Attack on Titan, and I keep watching it, even though everything about this series grosses me out...
A recipe for success?
Chloë Grace Moretz continues her search for the teen literary franchise that will make her into a world-famous zillionaire. If I Stay was only a minor hit, but the recently-released trailer for The Fifth Wave looks like it's going for broke: a mixture of alien movies + survivalist adventure + doomed love triangle...
NOT. FAIR.
Huh. It seems there's going to not only be a Ready Player One movie (which: why? We already have two Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptations. Can't we just re-watch those?), but...
Congratulations
According to THR, today is the first day at Hogwarts for Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley's oldest son, James Sirius. J.K. Rowling announced via Twitter that he was sorted in Gryffindor...
Reawakened, by Colleen Houck
Several people have compared Colleen Houck's new novel Reawakened to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books. Both are aimed at younger teens, feature a mixture of human and demigod characters, and rely on a lot of PG-13 action sequences to push their plots along. Unfortunately, Reawakened doesn't share Riordan's greatest strength: his ability to create relatable characters, no matter how over-the-top their abilities or adventures...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Reawakened, by Colleen Houck
This week's Book Giveaway is Colleen Houck's novel Reawakened, the first novel in a "multibook series". (Note: this means I have no idea how long we'll have to wait for actual plot resolution. Sorry!) Reviewers keep favorably comparing Reawakened to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, so I'm excited. A full review will follow later today...