Thanks to Brookline Booksmith for hosting the Nick Hornby reading

Just to make sure, we decided to wait until the Curse of the Hornbino had been demolished by Your 2007 Boston Red Sox before posting the rest of Nick Hornby's Q&A at the Devotion School in Brookline, where the patron saint of record-store geeks and football obsessives appeared last week to read from his so-called young-adult novel Slam, about a Tony Hawk-worshipping teenager named Sam who flees his hometown after knocking up his girlfriend. In the video above, Hornby discusses the Farrelly Bros adaptation of Fever Pitch, his relationship with Tony Hawk, the cultural significance of skateboarding, and why Slam indulges in a bit of teenage time traveling. Enjoy.

Previously
BOSTONPHOENIX: Brit Wits: As Nick Hornby and Irvine Welsh face 50, two of Brit Lit’s standard-bearers stare down middle age in very different ways.

10/29/2007 10:21:03 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

The NY Times noticed the recent commercialization of Jane Austen on Sunday:

How did this early-19th-century novelist become the chick-lit, chick-flick queen for today? It is not only because she is an enduring writer. So is Melville, but bumper stickers and T-shirts read “What would Jane do?” not “What would Herman do?” A few other female writers have achieved pop culture celebrity: Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath for the drama of their suicides, the Brontës for the gothic romance of their novels and the contrast to their quiet lives. None inspire the warmth, fanaticism — or merchandising — that Austen does.

She has entered pop culture more thoroughly than other writers because she is almost spookily contemporary. Her ironic take on society is delivered in a reassuring, sisterly voice, as if she were part Jon Stewart, part Oprah Winfrey. Beneath the period details, the typical Austen heroine offers something for almost any woman to identify with: She is not afraid to be the smartest person in the room, yet after a series of misunderstandings gets the man of her dreams anyway. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to spot a potential movie audience for that have-it-all fantasy.

Becoming Jane, the heavily fictionalized biography of Austen's one-and-only romance (which, in real life, didn't work out) is out on Aug 10.

Every girl in the world is Elizabeth Bennet, but is Anne Hathaway Jane Austen? We think yes.

7/30/2007 9:33:27 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

We can't stop OMG-ing over these amazing graphic renderings of what will soon become The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Ok, so it'll be built in lame muggy Orlando as opposed to the moors of Britain, which sucks, but whatever. We're sure J.K. Rowling can invest her bajillions in some kind of park-wide fog/mist machine. Anyway. Who cares? It looks awesome and magical! Start planning your 2009 vacations or just scroll down for pics. Click here for the Daily Mail's piece.

6/1/2007 12:58:05 PM by Sharon | Comments [1] |  

Dig on this: J.K. Rowling's final installment for the HP series, titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is set to be published on July 21, 2007! Also, the new film will open July 13. Translation: July is Harry Mania. From the NYT:

Millions of fans around the world are fiercely anticipating this latest installment. But the end of the series, in which Ms. Rowling has hinted she may kill off one of the main characters, comes as a bittersweet finale not only for readers but also for the publishing companies, booksellers and licensees who have cashed in on the international phenomenon since it began more than nine years ago with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” It is hard to imagine how the publishing industry will ever replace the sensation that spawned midnight parties and all-night lines to get the books the moment they went on sale. When “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth in the series, was published in July 2005, it sold 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours.

Yes, yes, very very sad for the publishing industry. What about sad for us? What about the impending death of two major characters? What about rumblings of Emma Watson quitting her role in subsequent films? And worst yet, what about the fact that Daniel Radcliffe has CLEARLY HIT PUBERTY and has decided to show it off in front of a horse named Equus and a naked British girl. She looks nothing like Cho or Ginny. Oi Oi Oi. West End Theatre will never be the same.

2/1/2007 11:59:19 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Frequent readers of this literary blog know that we are somewhat, ehem, fixated and irrevocably OBSESSED with the Harry Potter series and its accompanying films. While the books have never failed to disappoint us, we've had lots of issues with the movies -- especially the last one, Goblet of Fire. Don't get us started.

And yet...

With word that the latest Hary Potter film installment -- that would be The Order of the Phoenix, in case you care -- is in now in post-production, we can't stop ourselves from getting all hopeful and misty-eyed at its potential to win us over. Especially since Harry is finally going to get some.

