Tag: Fiction (91-100 of 253)

Dec 8 2011 02:02 PM ET

Cassandra Clare talks 'Clockwork Prince' and reveals what's next for her Infernal Devices, Mortal Instruments series

clockwork-prince_211.jpg

Clockwork Prince, the second book in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series hit shelves Tuesday. She graciously took time out of her busy schedule to sit down with us and answer a few burning questions about Prince and her popular YA series, Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments. If you haven’t had a chance to read the newest installment, there are a few minor plot spoilers ahead. Here, Clare talks about the heart-breaking ending of Clockwork Prince, and gives fans a few clues about what to expect for her next books.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I know it’s still early, but what kind of response have you received for Clockwork Prince?
CASSANDRA CLARE: I’ve gotten a great response so far. You always worry because every book is different. People are like, “After your sixth book in print you must be used to it.” But you never get used to it. It’s kind of like having a baby. Every emergence into the world is different and going to be met with a different response. I knew that I put a lot of my heart and soul into this book. I loved writing it, but it has parts of it that are very sad. When you tug on your reader’s heartstrings, sometimes they can get a little upset.

Speaking of, that was a pretty sad ending! How have people reacted to the Jem/Tessa/Will storyline?
Heartbreak. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 6 2011 05:00 AM ET

Goodreads users select the best books of 2011

Goodreads, a social network of sorts for readers, has announced its best books of the year according to a poll opened up to more than 6.5 million users. More than pretty much any other literary award, the Goodreads Choice Awards could be considered the People’s Choice Awards of books, since it’s a list decided by user recommendations and votes rather than critical reviews. Think of the books below as strong recommendations from a whole lot of your reader friends: READ FULL STORY »

Dec 2 2011 01:52 PM ET

Which Faulkner novels and stories should HBO adapt?

william-faulkner

Image Credit: Archive Photos/Getty Images

Earlier this week, HBO re-upped its commitment to work with Deadwood creator David Milch for several more years; more specifically, Milch has the incredibly open-ended task of creating a series and original movies for the cable network based on any of the 19 novels and 125 short stories in William Faulkner’s estate. While Milch hasn’t yet decided on any titles to adapt, several authors have weighed in on the works they would or wouldn’t want to see on television. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 2 2011 12:27 PM ET

'Legend' author Marie Lu on her buzzy new YA novel

author-Marie-Lu

Legend, available now, is 27-year-old video game art director Marie Lu’s first novel, and it’s already attracting major buzz. CBS Films has already snatched up the film rights, and Twilight producers Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen are attached. Legend takes place in a dark future in which North America has split into two warring nations: the wealthy Republic (or the West Coast) and the poor Colonies (everyone else). Two teenagers on opposing sides of the conflict are caught in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse, though a series of shocking events eventually bring them together. Lu took the time to talk to EW about writing her gripping debut—and about being an Asian-American author.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was your road to publication like?
MARIE LU: It was a long journey. I started writing seriously when I was a teenager, around 14 years old. I remember the exact moment when I [wanted to be a writer] because I saw an article in the Houston Chronicle about a young writer named Amelia Atwater-Rhodes who got a book deal when she was 15 years old. That was when I realized that I can actually pursue something like this, and I started writing seriously. I wrote four manuscripts before Legend over the course of 10 or 12 years, and none of those ever made it. I had one agent in college I parted ways with. My fourth manuscript didn’t sell, but it got me my current agent Kristin Nelson. When we were pitching that one, I started writing Legend, just to sort of distract myself from the whole submission process. My agent and I went through two or three heavy revisions on Legend before we finally submitted it. It was just really surprising and amazing to see Legend to sell after the other ones didn’t, so it was a long journey. [Laughs] READ FULL STORY »

Nov 30 2011 04:44 PM ET

'New York Times' names 10 best books of 2011: Stephen King makes the cut

King-Kennedy-112263

Last week, the New York Times named its 100 finalists for best books of the year, and now that they’ve whittled their picks down to the 10 best, there are a few surprises. Stephen King’s commercial time-travel novel, 11/22/63, made the list, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ much-anticipated, generally well received yet somewhat polarizing novel The Marriage Plot was edged out. Karen Russell’s zany Swamplandia! is a quirky but not at all unusual choice, and of course, year-end lists always celebrate the new and the splashy, so expect Chad Harbach and 26-year-old Téa Obreht’s heralded debuts to continue racking up the “Best Of” honors.

There are fewer oddballs in the nonfiction category. Malcolm X by the late Manning Marable was arguably the favorite to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction this year — that honor went to Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve, which doesn’t appear in this top 10. See the full list below, in alphabetical order: READ FULL STORY »

Nov 28 2011 12:37 PM ET

What were your favorite novels of 2011? Let's discuss

The-Art-Of-Fielding

It’s late November, and already those best-of-the-year lists are starting to trickle out. Amazon chose Chad Harbach’s much-hyped debut, The Art of Fielding, as their No. 1 novel. Others have picked Jeffrey Eugenides’ long-awaited The Marriage Plot or included worthy contenders like Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and Teju Cole’s Open City in a big unranked list (what a cop-out!). And yes, I’m planning to add to the cacophony with a list of my own, which I’m working on right now (look for it in the issue of EW that’s on newsstands Dec. 16). But before we’re all overwhelmed by a gush of often-conflicting opinions, we want to know what you thought were the best novels of 2011. Did you fall hard for Ann Patchett’s South American adventure yarn State of Wonder? Geek out to Ernest Cline’s page-turning nerd-fest Ready Player One? Marvel over accomplished debuts from Tea Obreht (The Tiger’s Wife) and Karen Russell (Swamplandia!)? Think The Art of Fielding was totally overrated? Below, let us know what you read and loved (or hated) this year. And if you have a top 10 list of your own, by all means post it. Let the arguing commence!

