Olivia Twist?
How nice: according to THR, NBC is planning to transform Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist into a "Contemporary Female-Driven Procedural". I'm having some trouble picturing this (apparently, it's going to be "sexy"), but...
The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud
In The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in Jonathan Stroud's spine-tingling Lockwood and Co. series, the heroine has left her friends at the Lockwood and Co. ghost-hunting agency. Lucy is now a freelance Listener, hiring herself out to the big London agencies. But when her former teammates request her help with the ghost...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud
This week's Book Giveaway is Jonathan Stroud's The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in his delightfully creepy Lockwood & Co. series. Trust me, dear readers, this is pretty much the perfect way to kick off the fall season. Our review will follow shortly...
Updates
Next week will feature the release of Berkeley Breathed's The Bill the Cat Story: A Bloom County Epic (a picture book), and September 27th will see the release of Bloom County Episode XI: A New Hope (the first collection of the strips Breathed has been releasing on his Facebook page since 2015). As lifelong Bloom County fan, I...
Gun-slinging robots
A new trailer has been released for Westworld, HBO's remake of the 1973 sci-fi/western/horror film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton. This new version appears to shift the primary focus to a female character (played by Evan Rachel Wood), which...
Shh.
I am fascinated by the idea of this suggested writing class, proposed by Basecamp founder and CEO Jason Fried. I'd sign up to take it in a hot second...
Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire
After a two-book-long detour, the fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series brings the action back where it belongs: on ballroom-dancing, ass-kicking cryptozoologist Verity Price. In Chaos Choreography, Verity has set aside her dancing career in favor of full-time cryptozoology... but when she gets a call from the producers of the reality TV series Dance or Die, she decides...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire
This week's Book Giveaway is Seanan McGuire's Chaos Choreography, the fifth book in her InCryptid series. I am resigned to the hideous covers at this point, but I'm really hoping this book fixes McGuire's unfortunate habit of ending the books in this series on a damsel-in-distress note. A full review will follow shortly...
Out to lunch
We will be on vacation next week, and returning the day after Labor Day. See you on September 6th! Enjoy the dog days of summer, whether they be of the hotter-than-hell variety (as my brother is experiencing) or the "Welcome, fall!" version...
Clash of the Titans
Heh: Lainey Gossip informs me that Sean Penn and Mel Gibson are going to star in a movie adaptation of The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester’s book about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary...
I can promise a glowing review!
According to NPR, the mysterious, never-successfully-translated 15th-century document known as the Voynich Manuscript is going to be published in replica for the first time. Unfortunately, it's not the kind of publishing run that leads to them sending me a review copy...
No waiting!
THR has an update on the (possibly ill-advised) Anne of Green Gables remake. Apparently, Netflix has picked up the rights to the eight-hour-long miniseries, which hopefully means we'll be able to nitpick the entire thing all at once, rather than watching it over a matter of weeks on our local PBS affiliate...
Ew.
So, some dude is auctioning off Truman Capote's ashes, in case you're in the market for some truly creepy literary memorabilia. According to Vanity Fair, Julien’s Auctions has announced that Capote’s ashes will be sold in late September...
Remembrance, by Meg Cabot
Remembrance, the fifth and final book in Meg Cabot's 'Mediator' series, is her third attempt at transforming one of her YA series into a story for grown-ups. The end result is vintage Meg Cabot—brash, funny, and just a little bit lazy—but now with more swearing, violence, and sex...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Remembrance, by Meg Cabot
This week's Book Giveaway is Meg Cabot's Remembrance, the long-awaited final book in her (formerly YA) Mediator series. Based on Missing You, Cabot's first attempt at translating one of her teen series into a book for adults, I'm expecting a lot of humor and charm, plus wee bit of swearing and maybe a legit sex scene. A full review will follow shortly...
Harder to kill than a zombie
According to the Atlantic, J. K. Rowling's recent announcement that there would be no more Harry Potter stories after Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was by no means an indication that she was done with the Potter 'verse...
No theme parks, though
Publishers Weekly informs me that we can look forward to a new dinosaur-themed book by the late Michael Crichton. HarperCollins is planning to publish Dragon Teeth in May of 2017...
Heyer on the cheap
According to Dear Author, in celebration of Georgette Heyer’s 114th birthday on August 16th, all of Heyer’s books will be dropped to $2.99 across e-retailers...
Sign me up
The full trailer for Arrival, the upcoming movie adaptation of Ted Chiang’s 1998 short story “Story Of Your Life” is out, and it looks awesome. People frequently talk about Amy Adams's long history as an Oscars also-ran...
Bat country
According to Jezebel, Hunter S. Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, has returned the elk antlers that her husband once "secretly stole" from Ernest Hemingway’s home in Ketchum, Idaho. I guess that's a nice gesture and all (although both men are dead, but whatever), but...
Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black
J. Patrick Black's novel Ninth City Burning features half a dozen point-of-view characters, ambitious world-building, and a sprawling intergalactic-warfare-meets-dystopian-future plot premise. I applaud the author's sheer guts, but the end result is more than a little overwhelming...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black
This week's Book Giveaway is J. Patrick Black's Ninth City Burning, which I know absolutely nothing about, apart from the fact that I approve of the person they chose to write a promotional blurb (Patricia Briggs) and I really like the cover art. Our review will follow shortly...
SO COOL.
According to the Independent, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a probable Dark Ages royal palace at Tintagel in Cornwall, which might (emphasis on the "might") have a connection to the legendary figure of King Arthur. According to medieval historians, Arthur was...
How?
According to Deadline, Sony-based TriStar Pictures is attempting to continue the current run of Chronicles of Narnia movie adaptations. This seems like a risky proposition—Disney passed on the rest of the series after 2005’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and 2008’s Prince Caspian, and Fox 2000 dropped it...
YAY!
How did I miss this? Bone creator Jeff Smith just released Bone: Coda, a new and "completely superfluous" adventure featuring the Bone cousins. The standalone story, written and illustrated by Smith, was produced in honor of the 25th anniversary of the first issue of the (at the time) black-and-white, self-published comic...
Not the same thing.
In honor of the 56th birthday of Dr. Seuss's classic children's book Green Eggs and Ham, NPR just published an article about various restaurants' attempts to put the title dish on their menus. All of the featured recipes look very wholesome and impressive, but I feel like they're punting on a pretty critical issue...
Useful for someone, I guess.
Last week, Vulture helpfully compiled a list of Book-to-Film Adaptations Still to Come in 2016. There is nothing on this list I would willingly shell out $10.50 for, but fans of inspiring (read: tear-jerking) nonfiction...
The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's novel The House of Shattered Wings looks like a standard fantasy novel, but has more in common with The Godfather than your typical sword-and-sorcery adventure. In an alternative universe/post-apocalyptic version of 20th century Paris, fallen angels periodically drop from the sky, stricken with amnesia but chock-full of magic. Those who survive Paris's magic-hunting street gangs usually join one of the Great Houses, mafia-like organizations...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette De Bodard
This week's Book Giveaway is Aliette De Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings, which I had assumed—incorrectly, apparently—was a YA supernatural romance. (Probably one involving fallen angels.) It seems it's actually an award-winning sci-fi novel for adults, which I'm actually a lot more excited...
Don't count this one out
Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley has signed on to star in an upcoming movie adaptation of Patrick Hess's YA series Chaos Rising, according to Variety. There's been a lot of talk about the abrupt downturn in YA film attendance, but...