After almost two years since the release of the hardcover book, Simon & Schuster is due to publish the paperback of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs this fall. But don’t mistake the cover photo for a clean-shaven Ashton. The paperback cover art will feature 29-year-old Jobs in the same fashion as the hardcover’s iconic black-and-white portrait. READ FULL STORY »
Image credit: IDW Publishing
The “new” mythology of Starfleet began with the brand-reviving J.J. Abrams film Star Trek in 2009 and extended with Star Trek Into Darkness this summer, but the canon is not limited to those silver screen cornerstones – the events chronicled in the Paramount videogame also “count as canon” (as Trek producer and writer Roberto Orci has pointed out on many occasions) as do the events in the Star Trek comic books from IDW Publishing, the fourth largest comic book publisher in America (since 2011) and a brand that just posted the best market-share month in its 14-year history.
Issue No. 22 of the IDW Trek series arrives this week at stores and, as the After Darkness title suggests, it takes the story beyond the events depicted in Star Trek Into Darkness and, in doing so, becomes the first official Trek tale in any medium to take the story baton past the most recent film’s Khan story.
And (with Orci’s guidance as the creative consultant on the comics series) it may hint about the priorities for the next cinematic mission. To learn more about the spirit of the IDW series, we mind-melded with writer Mike Johnson (who is teamed with artist Erfan Fajar on story pages and the gifted Tim Bradstreet on select covers) to find out if he’s in Federation space or out of his Vulcan mind.
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Image Credit: Jon Rou
Earlier this week, the Library of Congress announced it was reappointing Natasha Trethewey as the nation’s poet laureate. That mostly means one thing: more work.
But that work — discussing poetry and, soon, traveling around the country with PBS Newshour — is the whole point. We spoke with Trethewey about her recent reappointment, her upcoming national project with PBS (expect more details by the end of the summer), and more.
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Where Things Come Back author John Corey Whaley, who won the Michael L. Printz Prize for Excellence in Young-Adult Literature in 2012, will come back in April 2014 with his completely different follow-up novel, Noggin. Here’s the official, very intriguing plot summary of Noggin; plus, read a quick Q&A with Whaley: READ FULL STORY »
“Darth Vader, only thou couldst be so bold.”
Carrie Fisher may inexplicably have a bit of a British accent during the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope, but this latest genre mash-up puts the epic space opera in the hands of the Bard himself. Debut author Ian Doescher blends protocol droids with iambic pentameter in William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope.
Tapping into the vein of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars follows the basic structure of the original Star Wars film but molds it according to the style of a Shakespearean play. Lord Vader still seizes the spaceship of Princess Leia of Alderaan in search of the Rebellion’s plans against the Galactic Empire. C-3PO still cries and complains about everything. R2-D2 still beeps and buzzes — but this time in flowing verse.
So if you’re a fan of Stormtroopers and/or soliloquies, check out Act I, scenes 1-4 of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars below: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Michael Tran/FilmMagic
If you already love Amy Poehler, there might be room to love her even more. Just listen to the Parks and Recreation star singing the praises of the one-and-only Judy Blume:
“I am excited to see Judy Blume’s new movie, because she is a very special lady, and more movies should be produced with her name,” Poehler told Vulture about the film adaptation of Blume’s 1981 novel Tiger Eyes, out in limited release now. “Or she should just sit and read her books aloud and we should just gather at her feet.”
But every kid of Poehler’s generation loves Judy Blume, right? That might be true (let’s be honest, it is), but Poehler took her Judy IQ a step further when one of her PR reps suggested that the Ramona series belonged to Blume.
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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m very late to the party when it comes to Patrick Rothfuss’ excellent fantasy novel The Name of the Wind. No matter, though. I’m glad to be at the party now!
I finished the book, the first in a trilogy called the Kingkiller Chronicle (the final novel is not yet published), over the weekend, and upon its conclusion, I was left asking one question: How the heck had I not heard of these books sooner? As I discovered with a quick Google search, The Kingkiller Chronicle does, in fact, have a fanbase — and a gigantic one at that.
The Name of the Wind has been rated over 109,000 times on GoodReads, where it boasts an impressive 4.56/5.00 rating. Author Patrick Rothfuss maintains a popular blog on his own site. And a current Kickstarter project to create Name of the Wind playing cards has raised over $417,000 ($30 of which were donated by yours truly) against a $10,000 goal and garnered participation from nerd heroes like Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day. Suffice it to say: Kingkiller fans are a passionate bunch. READ FULL STORY »
George Orwell’s 1984 imagines a near-future dystopia in which all human activity is surveilled and most of it is controlled. Last week, the American government came under sudden, sustained scrutiny after several of its top-secret surveillance programs were revealed to the public. Today, 1984‘s sales are up 127 percent on Amazon while a two-fer of 1984 and Animal Farm is up 314 percent.
Coincidence? READ FULL STORY »
Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale, the third installment of The Bane Chronicles (co-written by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan) debuts next week. But today, we can exclusively reveal the cover. In fact, EW will be revealing the all the covers for the remaining stories in the-serialization—one a month until January 2014. Check it out after the jump. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jon Rou
The nation’s top poet is staying put. According to the AP, Natasha Trethewey has been reappointed poet laureate, entering her second year, the Library of Congress will announce Monday.
Trethewey is coming off a busy year as the first Southern laureate since Robert Penn Warren. She released a new collection, Thrall, last August, while continuing as a professor at Emory University. (That’s on top of her 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Native Guard.) In her second term, which officially begins in September, Trethewey will reportedly collaborate with PBS on reports “about poetry and society.”
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