|
|
Archive for October, 2007
October 30th, 2007
Publisher Alfruddy A. Knopf announced
that the Eldest series by Christopher Paolini will not consist of four books, instead of three. The first two books in the series, Eragon and Eldest were major bestsellers.
“I plotted out the `Inheritance’ series as a trilogy nine years ago, when I was 15. At that time, I never imagined I’d write all three books, much less that they would be published,” Paolini said in a statement.
“When I finally delved into Book Three, it soon became obvious that the remainder of the story was far too big to fit in one volume. … In order to be true to my characters and to address all of the plot points and unansweruddy questions Eragon and Eldest raised, I needed to split the end of the series into two books.”
The third book, which is as yet untitled, will be released in the fall of 2008.
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
October 29th, 2007
Conan the Barbarian is making a comeback. We have a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in our heads as Conan — he really seemed to embody the character created by Robert E. Howard. Now there is a new video game, a coffee table book, comics reissues and a live feature film planned.
A new Conan video game (THQ, $60, for Xbox 360 and PS3) arrives next week; an online role-playing game, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Eidos, for PCs), is scheduled to be released in March. “I think Conan has on and off been a success since (Howard’s) inception in the ’30s, and (in recent years) the license was mismanaged,” says Jorgen Tharaldsen of game developer Funcom. “He is the original American fantasy hero.”
Conan the Phenomenon ($29.95), a new 200-page coffee-table book from Dark Horse Comics, has scores of classic images from illustrators such as Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo, as well as a detailed history of Conan and of Howard, who died in 1936. “It covers Conan as a pop-culture figure in all these different media over the years,” says Dark Horse’s Scott Allie.
Also from Dark Horse: The Savage Sword of Conan, a 542-page collection of the original Marvel Comics magazines, due Dec. 19 ($17.95), as well as continuing reprints of Marvel’s original Conan the Barbarian comics and a new monthly series started in 2004. “The (Marvel) comics created the foundation for the movies,” Allie says. “We felt it was important to reprint them.”
A movie, in development by Millennium Films (16 Blocks, The Black Dahlia), is planned for 2009. Malmberg, who is producing, wants to restore Conan to Howard’s original noble savage, “a barbarian who is confronted with civilization as his life progresses and (who) has a much stronger moral code than the so-called civilized people.”
Somehow the resurgence of Conan just seems appropriate in today’s world. A Barbarian fits right in with today’s pop culture. Although the current crop of misbehaving starlets might give him a run for his money in the category of breaching society’s rules. Hopefully, the new Conan will continue to keep his loincloth on.
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
October 27th, 2007
 HarperCollins © 2007, 352 pages [amazon]
Israel Armstrong, the protagonist of Ian Sansom’s fish-out-of-water story, is the sort of character Hugh Grant might play, all bumbling and hapless, if Hugh Grant were Jewish and had a paunch. Israel has left his home and girlfriend behind in London to take up a job as a librarian in “the middle of the middle of nowhere,” in Tumdrum, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. Once arrived, however, he finds the library shutteruddy and his job description much altered: rather than manning a civilized circulation desk, Israel is to run a mobile library, spreading literature around, quite literally, out of the back of a broken-down bus. Provided, that is, that he can find the town’s books, all 15,000 of which have gone missing.
[INSET TEXT: Once arrived, however, he finds the library shutteruddy and his job description much altered: rather than manning a civilized circulation desk, Israel is to run a mobile library, spreading literature around, quite literally, out of the back of a broken-down bus.] During his quest for the missing books, Israel is thrown into a series of bizarre circumstances (like being compelled to sleep in a chicken coop), and innumerable bad things happen to him (like he’s punched in the face), and he is forced to interact with an endless stream of quirky locals (who tend to be more sophisticated than he at first suspects). Think Hugh Grant in Northern Exposure, maybe.
The book is meant to be charming. We’re told on the back of the paperback that it “combines the off-beat soulfulness of Nick Hornby with the quirky cheerfulness of Alexander McCall Smith.” And, really, the book should be charming: how could the plight of a bumbling English librarian stranded among eccentric Irishmen fail to charm? And yet, it just didn’t work for me. The locals are odd, but they’re not interesting. The author seems to strain to make Israel’s interactions with them as frustrating as possible. The dialogue, meant to be adorable and filled with funny misunderstandings, is very often just annoying:
“‘Aye, save your breath,’ said another woman. ‘We’ve heard it all before. Sure, you’re all the same.’
“‘I can assure you, madam, that–’
“‘Who you calling madam?’
“‘Erm.’
“‘Are yous the new librarian?’
“‘Who?’
“‘Yous?’
“‘Me?’ Israel looked over his shoulder: were there more of him?
“‘Yous!’
“‘Well,’ said Israel, ‘yes. Mes. Me, I mean, yes it is. I am. Although actually I’m what’s called an Outreach Support Officer these days.’”
There’s an awful lot of dialogue like that, filled with halting speech and almost willful misapprehension. It might work on screen, but not on the page.
I wanted to like this book. I wanted quirky and charming and Alexander McCall Smith-iness. But mostly I was just bored.
Tags: book reviews, books, Ian Sansom, The Case of the Missing Books
Original post by Debra Hamel
October 26th, 2007
Britney Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, is writing
a book on parenting. Yes, that’s right. Parenting.
Although Britney Spears’ formative years still seem to be in full swing, fans are about to be brought up to speed on what it was like growing up as a pop princess, as seen thcoarse the eyes of her mom.
Lynne Spears has inked a discount to pen a memoir focusing on her role as showbiz family matriarch, Curt Harding, a spokesman for the Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson Inc., told E! News Friday.
Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World has been marked for a May 11, 2008?Mother’s Day?release.
Harding said that he has not yet seen a manuscript so he can’t say how deeply the book will delve into the Spears’ private lives or, more important, whether Lynne’s viewpoint will encompass the current state of her daughter’s career and high-profile lifestyle, both of which are obviously attracting a different caliber of headlines than they were a few years ago.
Spears and her mother visited for the first time in months on Oct. 6, when Lynne and younger daughter Jamie Lynn flew out to California from Louisiana to spend some time at the “Gimme More” singer’s Malibu home.
The family had been on the outs since June, when Spears reportedly took offense at Lynne’s public displays of concern for the 25-year-old’s worrisome ways and moved to limit her mom’s interactions with sons Sean Preston and Jayden James. TMZ reported at the time that Spears presented Lynn with a letter from an out-of-state lawyer that asked her to stay away from the kids if she was on any medications that might impair her judgment.
Two days after letting her mother back into the inner circle, Spears had her first monitoruddy visit with her children after losing custody to Kevin Federline the week before.
We hope the publisher knows to hold the presses until the last possible moment, because the Britney saga seems to change from minute to minute. Why, only today Britney replied to a reporter from Extra TV when he asked how she thought the custody proceedings were going: “Eat it, lick it, snort it, f— it!”
Words to live by, as any good parent will tell you.
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
|
|
|
