Posts tagged with such-wrongness
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...
What a charmer
Okay, this is definitely one of those "laugh so you don't start crying" things, but if you're looking for a (possibly microscopic) silver lining to Boris Johnson becoming the British Prime Minister, at least we're getting to enjoy this delightfully scathing review of Johnson's "novel" Seventy-Two Virgins...
Grooooooss
How is there still demand for this? HOW? There is going to be another round of Lifetime movies inspired by V.C. Andrews books. This time it's the Casteel series, and the trailer looks like the filmmakers were working with a clear checklist...
BOOOO
Tea and literature are two of my favorite subjects, so I opened this recent NPR article expecting nothing but joy... only to discover a horrifying announcement about a link between hot tea and esophageal cancer...
Not a Good Look
According to The Guardian, Catholic priests in Poland were photographed holding a book-burning ceremony of titles that "promote sorcery", including J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. Two things: A) if the Harry Potter books successfully promoted sorcery, we'd have lost an entire generation to Hogwarts by now, and...
Right show, wrong network
The New York Times recently took a look at the unexpected success of Netflix's You, based upon Caroline Kepnes's novel of the same name. I keep hearing the show described as a "Netflix Original" (it's right there on the cover!), but...
Excellent (if depressing) work
The #MeToo movement has made investigative journalists out of some unexpected sources, Eater NY among them: the culinary news site recently posted an in-depth look at the accusations facing celebrity chef Mario Batali. (It is a follow-up piece to an earlier article on the subject that they posted in December.) Eater should be proud...
Boooo
Another day, another depressing Stan Lee-related lawsuit. According to the BBC, Lee is suing Pow! Entertainment, the entertainment company he co-founded, for one billion dollars, alleging that...
Hard pass
Is this... a real book? More importantly, did Sean Penn get a real advance for it? This review suggests it is a real book (and that it's horrible), but I don't want to accept it. In a world where it took Madeleine L'Engle at least 27 tries to find a publisher for A Wrinkle in Time, this...
Painful
Ouch: a bookstore in Bangor, Maine, suffered a massive loss recently when a water main burst near the building, seeping into the basement and destroying a number of rare books. The damage included dozens of first- and limited-edition Stephen King books, as well as...
No, no, no
The trailer is out for the upcoming miniseries adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and it looks perfectly miserable. I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch this, but I guess it's targeted at people who just can't get enough of Cumberbatch playing insufferable rich characters...
Hug a librarian
The Guardian recently posted an article about an open letter to the UK's Education Secretary, written by a bunch of literary bigwigs (Neil Gaiman, Antonia Fraser, and Philip Pullman, among others). The letter was written to protest the decline in support for school libraries...
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...
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...
Ouch.
Whoa: an elementary school librarian named Liz Phipps Soeiro just published an open letter to Melania Trump, responding to Trump's gift of ten Dr. Seuss books. The tone of the letter is civil, and many (though not all) of the author's criticisms are valid, but... but... I just can't get behind responding to a gift with a condescending explanation of where the gift-giver went wrong...
Yeah, but... (Part II)
There's been an update on the recent literary scandal surrounding the publication of Lani Sarem's Handbook For Mortals, which recently rocketed to the top of the YA bestseller lists via some seemingly questionable sales practices. While...
Phony: Part II
The Guardian recently posted an update to the fascinating John Smelcer story, which we wrote about last week. It seems that the overwhelming pile of evidence suggesting that Mr. Smelcer is 100% full of garbage...
Phony
Okay, this article is great, and I strongly encourage you to go read the entire thing yourself. It's an investigation into the many alleged lies of an author named John Smelcer. It seems that Smelcer, who has been nominated for awards and given jobs based on his Alaskan Native ethnic heritage, might not be Native after all...
Absolutely ridiculous
We might have been consistently underwhelmed by V.E. Schwab's Shades of Magic series, but nobody deserves this kind of nonsense: according to the...
Pre-goatee
The trailer is out for Will, an upcoming TNT series about a young, "sexy" William Shakespeare in 1589, after his arrival in London (and, it must be noted, well after his marriage to Anne Hathaway). It appears to be pretty much 100% anachronisms...
Still ew.
The fine people at Pajiba have identified the main problem with that KFC/Colonel Sanders-themed romance novel we mentioned a few weeks ago: it's that the book has no sex in it...
You get what you pay for
Well, this is nice of them: Kentucky Fried Chicken has written a romance novella featuring Colonel Sanders, and made it available as a free digital download. According to CNN Money, "Tender Wings of Desire tells the story of 'rebellious Lady Madeline Parker,' who falls for Harland Sanders, 'a handsome sailor with a mysterious past...
Maybe on DVD?
The first trailer is out for the updated version of Stephen King's IT, and, surprise! it looks scary. I'm not sure how much of a difference modern special effects will make in this story, but I am hoping that the director and screenwriter have a really brilliant idea for coping with...
I'm pretty sure you're fine judging this book by its cover.
Wow. I suspect that this cheesy-looking romance novel from the Philippines is hardly the skeeviest thing out there featuring Justin Bieber...
The more you know
NPR recently posted great article about the Merriam-Webster twitter feed, which has been sharing a lot of pointed political definitions recently. Frankly, I don't think the new president cares much about expanding his vocabulary...
Doublespeak
So... according to the Guardian, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four recently became the 6th best-selling book on Amazon...
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...
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...