A post shared by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) on Nov 14, 2017 at 5:48am PST If the trailer is any indication, Tennant and Sheen’s chemistry will make what sounds like it should be a super-depressing story (it’s about Armageddon, after all), a super-satisfying comic romp through the end times. Pratchett would be proud. A post shared by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) on Jul 20, 2018 at 4:43pm PDT
The quarterly Panorama Picks lists dig into anonymized data of digital library holds and breaks that data up by the nine American Booksellers Association regions. What makes Panorama Picks fascinating is the methodology: rather than sticking to the top, most popular titles, the lists look at the books that are also in high demand but not as popular. This gives a great idea of books with regional interest, as well as books that may be worth highlighting and recommending in a broader way....
It’s no surprise, then, that certain poems rise above the rest and stay with people throughout their lives. Or that the subject matter of certain poems pertain to a life event that many of us experience, whether that’s falling in love, losing a loved one, or going through a personal transformation. We wanted to do a little research to find out what those poems are: What selected favorites are plucked from the world’s book of poetry and find themselves in wedding vows, eulogies, or sneak their way into popular culture....
Haha, no, of course not. I’m talking about the shocking revelations exposed by a tweet from Variety writer Joe Otterson in which he screenshot a quote from his own article on subversive superhero media — specifically, his interview with two of the creators of the Harley Quinn TV show. According to the showrunners, DC vetoed a scene in which Batman performs oral sex on Catwoman, via the remarkable argument that “heroes don’t do that....
Some songs are so well known that you only have to hear someone say a few of the words and immediately the lyrics and harmony echo through your brain. That’s how it is for me with the songs “Respect,” lyrics written by Otis Redding and made popular by Aretha Franklin, and “These Boots are Made for Walkin’,” lyrics written by Lee Hazlewood and sung by Nancy Sinatra. I was thrilled when Akashic Books asked me to illustrate these two books for the LyricPop series —which features song lyrics by well-known artists....
Epiphanies Are Optional If you’ve studied short stories in an academic setting, you probably know how much emphasis is placed on the so-called “epiphany,” or a sudden realization that the main character has at the end of the story. Of the 31 stories I read, few stuck to this supposed requirement of having an epiphany. It turns out there’s more than one way to end a story, and some of the ones I read diverged from the classroom model....
That’s definitely one way to look at fate — that no matter what choices we make in what in reality is our one and only life, we’ll be led to the person or the destiny we were made for. But it’s not the only philosophy explored in this kind of fiction. In the years since Sliding Doors, various books have been published exploring the idea of one small moment, one decision, or one circumstance, and its ripple effect on one or several lives....
But over time, good, old-fashioned ghost stories have lost some of their ability to spook. While many of you reading this might prefer a fireside reading of Edgar Allen Poe, most Americans will be off at Paranormal Activity 3. But aside from all the additional competition and our ever-shrinking attention spans, it seems that words themselves—certain words that used to chill, frighten, horrify, spook, and plenty of other synonyms for scares—have lost their power to petrify....
When my daughter is born in April, she’ll be meeting very few people. She’ll know myself, my husband, and my mother. Perhaps she’ll meet another person or two, but for the sake of my own mental health and the sake of both our physical health, keeping her away from other people who aren’t immediate family or household members is essential. I’m hopeful that we can take walks through the local farmer’s market in the summer safely and know we’ll find ways to wander the incredible swaths of parks and preserves in the local area....
Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell in this sequel to Ninth House, the smash bestseller by Leigh Bardugo. Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters. If we assume that Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel The Secret History is the text upon which the sub-genre and aesthetic are based, the category is in its infancy compared to the broader genres it’s related to, like horror and Gothic literature....
Experiences Reading Fiction Written in Present Tense The first time I remember thinking consciously about a work of fiction written in the present tense was when I read Jim Grimsley’s Dream Boy when I was a grad student. When we discussed in class why the author had chosen to write the novel that way, someone more clever than me pointed out that it served as a reminder that there was no safe present for the main character Nathan to narrate a story from....
Before falling into the world of books, first as a librarian, then as a writer and editor, I didn’t think too much about the pieces of a book or how it came together. I mostly perused acknowledgments to see if there were any familiar names or, when I began to understand what it was I loved in a book, to discover if books I really enjoyed were edited or agented by the same people....
So, to make things easier for myself I’ve settled on a simple answer. One of the first books I ever loved, and still love to this day, is Ella Enchanted. It is a children’s book written by Gail Carson Levine, and it is a retelling of the classic Cinderella fairy tale. The list of things that I love about this book is endless because quite frankly, I think this book is perfect....
Cookbooks: My First Chapter It came to no one’s surprise that, with those formative memories, I became more curious about food as I grew up tall enough to reach the stove and strong enough to hold the hand mixer. I was full of questions: How did you make food? Where did it come from? How do you take ingredients and combine them to create something delicious? I adopted that same coil-bound paperback Betty Crocker as my guide....
If you suffer from a chronic health condition, books aren’t currently offering much scope. I’ve come across one book in recent years that included a character with a chronic health condition—City of Lies by Sam Hawke. Kalina wasn’t the main character, but she wasn’t thrown in as a diverse token character either. She was physically limited and exhausted a lot of the time, but she had a role to play, she was crucial to the plot, and she got on with her life....
By far the most interesting, real, and compelling modern take on Holmes is in the pages of Watson And Holmes, published by New Paradigm. The set-up here is simple. The story has been transplanted into modern-day Harlem in NYC. Both Holmes and Watson are black, and the supporting cast is more varied and diverse than you’ll see in any of the screen adaptations. These few simple changes open up the whole world to new ideas and make the characters seem fresh and new....
Because I grew up in the American South, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in rural Alabama, it was required reading for me in middle school. Now, I know that technically, this book is a young adult novel—maybe the first, from what I’ve read—but so much of it went over my head as a child, the way that so much of it goes over Scout’s head because she is a child....
In my experience, running a student library assistant program has been a huge boon the the library and the school as a whole. Here are a few reasons why it’s so awesome. It Brings In Fresh Ideas Students are brimming with ideas that I borrow/steal from them constantly. Students will bring a lot to the table once they realise someone is going to treat them seriously, not talk down to them, and provide them with a safe, welcoming space....
Emily Wilson In 2017, Wilson made headlines as the first woman to translate The Odyssey, one of the central texts of Greek literature, into English, emerging as a major player in the heavily male-dominated field of Classics. She’s written about the fresh perspective female translators can provide on “canon that has for many centuries been imagined as belonging to men.” In her case, this means giving more weight to the epic’s exploration of female-coded themes like family and domesticity, and questioning the heroism of the central character, Odysseus—who, at one point, she memorably describes as carrying a “tote bag....
Last-name formality feels strange when referring to people I’ve loved for over half my life, as well as had the privilege of meeting, however briefly. First-name basis throughout. Although I am a writer of book things, I must confess that I know far more about Neil Gaiman’s friendship with Tori Amos from the Tori side. When I was a teenager, she understood my plight, you know? She’d felt my pain and gotten through it....
