Tag: Quirk (21-30 of 40)

Jan 21 2010 09:05 AM ET

Cutest. Bookmarks. Ever.

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I’m not too much of a bookmark person. I tend to just do that whole fold-the-page-in thing that seems logical at the time that you’re doing it, but never really seems to work. (You would think I would change my methods after an embarrassing number of times when I’ve been being forced to riffle through 200-some pages to find my spot.)

But now, I might have to adapt after seeing these adorable bookmarks by a graphic designer named Igor “Rogix” Udushlivy. (A hat-tip to the blog at New York-based design studio Swissmiss for spotting this.) Inspired by some of the classics, you can get a bookmark attached to a book jacket that holds your spot with a cut-out of, for example, a submarine telescope (Nautilus), a pipe (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s prince (The Little Prince).

My personal favorite has to be the bookmark inspired by Moby-Dick (how cute is that water spout?!), but I would refrain from purchasing the Shot bookmark if you plan on entering a bank at any point in time.

Jan 12 2010 12:20 PM ET

Tolstoy will do the robot in the next Quirk Classic

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Quirk Books, the folks who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, its prequel, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, have moved on from bloodying the frock of Jane Austen and set their sights on a new author: Leo Tolstoy. No, the company’s fourth augmented classic isn’t going to be War and Pieces of Brain, nor will it be The Undeath of Ivan Ilyich.

It’s Android Karenina, which will transpose the tale of Anna Karenina to a steampunk-inspired alternate 19th-century world of cyborgs, robot butlers, and space travel. S&S&S scribe Ben H. Winters will be helping to mechanize the original text, and the new quirkified version (the cover, at left, has yet to be designed) is set for release in bookstores this June.

I think these changes can only make a tragic tale more tragic; poor Anna never did well with steam-powered locomotion, and now she’s surrounded by it. No word on whether she’ll be bionically rebuilt following the ending, though. It’s good that this series is branching out to other authors, even if Tolstoy doesn’t exactly inspire the same Sunday-reading-group fervor as Ms. Austen. What say you, Shelf-Lifers? Do you like your Russian literature automatized?

Jan 4 2010 09:08 AM ET

'Pride and Prejudice' updates: Enough!

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Yesterday, as I was rifling through the mound of galleys that publishers oh-so-kindly sent our way, I came upon a book that made me sigh. No, not Heidi and Spencer Pratt’s How to Be Famous. That book made me scream. Instead, I became immediately fatigued upon finding a copy of The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy, by Sara Angelini — a 2007 novel (newly in paperback) that’s billed as Legally Blonde-meets-Pride and Prejudice.

Why, you ask? Because I completely, 100 percent supported the trend of Jane Austen mash-ups — until now. Can you say oversaturation? Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was hysterical, and wholly original. But the novelty has worn thin, with dozens of authors jumping on board to sell their updates of Austen’s work in every genre from romance to mystery to sci-fi. How many more supernatural remixes will we find (see: all those Prejudice-themed vampire books)? How many more chick-lit updates?

Because, really, there are hundreds of other identifiable, classic authors whose work could use an imaginative update. Let’s leave Austen alone for once. Why not desecrate the work of John Steinbeck, Louisa May Alcott, or, hell, even Dante? Tell me, Shelf Lifers, are you as tired of the Prejudice trend as I am? And whose work do you wish contemporary authors would update?

Dec 29 2009 09:00 AM ET

The classics get tweeted in 'Twitterature'

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Tolstoy was a great novelist, but he wasn’t known for concision. That’s probably the reason why he didn’t use Twitter. Well, one of the reasons, at least.