Read more:
The ‘New York Times’ names its 100 Notable Books of 2011
Amazon chooses Top 10 Books of 2011 — ‘The Art of Fielding’ is no. 1
EW Entertainers of the Year 2011: Vote for your faves here!

Nov 28 2011 11:00 AM ET

'Clockwork Prince' by Cassandra Clare book trailer! -- EXCLUSIVE

clockwork-prince

Cassandra Clare, the author best known for the Mortal Instrument series, is back with the second installment of her other New York Times best-selling series, The Infernal Devices Trilogy. As you count down the seconds until Dec. 6, when Clockwork Prince hits shelves, we have a haunting, cinematic trailer that will transport you to Victorian London, where Shadowhunters roam the misty streets, the Magister is up to his dark deeds, and the Tessa-Jem-Will love triangle continues.

If the voice in the trailer sounds familiar to you, that’s because it belongs to Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick, who also narrates the audio versions of the books. The third and final Infernal Devices book is slated for Sept. 2013. See the Clockwork Prince trailer below! READ FULL STORY »

Nov 26 2011 05:39 PM ET

Diana Gabaldon on her favorite and least-favorite books: The EW Book Quiz!

Diana-Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon’s latest novel, The Scottish Prisoner (out Nov. 29), continues her epic, wildly popular Lord John series. We gave our signature book quiz to the historical fiction author to see which books make her cry, which ones inspired her to write, and which ones she never reads in public.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What book are you reading now?
DIANA GABALDON: I’m actually reading two or three of them right now. I’m reading The Book of Fungi, which is a life-sized guide to 600 species from around the world by Peter Roberts and Shelley Evans, which is extremely good. I’m reading the World Almanac of the American Revolution and Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Those are background research for the book that I’m working on at the moment. For fun, I just finished reading Right Ho, Jeeves, which is a P.G. Wodehouse book.

So you read a mix of nonfiction and fiction, which makes sense for you.
Yeah! In fact, I just picked up Alan Bradley’s brand new book, the fourth Flavia de Luce book I’m Half-Sick of Shadows. I just started that one this morning.

What was your favorite book as a child?
Well, I can’t remember not being able to read. I was told I could read by myself very well at the age of three. The earliest books that I can remember reading myself were Frank Buck’s Jungle books, which are full of rhinoceri and all of that, a couple of the early Oz books, and a picture book, which I remember very, very vividly, the main character of which is a very troglodyte-ish character named Mr. Mixie-Dough, and I don’t remember anything about the story, but I remember the book very vividly because of the images which were very beautiful — sort of primitive but complex images on a black background and vivid colors, and that book just gave me the most intense feeling of beautiful mystery about it. So I always loved it despite the fact that I don’t remember anything about the story itself. It’s called The Baker Man, and it’s actually by Vernon Grant, whose main distinction — other than being a very good artist — is that he’s the person who designed and drew Snap, Crackle, and Pop, the cereal elves. [Laughs] READ FULL STORY »

Nov 25 2011 08:35 PM ET

Frey, Murakami make 'Bad Sex in Fiction' award shortlist

James-Frey-author

Image Credit: James Frey. Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

First he was infamous for fabricating his memoir A Million Little Pieces, but now James Frey is among an elite crowd that Britain’s Literary Review has nominated for another nefarious honor – the year’s worst sex writing. Frey joins Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Australian author Christos Tsiolkas and nine others in writing the most cringe-worthy bedroom scenes of the year.

In what could be considered the Razzies of fiction, this year’s winner will be announced on December 6. Last year the award went to Rowan Somerville for lines like “Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her” in his novel The Shape of Her.

On Twitter, the London-based Literary Review @Lit_Review posted their favorite lines from this year’s finalists:

View the story “Frey, Murakami, Auel make #badsexaward shortlist” on Storify

I feel like I need a shower after reading those tweets! Have you read anything that should have been on this list but didn’t make the cut?

Nov 22 2011 10:47 AM ET

The 'New York Times' names its 100 Notable Books of 2011

marriageplot_214x320.jpg

As a ramp-up to naming the 10 best of the year, the New York Times released its annual long-long list of notable books of 2011, splitting it 45-55 between fiction and nonfiction. The list hits many of the big literary names: Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding (Amazon’s pick for book of the year), Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, and Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, although it doesn’t include perhaps the buzziest book of the year, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Big award winners like The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (the Man Booker Prize) and The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (the National Book Award for nonfiction) both earned a nod, but the National Book Award winner for fiction, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, is noticeably missing.

Read more:
Amazon chooses Top 10 Books of 2011 — ‘The Art of Fielding’ is no. 1
‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson: EW review
Jesmyn Ward on winning the National Book Award — plus, she takes the EW Book Quiz!
National Book Awards: Jesmyn Ward wins fiction prize

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP
Your favorite social platform?