To wit:

Holy shit, it's the first screen cap of Harry and Cho kissing! It makes us weep with the suggestion of their fleeting innocence. But what the hell is up with the lack of tongues?! Doesn't Harry realize he's got CEDRIC to compete with? Jeez.

Now that we got that out of our system, we can go back to dreading how director David Yates will butcher this one.

Thanks for indulging us.

11/17/2006 3:34:46 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Given that sequels have become almost more common than originals, it’s no wonder that MICHAEL TOLKIN is attempting to get back in the game with a decade-late follow-up to his satire The Player. In The Return of the Player, old Griffin Mill is down to his last $6 million. He’s also got erectile dysfunction and the hots for his ex-wife, and he’s paralyzed by his fear that the world will end before he can escape to his very own private island. He needs more cool cash for this last, so a bank robbery is clearly in order. Tolkin dishes on Hollywood at the Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.

ELSEWHERE:
A shitton of celebs made cameos in Robert Altman's adaptation of The Player.
Listen to NPR's Day to Day review of The Player.

10/24/2006 12:56:49 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Morgan Spurlock did it with Super Size Me and later 30 Days on FX. Now, rather than gorging on McDonalds to see if it has adverse effects, Seattle public radio commentator JON MOE decided to hang out with a bunch of Republicans for a month straight. Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, and Beef Jerky is the result of his month-long immersion in Conservative Country. Moe visited a trancendentalist church, discussed issues with National Review editor Rich Lowry, and spent down time at the Regan museum and a gun-range to discover whether his decidedly liberal values are capable of a sudden turnaround. There’s no shock-and-awe transformation here, but Moe will share what he learned at Barnes & Noble at Boston University, 660 Beacon St, Boston | 7 pm | Free | 617.267.8484.

Also tomorrow, and also free, a panel talk at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Brookline Booksmith: (via Coolidge.org)

"Ever wonder what authors think about movies based on their books? Or, why moviemakers took your favorite novel and turned the girl into a boy, killed the dog, or added a love interest? Do authors get any say in the matter? Well, they're about to, albeit after the fact. And a moviemaker will tell us why changes are made when a story moves from one medium to another.

The NO, BUT I SAW THE MOVIE panel will be moderated by Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, which is currently being adapted for film. The panel will include two other children’s authors whose books have been portrayed on screen -- Phyllis Naylor, Newbery Award winning author of Shiloh, and Newbery Honoree Natalie Babbitt, author of Tuck Everlasting -- along with Randy Testa of Walden Media LLC, the company that has produced such adaptations as Beacuse of Winn Dixie, Hoot, Holes, How to Eat Fried Worms, and The Chronicles of Narnia, among others."

Seriously great line-up of YA authors. This is not to be missed, especially if your copy of The Giver is as well-worn as ours. Or if you get really pissed off about movie adaptations of incredible YA/children's lit books. Tuck Everlasting, a gut-wrenching YA novel that somehow involved a very adult-ish love story, did not a have fantastic book-to-film adaptation (though, we enjoyed it anyway -- Alexis Bledel was a really good Winnie). Hopefully The Giver will fare better, because we totally heart that book like whoa.

10/23/2006 3:53:42 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Right. First things first, here's your readings option for tomorrow:

Mrs. Dracula

ELIZABETH KOSTOVA was so obsessed with Dracula, she spent a decade researching the legend, originally inspired by “pleasantly creepy” tales her father told her about the vampire when she was a girl. Ten years later, the first-time novelist cashed into a publishing jackpot — a $2 million advance for The Historian, seven-figure rights to the film, dozens of rave reviews, and a #1 slot on bestseller lists. The big numbers surrounding The Historian are as much of a phenomenon among the literary set as the book itself. Or, one should say, books within a book — each of which involves meticulously intertwined mysteries set in three different time periods. The novel isn’t short on length (700-plus pages), or on horror (the narrative hinges on the story of a man called Vlad the Impaler), so get a double dose of goosebumps when she reads at Northeastern University, Snell Library, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston | noon | free | 617.373.5471 and then at the Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 7 pm | free | 617.499.2012.