Luckily for us, the compilers of the new book Twitterature have helped to condense into 140 characters what would have taken the Russian author 140 pages to describe. Each classic is squeezed into 20 tweets or fewer. For example, from Anna Karenina (SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t had a chance to catch the nail-biting finale):

“Alright, twenty rubles says that I can toss my bag in the air, run across the tracks, and catch it before the train arriv–”

William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Thomas Pynchon, and even Dan Brown get the Twitter treatment in the book, to widely varying humorous effect. I like the premise of the whole thing, even if it’s sometimes a bit overcooked. Plus, the tweets actually cover the plot pretty well, so I can even imagine using this as a sort of jokey CliffsNotes. Here are a few more choice examples:

“SATAN HAS THREE HEADS, AND THEY ARE TOTALLY EATING PEOPLE” Dante’s The Inferno

“S—. ‘C-Section’ is not ‘of woman born’? What kind of king dies on a g–d— technicality?” Shakespeare’s Macbeth

“Robert Downey Jr. playing me in a film? Totally cool. Perfect.” A.C. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes

What do you think? Are Twitter and classic lit like chocolate and peanut butter, two great things that go great together? Or is it more like chocolate and anchovy paste?

Dec 23 2009 09:09 AM ET

Ever get embarrassed because you mispronounce a word you've only seen written? Don't.

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I was watching The Proposal the other day and noticed something interesting. In one scene, Sandra Bullock’s book editor character, Margaret Tate, is talking about how she desperately needs to save the Don DeLillo account, a surprisingly high-brow reference amidst the usual rom-com white noise. Of course, Ms. Bullock pronounces the author’s name “duh-LEE-low” instead of the correct “duh-LIL-low,” instantly deflating the credit I had just given the movie and making me feel like Smartypants McGee for catching the mistake. (Don’t believe me? The FAQ of the Don DeLillo Society points to a radio interview the author gave in 1997 to confirm the pronunciation.)

Which got me thinking, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on the movie. Haven’t we all had a name or a word that we’ve seen many times in print, but never heard in conversation? We know what it means, how to use it, how it’s spelled; everything but how to pronounce it.

For the majority of my life, I was convinced that awry was pronounced similarly to the word orrery. To this day “uh-RYE” still rings false in my ear. I also admit to pronouncing posthumous as if it meant “following a savory Middle Eastern spread.” And I, like many others, have Googled the phrase “Goethe, how to pronounce.” (Don’t get me started on South African-born Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee.) I just wonder why there’s such a stigma attached to those of us (like poor Margaret Tate) who seem to know certain words only in writing. Surely, there is quite a large vocabulary that doesn’t appear that often in everyday conversation, so why should one feel ashamed to get it wrong now and again? In the end, it’s more important to know what it means than how it sounds. I say go forth and mispronounce because how will you ever get it right if you’re never corrected? Duh-LEE-low, Duh-LIL-low, let’s call the whole thing off.

What say you? Any particularly embarrassing mispronunciation stories you’d like to recount?

Dec 17 2009 12:19 PM ET

Would you buy Charles Dickens' toothpick?

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Modern celebrities are used to having every little item they touch turn to golden treasures in the eyes of their devotees: Robert Pattinson’s cherry ChapStick, a lock of Elvis’ raven tresses, Meatloaf’s girdle. But acclaimed literary figures have usually been excluded from such fetishistic fandom. At least, until now.

Earlier this month, Cormac McCarthy’s Lettera 32 Olivetti typewriter, on which the famed writer click-clacked his way through all of his novels, sold at auction to a rare book dealer for $254,500. Now comes word that an ivory toothpick used by Charles Dickens has been purchased for $9,150, almost doubling Bonhams auction house’s not-so-great expectations. The dental device comes with a letter from Dickens’ sister-in-law verifying its use by the classic author (The Toothpickwick Papers?), and the handle is engraved with his initials.

I must admit, I’m a little grossed out by this. And I fully appreciate why the auction winner might want to remain anonymous. I understand wanting to get close to a beloved litterateur, but spending thousands in the hope of capturing a little bit of Christmas goose that once occupied the space between his teeth seems a little, well, yuck. What’s next? Lord Byron’s bedpan? A moldy leftover Cuban sandwich from Ernest Hemingway? Proust’s Q-Tip?

What do you think? Are there any author-related items you’d pay top dollar to get your hands on? Or should we just stick to their books?

