Over at The Quietus, they are featuring a slide show of Cinema’s Most Adventurous Book Adaptations, using the recent film of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke as their springboard.

I can agree on a few of them: Kubrick’s Lolita, no doubt about it, Cronenberg’s double-shot of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (above) and Ballard’s Crash, you bet.

But Toby Young’s How To Lose Friends and Alienate People? That wasn’t a particularly challenging narrative.

And, to be sure, there are tons of other films that could have made this list, like Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Tristram Shandy, or The Orchid Thief (released as Adaptation), or Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.

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Erstwhile San Francisco Chronicle book editor Pat Holt began Holt Uncensored as an email newsletter back in 1998, long before the term blog entered the vernacular. She covered the publishing industry with a hearty mix of opinion, insight and brio.

Around the time her partner Terry Ryan’s memoir The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio was being published and adapted for the screen, her emails began to diminish in frequency, with Holt Uncensored eventually going on hiatus.

Well, much the same way that MobyLives has recently resuscitated itself, so to has Ms. Holt, unleashing Holt Uncensored as a blog.

She handles the term blog like it’s toxic waste looking for a receptacle, but make no mistake fellow book bloggers, she has probably forgotten more about the industry than we will ever know and I welcome her back to cyberspace!

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Model and burlesque icon Dita Von Teese (aka the former Mrs. Marilyn Manson) has filed a lawsuit against Macmillan, the publisher of the paranormal romance In Twilight’s Shadow, for using her image on the cover without her permission.

I can’t imagine that any publisher would be boneheaded enough to have not secured the necessary releases on photos used on a book cover, but one never knows, I suppose.

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Check out this list of 75 comics being made into films. How of them did you know about?

Sure, there are some easy ones, like Iron Man 2, or Red Sonja. But did you know they were making films out of Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, Green Lantern, Sgt. Rock and Frank Miller’s Hard Boiled?

Tragically, much as I love Green Lantern, I think any attempt to film it will just look horrible.

How about you, True Believers? Which do you think stand a chance?

(via The Beat)

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This looks it could be a LOT of fun. Now all I have to do is wait for February of next year.

(via variety.com)

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The 26th Story (by way of The Onion) asks if blogs are possibly the new farm league for publishers.

When books like Stuff White People Like, and PostSecret can rake in gobs of cash, it’s tempting to spot a trend happening.

But, like publishing itself, the blog-to-book phenomenon produces vastly more failures than successes.

What I have to keep telling myself, when presented with a new book of this ilk, isn’t “why buy the cow?”, which is (sadly) what I most often do. Rather, I should be thinking of books as a cipher of who the buyer thinks they are or how they perceive the person they may give a copy.

A person who is really into cats cannot keep their computer running at all times so that guests can see Stuff On My Cat. On the other hand, a copy of that book on their shelf is a handy testament to how much they like crazy cat pictures. And if they want to share them with friends, they won’t have to boot up their computer.

Most of these books are pretty reasonably priced too. So, as I learned with Bad Cat, never underestimate the value of a novelty gift.

PS. For the life of me, though, I can’t figure out who would actually pay money for Garfield Minus Garfield.

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It seems like we’ve been talking about this since Comic-Con…well, not as much as Watchmen…

But, after a summer of anticipation, the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight will light up theater screens this weekend. Interest is strong to say the least, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where much of it was filmed.

Are you ready to go on your Twilight tie-ins?

In addition to the novels, there is also Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion (LB PB 9780316043137 $16.99).

This will go over well with all of the fans who are swooning over Edward.

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Are you tired of people who tell you to “think outside of the box” or that they want to “touch base”?

You aren’t alone. According to the Telegraph and the BBC, there are loads of expressions that exasperate the masses. Included are such gems as “At the end of the day”, “let’s face it” and “with all due respect”

But really, which is more annoying: the fact that a lot of people say these things, or that a handful of people say them far too often?

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A new reason every day can be found here.

(via GalleyCat)

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Anne Thompson over at Variety.com gives David Thomson’s Have You Seen… (Knopf HC 9780307264619 $39.95) a very favorable review, writing “Have you Seen … ? is a book for the Long Tail Age, for anyone with a Blockbuster card or a Netflix queue who seeks more depth than a Rotten Tomatoes score”.

Personally, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen more movies than most people have had hot suppers, and there were dozens of movies among the thousand that Tomson has compiled that I’ve never heard of, much less seen.

It’s an ideal gift for any serious cineaste (hint, hint in case my wife is reading).

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