Things Aren't Looking Good For Blindness

Posted on September 30th, 2008 in From Page to Screen by Gerry

Critical reaction to Fernando (Constant Gardener) Meirelles’s adaptation of Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness (Harcourt TP 9780156035583 $15.00) has been fairly tepid since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last Spring.

This week, The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane takes a swing at the film and declares “it’s so preoccupied with shouldering this symbolic weight that it gradually forgets to tell a story—to keep faith with the directives of common sense”. Ouch!

Blindness will be released this Friday, so I guess we can judge for ourselves.

Also being released this Friday are adaptations of Ncik & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Toby Young’s How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, starring Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz.

Deathly Hallows Paperback Due July 7, 2009

Posted on September 29th, 2008 in Children's Books by Gerry

Why wait? Start backordering now!

So Long & Thanks For All The Sequels

Posted on September 26th, 2008 in Book News by Gerry

I don’t know how I missed this the other day, but it looks like Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer has been tapped to write a new sequel to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

All Things Considered has the story here.

Personally, I never really made it past the first book, so I can’t summon any outrage over this development.

I’m more upset that Adams never finished a third Dirk Gently novel despite many promises to do so.

Summer Blockbusters Centuries In The Making

Posted on September 26th, 2008 in Book News, Uncategorized & Demented by Gerry

Christopher Campbell over at SpoutBlog posits 10 Literary Classics to Turn Into Summer Blockbusters.

It’s a fascinating list, but I have to wonder, does anybody read Scaramouche anymore?

I think Campbell should follow this up with a list of ten literary classics that should never be made into summer blockbusters, or even adapted in the first place.

Peak Oil Dystopias Aren't Just For Mad Max Anymore

Posted on September 25th, 2008 in Children's Books by Gerry

According to io9, Little Brown has just scooped a YA novel of peak oil catastrophe called Ship Breaker, which, according to its author, Paolo Bacigalupi, features a few of his favorite things including “global warming, peak oil, genetic engineering, poverty and collapsed societies”.

Maybe they can throw in a vampire and watch sales really take off.

Neil Gaiman's Magical Misery Tour

Posted on September 25th, 2008 in Book News, Children's Books by Gerry

According to Jacket Copy, Neil Gaiman’s tour to promote his newest Graveyard Book (Harpercollins HC 9780060530921 $17.99) will approach the book tour with a unique twist, reading each chapter separately at each stop.

Fans who are unable to follow Gaiman Grateful Dead style can watch each chapter being read online after it happens.

The tour will start on September 30th, the day the book is due in stores.

With Apologies To Any Republican Readers

Posted on September 25th, 2008 in Uncategorized & Demented by Gerry

But I just couldn’t resist this. (via the Fantagraphics Blog)

The parody (above) and the original

Two Noteworthy Articles Courtesy Of Salon

Posted on September 24th, 2008 in Book News by Gerry

Salon has posted two interesting book articles in as many days.

On Tuesday, the first of what promises to be a series of weekly fiction recommendations, Laura Miller sings the praises of Kate Atkinson’s latest detective thriller When Will There Be Good News (LB HC 9780316154857 $24.99).

It’s a tidy review, devoid of pretension and fifty-cent worlds like limn, but full of enthusiasm.

Today, the site features a more extensive review, this time on Chuck Klosterman’s debut novel Downtown Owl (Scribner HC 9781416544180 $24.00). The review here is a tad more skeptical, but nonetheless filled with good things to say about Klosterman’s first foray into fiction.

From Page To Screen: The St. Anna Choke Edition

Posted on September 23rd, 2008 in From Page to Screen by Gerry

Two high-profile film adaptations are being released this weekend.

First there is local favorite Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke (Anchor TP 9780307388926 $14.95), the film of which stars Sam Rockwell as a Colonial re-creationist, who is also a sex-crazed med student who pretends to choke in public to gain sympathy and a few bucks. It’s as crazy as it sounds, but the question will be if the film is as transgressively funny as the book. The trailers give me some hope.

Also, there is Spike Lee’s adaptation of James McBride’s The Miracle of St. Anna (Riverhead TP 9781594483608 $15.00), which chronicles a division of Buffalo Soldiers in Italy during WW II. It may be the material that Spike has been waiting a long time for, giving him an enormous canvas with which to illustrate his views on race relations, but within a larger context.

Finally, A Book Exclusive That Doesn't Involve Amazon

Posted on September 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized & Demented by Gerry

The friendly neighborhood geeks at io9 pointed me towards this: it’s a coffee table book given to the cast and crew of the television series Battlestar Galactica as they wrapped filming on their fourth and final season. It features everything from behind the scenes photos to conceptual drawings. It even has the show’s trademark ‘cut-corner’ look.

And only the cast and crew have copies of this book, unless one magically winds up on eBay.

Follow this link to get a glimpse at every fanboy’s dream.

As an aside, I have to admit that I’m really surprised that some enterprising publisher hasn’t attempted to print books using BSG’s ‘cut-corner’ aesthetic.

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