Nov 25 2009 09:00 AM ET

Who needs Kindles or Nooks? In praise of the old-fashioned book

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This amazing stop-motion animated film, created for the New Zealand Book Council, reminds me of all the reasons I love books — the old-fashioned ones, that call for turning actual paper pages. This clip, produced by the creative team of Line and Martin Andersen for the ad firm Colenso BBDO, features a passage from Maurice Gee’s 1992 book Going West. Trust me, it’s worth two minutes of your time:

Try doing that with a Kindle! Electronic readers may be popular, and they may even shrink my cumbersome wallful of literary treasures into a single portable hand-held device. But the book remains a pretty efficient content-delivery system that’s served us well for centuries.

Oct 20 2009 09:10 AM ET

From 'Wild Things' to Pigeons: Could other children's books become movies for grown-ups?

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PigeonDriveNow that Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are suggests that the primary audience for movies based on children’s books may not be kids at all, how long before we see something like this? (A hat tip to the Omnivoracious blog as well as Pigeon author Mo Willems’ own blog for pointing out this fan-created movie poster.) What other classic children’s stories might be adaptable into less-than-kid-friendly movies? Harriet the Spy recast as a female Bourne-type action heroine? Pat the Bunny set at the Playboy Mansion?

Oct 19 2009 09:10 AM ET

Great literature stripped bare: Naked Girls Reading

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Have you ever attended a book reading and wondered to yourself whether it might be better if Philip Roth or A.S. Byatt were naked? No? Well, what if they were beautiful burlesque dancers? Ah…

Enter Naked Girls Reading. This self-explanatorily named group performs public readings of everything from bedtime stories to poetry to traditional classics entirely in the buff. These, uh, literary expositions began in Chicago but quickly caught on in a number of major cities across the country. Friday night saw the very first show by the New York City chapter, with the appropriate theme of “banned books.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, Ray Bradbury, and Joseph Heller are only some of the big-name authors whose works were performed on a lushly adorned stage by sparsely adorned lectors. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 12 2009 09:05 AM ET

A modern Algonquin Roundtable dinner party of sparkling wit — yours for just $200,000

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Nora Ephron (left) and Malcolm GladwellSearching for a holiday gift for the bookish billionaire on your list? The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book catalog is out, and in addition to the $73,000 electric sports motorcycle and the $105,000 Jaguar XJL, there’s this: A dinner party for two at New York City’s famed Algonquin Hotel with actual, live literati. You choose a Monday between February and June 2010 and Neiman Marcus will arrange a meal for you and a guest with eight of “the brightest minds of modern literature, journalism, and the arts.” Your fellow diners might include satirist Christopher Buckley, cartoonist Roz Chast, Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell (above right), writer-performer Anna Deavere Smith, presidential beer buddy Henry Louis Gates Jr., sisterly wits Delia and Nora Ephron (above left), actor John Lithgow, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, TV journalist George Stephanopoulos, and his actress wife, Ali Wentworth. (Depending on the celebs’ availability on the date you select, there may be substitutions.) Not included in the package: a cheat sheet of possible conversational ice-breakers.

The price for this evening of “sparkling conversation” and “just ordinary” food (at least according to a recent restaurant review on Zagat.com)? A mere $200,000, with the proceeds going to First Book, a charity that has distributed more than 65 million new books to children in need. (The group will dedicate 10,000 books to children in the state of your choice.) Who says there’s a recession?

I’m curious. If you had a spare $200,000, would you plunk it down on one fab evening of Manhattan-centric chat in an admittedly historic setting? Assuming the dinner lasts about two hours, that works out to roughly 15 minutes with each of your A-list party guests. Sounds like fun, but not exactly a bargain — and it would definitely puts some pressure on you to hone your conversational skills to their absolute sharpest. (Personally, I’d be a wreck imagining the future Nora Ephron essay about the dullest dinner party she ever attended.) What do you think: fantasy evening or overpriced boondoggle? And who would you want in your perfect-wish-list Algonquin roundtable?

Photo credits: Ephron: Chris Hatcher/PR Photos; Gladwell: Janet Mayer/Photorazzi/PR Photos

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