There's a creepy-yet-brilliant Tumblr site called The Composites that uses law enforcement composite sketch software and the original author descriptions to create images of famous literary creations. We think the final results are generally more appropriate for Halloween than Valentine's Day, but who knows? Maybe someone reading this will think the composite version of Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester is just as dreamily Byronic as they'd always imagined him to be:
Slate recently posted an article about the original Pinocchio story, which they claim is considerably creepier than the 1940s Disney version. Now, normally this wouldn't come as much of a surprise, but I've always found even Disney's take on that story to be totally disturbing, so I guess I was a little surprised to learn how much stuff they'd actually left out...
I don't know about you, but I have my doubts about a movie that employs (SPOILERS*) murder, deception, bribery, and an incestuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and her illegitimate son, all to explain why there is really no chance Shakespeare might have written Shakespeare's plays. Now, I understand why people question how the son of an illiterate glove-maker could have penned some of the world's best-known works of literature, but I'm a lot more comfortable buying "Shakespeare as Shakespeare" than I am with some of the more hair-raising conspiracy theories surrounding his authorship... including this one.
*At least, potential spoilers, because I haven't actually seen this movie, nor am I likely to.
We will all be happier if this is an image-free post.
These Reborn Harry Potter Babies are the most horrifying things I have ever seen. I'd like to think the dolls are some kind of belated April Fool's Day joke... but whenever I click the link to read more, I just find myself staring, hypnotized, at their creepy little faces.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Keri Russell has signed on to star in the upcoming film adaptation of Shannon Hale's novel Austenland. The movie will be directed by Jerusha Hess (best known for co-writing Napoleon Dynamite with her husband Jared Hess) and produced by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer.
Setting aside the truly ghastly-sounding premise, Hale, Meyer, and Hess are prominent members of the Mormon Church, making me wonder what impact (if any) their faith will have on this project. Didn't someone already make a critically panned Latter-day Saints-themed movie about Pride and Prejudice?
And the award for grossest-looking book tie-in I've seen for some time goes to these Peter Rabbit Gummy Candies, reviewed by the always-fascinating Candy Blog:
They look repulsive, and that was before I read the reviewer's take on the way they smell (like "styrofoam packaging, cinnamon breakfast syrup and flip flops") and mentioned that they left a "burning sensation" in the mouth. Charming!
The last several times I've checked Amazon for news of the ninth and final Sisters Grimm book, the only thing that's turned up has been a book about Capital Tax Acts. I've managed to remain calm, because books occasionally fail to turn up until shortly before their publication dates, and Michael Buckley has been pretty consistent about publishing in the spring... until now. (The horror!) Amazon's Michael Buckley listing has finally been updated, but with the publication date for Nerds #3: The Cheerleaders of Doom, which isn't out until September. Does that mean we won't see the last Sisters Grimm book until next fall/winter? How am I supposed to WAIT THAT LONG?
According to Publishers Weekly, second-quarter earnings at HarperCollins have fallen, although they claim their children's department (which produces titles ranging from the Pretty Little Liars series to Erin Hunter's Warriors books) has done "extremely well"—thanks largely to a Justin Bieber biography and two titles by former MTV reality starlet Lauren Conrad.
The above is what its publisher describes as a "deliciously naughty updating" of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, making it "the story you love, with the heat turned up to high". Unfortunately, a disgruntled reader review sounds less appealing:
"[The book is] literally Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice word-for-word with several sex scenes and sporadic, unnecessary sentences added mostly in bold. I kid you not. You will pay $7.00 for a few extra unamazing sex scenes and/or sexual dialogue embedded in the original Pride and Prejudice."
Sadly, the second quote has the ring of truth to it, so I won't be buying this sucker. But I confess, I am totally curious: are the sex scenes scattered throughout the book? How does that work? Do Elizabeth and Darcy, say, have sex during her stay at Netherfield, and then resume their previous relationship? I'm really hoping someone (read: Megan) will flip through this at the bookstore and find out for me.
My, my. Publisher New South, Inc. is releasing a new edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn that will remove the bucketload of racial slurs in Huckleberry Finn.
New South claims the novel "can be enjoyed deeply and authentically without those continual encounters with the hundreds of now-indefensible racial slurs", but in the very same press release they describe those same slurs as "pejorative racial labels that Twain employed in his effort to write realistically about social attitudes of the 1840s".
Uh, don't those statements seem contradictory? I can certainly understand and respect people's discomfort with Huckleberry Finn (and I'm no Twain fan myself, actually), but you can't just wipe something out and pretend it didn't happen—particularly not something so central to both the novel and its place in the annals of American literature.
The 18th annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award was announced a few days ago, and the dubious honor was given to Irish author Rowan Somerville for The Shape of Her, which apparently includes the following line (and you might want to brace yourselves):
"Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her."
Oh. My. Goodness.
Note: Today's review selection (Wendelin Van Draanen's Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher) will appear this evening on the main site.
I caught an episode of Robotomy over the weekend, and while this series was co-created by best-selling children's author Michael Buckley and appears on Cartoon Network, do not assume it is safe for work. It may not even be safe for home, particularly if your house contains anyone with a delicate stomach. For the rest of you, you can see a complete episode here, but be warned: grossness ahoy.
Hey, all right: according to the Associated Press, the Virginia elementary school textbook we wrote about last week that featured the inaccurate claim that thousands of black troops fought for the Confederacy will be corrected and reprinted early next year. (The publisher is offering white stickers to cover the incorrect sentence in the meanwhile.) This is particularly good news, because early information about this gaffe suggested that Virgina education officials were planning to hang onto the book, but "caution [school districts] against teaching the passage".
"A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War--a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery's role as a cause of the conflict."
The author of the textbook, Joy Masoff, is a professional writer rather than a trained historian, and says she discovered this information via "Internet research". While I was naturally disturbed by this story, I was even MORE disturbed by the discovery that apparently school textbooks like this one are written by one person. This never occurred to me: I assumed textbooks were written by committee, thereby ensuring that more than one author's perspective was included.
