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To start your Friday, below is something that made us laugh. We justify taking your time for it because it is somewhat, if tenuously, book-related.
It was created by the Brazilian YouTube mashup channel, Darth Blender. Thanks to GalleyCat for pointing it out.
Saturday Night Live has been sending up YA film adaptations.
Last week, dystopian movies got the treatment:
The week before, it was a “grounded” YA film:
The first person to guess the name of the man on the street at the end of this video (around time stamp 1:47) wins any ARC they have been hankering for (if available, contest open only to librarians in the 50 states. If you are not hankering for an ARC, the next person wins, but you will have bragging rights).
Enter guesses in the comments section (with name of the ARC you are hankering for).
When we saw the following headline, we immediately double-checked the story’s date. But, no, it’s dated Jan. 17, not April 1.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon now has a patent for “anticipatory shipping.”
We’re working on a patent for anticipatory returns.
The fight to protect privacy continues to lose ground.
Those clever young ‘uns, Bill Barnes and Gene Ambum, over at the library-based comic, Unshelved have started something that may catch on — @bookblrb, tweet-sized blurbs for some of their favorite books. They even have a Facebook page.
As Bill puts it,
Writing very concise copy like this is surprisingly hard, and we think we are the right people to do it. After all, cartooning is basically the art of trimming away every unnecessary word (and every possible drop of ink) to let the joke come through. We have been doing this for a while with our comic strip book reviews, all we’ve done here is crank up the volume to 11, and the number of characters down to 117.
Many libraries still have holds lists for Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins, which HarperCollins just released in paperback. It’s a novel that seems ripe for a movie adaptation (great locations — just look at that cover — and the multiple story lines involve the movie business. Note also, that it has been a hit in audio).
Unsurprisingly, the book was optioned shortly after publication and now comes the news that Todd Field has signed on as the director. He has had experience with book adaptations, having won acclaim for his film Little Children, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta.
In 2011, it was announced that an earlier title by Walter, The Financial Lives of Poets, was going to be adapted as Bailout, by independent filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, starring Jack Black, but there’s been no news on it for over a year.
Walter’s most recent book, a collection of short stories, We Live in Water (Harper Perennial original paperback), was published in February.
The Brits already have five episodes of Downton Abbey, Season Three, under their belts, but it won’t air here until January. For those unfazed by spoilers, we’ve rounded up what the critics are saying, after the jump.
Those who hate spoilers can safely enjoy this parody, featuring Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Kim Cattrell:
(Part Two of the parody is here)
Even more Downton Abbey is on the way; creator Julian Fellowes recently announced that he is planning a prequel.
Look at that cover.
Just look at it.
Is it any surprise that I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems About Cats by Francesco Marciuliano (Chronicle Books) is a best seller?
Marciuliano, when not channeling feline bards, writes the comic strip Sally Forth. He invites people to send him photos of their cats reading the book:
Send a photo of your erudite and discerning kitty reading the book to me at fmarciuliano@gmail.com and I will post it on [my blog], on the home page, in Facebook, and through Twitter. Plus, I would love it if you could post your photo through the customer share link at the the I Could Pee on This Amazon page. Maybe the cats could even form a book club.”
And please cc: EarlyWord with your photos. In fact, we’d love a photo of your cat reading ANY book.
I’m trying to get a shot of my gray tabby reading Fifty Shades. She’s confused; it doesn’t seem to be about her.
The new issue of Newsweek goes retro-modern, to celebrate the new season of Mad Men. Included is a comparison of what people were reading in 1966 vs. today (the #1 NYT Fiction best sellers, above). The earlier era is deemed superior, but several of those titles warrant spots on AwfulLibraryBooks.net.
The Muppets do their own version of The Hunger Games trailer (to promote their DVD and VOD “Wocka Wocka Value Pack“):
Meanwhile, Lionsgate has released a new “exclusive” clip from the real thing on Yahoo!
If you need an antidote to all the Best Books lists, try the New York Daily News list of the Most Overrated titles of the year (including the book that Esquire magazine named THE Book of the Year, The Submission by Amy Waldman).
This just may make me feel a bit better about some of my own typos:
As always when John Green mentions his upcoming book on his vlog to his brother Hank, it rose to #124 on Amazon’s sales rankings, from #367.
It seems it had no affect on the sales of The Pasta Bible, (JG Press).
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As the former Editor-in-Chief of Random House, Daniel Menaker knows flap copy. On the Barnes & Noble Review, he offers a great tongue-in-cheek guide to incorporating as many cliches as possible into a few short paragraphs.
Kenneth Branagh may have abandoned plans to direct an adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. In August, Variety reported that he was planning to begin production on Guernsey in the spring of 2012. Now, that publication announces that Branagh is set to direct Italian Shoes, based on the book by Swedish writer Henning Mankell (New Press, 2009). Branagh starred in the English-language adaptation of the author’s crime-thriller series Wallander for the BBC.
Italian Shoes is decidedly not a crime thriller, however. It’s the story of an aging former surgeon, living alone on a remote island. Various women from his past come to visit and help him regain the desire to live. Reviewing it, the Boston Globe noted, “…if the plot seems like something out of a film by Mankell’s father-in-law, the late Ingmar Bergman, the prose isn’t any sunnier.” Even so, the reviewer was amazed to report, “But you know something? Italian Shoes is a good read.”
Branagh continues his career in front of the camera, playing Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn, based on the book by Colin Clark, released for the first time here as a tie-in. The Oscar buzzed movie opens this Thanksgiving. Two new clips, featuring Michelle Williams as Marilyn, were released yesterday.
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Also on audio from Dreamscape and on OverDrive.