Very rarely does something come along this spooky.
The Quirk Books trailer for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (on sale June 7) could just as easily serve as the teaser trailer for a film, and indeed the novel has already sold its film rights to 20th Century Fox.
See the trailer after the jump …
Superman, your days are re-numbered! DC Comics today announced that it will begin new numbering for its superhero comics this summer, as well as begin releasing digital editions on the same day print editions are available in stores. The renumbering effort for the publisher’s 52 “DC Universe” titles (i.e., its core superhero business) will start August 31 with Justice League No. 1, which marks the debut of superstar creative team Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. It coincides with the conclusion of its highly-touted “Flashpoint” storyline starring The Flash, an epic mystery concerning an apparent timeline reboot. While it’s not uncommon for publishers to renumber a title (usually in tandem with a creative reboot designed to goose sales), it’s believed that DC’s initiative marks the first time a publisher has renumbered all of its books at once. DC will begin offering day-and-date digital distribution of its titles on August 31 as well.
Image Credit: Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPRESS.com
++ Jennifer Hudson is furious over a headline on the black entertainment site Bossip that read “Publishers Would Rather Try To Make Money from the Hudson Family Murders than J.Hud’s Slimmy Trimmy-Dom.” Hudson posted some angry tweets yesterday, including, “everyday I wake up I’m constantly reminded how cruel n heartless the world is.” A Bossip rep has claimed that Hudson misunderstood the headline, saying that Hudson has been “shopping a book about her weight loss for four years, and while publishers are interested, they’re not convinced it’s worth the $1 million she’s reportedly asking for without her talking about her family.”
++ Esquire re-posted its list of the “75 Books Every Man Should Read” late last week, only one of which (A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor) was written by a woman. The editors at Joyland responded with their own list of “250 Books By Women All Men Should Read.”
++ “Rickroll,” “iDollators,” “rando”: Keeping up with slang could be a full-time job.
++ As libraries close, the homeless books find shelter in unexpected places.
Image Credit: Jacques Cornell
Some of the world’s finest LGBT writers and their admirers turned up at the School of Visual Arts Theater in Manhattan last night for the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. The ceremony, attended by celebrities like Bryan Batt (Mad Men), former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, TV icon Stefanie Powers and hosted by the hilarious Lea DeLaria (“rhymes with ‘malaria’”), honored exceptional queer-themed work in over 20 categories, and the night’s most distinguished honorees, three-time Pulitzer-winner Edward Albee and Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, received the Foundation‘s Pioneer Awards for paving the way for gay authors.
One of the highlights of the evening came when Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman) presented the Pioneer Award to Albee. “Edward has avoided gay subject matter to such a degree that people have wondered if he is indeed gay,” McNally said. “Well, I’m here to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that he is. I picked Edward up in 1959 at a party … I thought he was gorgeous and sexy.”
One of the worst films ever made has now inspired a spin-off book. No, they still haven’t gotten around to publishing a novelization of From Justin to Kelly. (Oh, how much longer must we wait???) But actor Greg Sestero has just signed a deal with Simon & Schuster to detail his involvement in the notorious 2003 film-fiasco, The Room. Entitled Locked Inside ‘The Room,’ the tome will be co-penned by journalist Tom Bissell and is set for publication in 2013.
According to the official announcement, the book “will describe the movie’s tumultuous production, reveal the film’s myriad of mysteries, and provide a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of the film’s enigmatic creator, Tommy Wiseau.” Sestero himself dropped a note to EW confirming that the book will indeed offer “the only intimate look” at the mercurial Wiseau. He also promised that Locked Inside ‘The Room’ will be “fraught and revealing,” which, as Room fans will know, is also a pretty decent description of the movie’s numerous, retina-searing sex scenes.
You can check out the trailer for The Room below.
Mindy Kaling, a.k.a. Kelly on that show that used to have Steve Carell, is taking a cue from fellow NBC funnywoman Tina Fey with her upcoming book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? A 27-page excerpt has been made available online by the publisher, Crown, for anyone who wishes to read it, and from the looks of it, ISHOWM? will be, like Fey’s bestselling Bossypants, a collection of short, humorous essays.
Well, essays might be the wrong word. The pieces available in the excerpt really aren’t all that much more than extended Twitter musings, on topics like eating cupcakes, things that make her cry, and “why do men put on shoes really slowly?” I don’t know about the tone of the rest the book, but a lot of it sounds like the fashion opinions of Kelly Kapoor mixed with a Miss Manners-esque advice column. For example, here are two entries in her list of things men should do: “Own several pairs of dark wash straight-leg jeans. Don’t get bootcut, don’t get skinny, just a nice pair of Levis without any embellishments on the pockets. No embellishments anywhere. At all. Nothing. Oh my God.” And: “Wait until all the women have gotten on or off an elevator before you get on or off. Look, I’m not some chivalry nut or anything, but this small act of politeness is very visual and memorable.”
It’s cute, but not anywhere as funny as one would expect from a writer on The Office. But don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? is set to release in November.
Strange Adventures #1 (Vertigo)
The venerable DC title gets an artsy makeover with some substance, via Vertigo, and with a beautiful Paul Pope-adelic cover. A few too many of the nine stories resort to surprise endings anyone who’s ever seen The Twilight Zone will see coming a mile away. (The art, however, by people such as Denys Cowan, Juan Bobillo, and Inaki Miranda, is terrific.) One stand-out: Writer-artist Jeff Lemire’s updating of “Ultra the Multi-Alien” is fantastic – witty and beautiful, invoking a Silver Age past without resorting to nostalgia. And the start of a new Brain Azzarello/Eduardo Rizzo collaboration, “Spaceman,” represents sci-fi comic-book created on an addictive, mind-blowing level. READ FULL STORY »
Even as bidders look to buy Barnes & Noble, which put itself up for sale in August, the company has announced a new version of the Nook, their portable e-reader. The new device will be smaller, possess a longer battery life, and, most importantly, the price has plummeted from last year’s $249 Nook Color to match the Kindle’s impressively low $139 tag. (The Kindle is also available for $114 if you’re willing to accept ads on your home screen.) And while it will feature a touch screen, the intent is to focus solely on the reading experience and not compete with other functions already provided by the growing tablet industry.
Barnes & Noble also announced that they had managed to capture a full quarter of the e-book market, which, if true, will be key for the company’s continued success. The long, slow, death-of-a-thousand-papercuts demise of competitor Borders, along with the news the e-book sales have surpassed those of printed books on Amazon.com, probably has the retailer more invested than ever in the digital side of things. The new Nook is expected to ship by June 10.
The sports world is abuzz with talk of James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ new oral history of ESPN, Those Guys Have All the Fun, in stores today. But is it any good? Here’s an early look at our review, which is in the issue on stands this Friday:
Those Guys Have All the Fun
James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
Nonfiction
James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales insist in the intro to this oral history that “it would take a dozen or more weighty volumes to provide an all-encompassing account of ESPN.” Those Guys is just a single volume, but it’s hard to fathom what they left out. At 745 pages, it’s a mammoth chronicle of a niche channel that, as Fox Sports chairman David Hill points out, something like 299 million Americans “don’t give a rat’s ass about.” The book is hotly anticipated among SportsCenter obsessives, who’ve been panting over the prospect of clashing big shots, frat-boy antics, and anti–Keith Olbermann venom. Miller and Shales deliver all that, along with a whole lot more—probably too much more if you’re not a drooling ESPN junkie.
Compiled from more than 550 interviews, Those Guys traces ESPN from its birth as an underdog to its current status as a money-printing behemoth. Some of the best sections deal with the early days of cable, when the network invented itself through savvy business decisions and slow-pitch-softball coverage. But it’s the big libidos and bigger egos that will get the most attention. The book is packed with entertaining stories of unpleasant people and awful behavior: booze-fueled boorishness, absurdly arrogant execs, and the endlessly fascinating Olbermann, whom ex–SportsCenter anchor Charley Steiner describes as “intellectually…a genius and socially…a special-needs student.”
Miller and Shales offer compelling behind-the-scenes tales of many major sports moments, including the Rush Limbaugh–Donovan McNabb flap and ESPN’s takeover of Monday Night Football. Those Guys is padded with too many historical footnotes and dull anecdotes (wow, Peyton Manning remembers Chris Berman sitting in with Hootie & the Blowfish?). But for anyone who does give a rat’s ass about Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, Tony Kornheiser, et al., it provides an impressive account of the network’s embarrassments and victories. B+ –Rob Brunner
Follow me on twitter: @RobBrunnerEW
MORE ON ‘THOSE GUYS HAVE ALL THE FUN’:
‘Those Guys Have All the Fun’: So what exactly is in that top-secret ESPN book?
Image Credit: Barry King/FilmMagic.com
Continuing the recent trend of rockers-turned-authors, Allman Brothers frontman Gregg Allman has signed with William Morrow to write a memoir, to be released in spring 2012. Fans have long been awaiting Allman’s take on his storied career and personal life. Allman said in a press release, “When I got out of high school, I thought, I’ll take a year off and play the clubs, get this out of my system and then go to med school. More than 40 years later, I figure it’s finally time to write about this crazy journey that’s taken me around the world and back.”
Bloomsbury Publishing has acquired the rights for In Darkness by Nick Lake, who is currently Children’s Editorial Director at Harper Collins UK. The novel begins in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake — a 14-year-old boy named Shorty is trapped in the ruins of a collapsed building, recalling his short life up to that point. Interwoven with Shorty’s story is that of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the black revolutionary who led the 18th century slave revolt. The book will be released simultaneously in the US, UK, and Australia on January 17, 2012.
According to Nielsen BookScan, Eckhart Tolle tops the list of best-selling Oprah’s book club picks. Tolle’s A New Earth has sold 3.4 million Oprah-stamped copies, coming out in front of second-place finisher James Frey (2.7 million copies of A Million Little Pieces) and Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir Night (2 million).