Several people are all a-quiver about this:

You can smell the awkward and the Kibbles

The Globe's publishing guru David Mehegan reports that the Northampton family suing Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors, has reached a settlement with Sony Pictures. This somehow avoids a second lawsuit over the upcoming movie. Whatever, mega losers, we loved the book.

And finally, on an unrelated note:

Jeffrey Sebelia has our full endorsement. Good christ, the guy designed a perfectly wearable dress out of recycled newspaper.

Anything less, and we'll be assigning blame all over the place -- that includes you, Tim Gunn. Just keep those blindingly white feet of yours in check, mmkuh?

10/18/2006 3:49:42 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

A 10^th anniversary edition of David Foster Wallace’s juggernaut of a novel Infinite Jest is being released in November. (Amazon lists the date as November 13). And according to the Howling Fantods, the premiere site for all things DFW, Dave Eggers wrote the forward.

 

In other DFDubs news, John Krasinski, the 26 year-old Newton native who plays Jim on The Office, is making a movie based on Wallace’s short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (which includes the story “Forever Overhead,” which I read as a 13 year old in the Best American Fiction anthology of 1992; I fell hard for DFW after that). It’s unclear, though, whether the movie will incorporate all the stories, or the four in the collection titled “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” interview-format stories in which men reveal their licentious sexual proclivities.

10/5/2006 11:51:02 AM by Nina | Comments [0] |  

A few snippets for your Monday afternoon:

Via Pitchfork:
The list of bands Peter Ellenby has photographed since he began in 1994 reads like the graduation announcement for a whole class full of indie rock elites, from role models such as Sonic Youth, the Flaming Lips, Frank Black, and Mike Watt to the more recent likes of Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, and ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.

To commemorate Ellenby's work, Chronicle Books released the first book-length collection of his photographs this week. The book's name is Every Day Is Saturday, and it comes with a 21-track compilation of previously released songs by the bands featured in the photographs, including Death Cab, Grandaddy, Beulah, American Music Club, John Vanderslice, and John Doe. Doe (originally of X) also wrote the foreword to the book, and Tim Scanlin of Actionslacks wrote the introduction.

Full compliation tracklist here.

Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep, one of our favorite reads of 2006, will be at Newtonville Books tomorrow at 7 pm. It's part of their Books & Brews series, so go buy her a drink and have her sign your book. We'll be there, and possibly will return with a little report about it on Wednesday, just in case you decide to care.

Finally, what the hell is up with Ms. Emma Watson suddenly deciding she might be too busy to spend her entire life making Harry Potter movies? Okay, no. Let's clarify. We Heart Emma Watson (even though she's clearly a bazillion times more gorgeous than Hermione is supposed to be according to J.K. Rowling, which makes her blossiming transformation in recent volumes all the more "shocking"), and we also completely understand her need to take a step back from the HP whirlwind -- especially since she's making top marks in school and could be moving on to bigger and better things. Still. It's not okay. Either way, we're thinking we're going to dress up as Hermione Granger for Halloween this year, as 05's Angelina Jolie was a little too...pedestrian. High-brow style all the way for '06. Obvs. PS, it would really be great if a giving, bookish, and artistically minded soul out there would be willing to sew us a lush black cape and hand-embroider the Gryffindor crest on it. What? It's not that hard. 

More importantly, if you're planning on going as anything remotely connected to literature for HWEEN 06, we totes want to hear about it. And feel free to email us pictures...we may even do a little US WEEKLY style round-up of literary-themed costumes. You'd like that, wouldn't you?

10/2/2006 3:53:57 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

 

     

The author of YA fave Bad Girls, Alex McAuley, has a new fluff book out this month: Summer Love. MTV film execs are dying to cast Avril Lavigne and Kristen Cavalleri opposite each other on the film adaptation of the novel. McAuley's sums up the title on her website:

"It's Laguna Beach meets Cape Fear when a rich girl from California confronts murder and isolation on North Carolina's stormy Outer Banks."

The buzz from an MTV mole:

"It is not a done deal, but there is some serious buzz building over here about it. The MTV execs seem really invested in making Avril a movie star, and feel that Kristin owes them (our guess around here is that Avril is way more into this project than Kristin)."

Of course Av's more into it. She's an old married lady now, remember? Kristen still has to live down her heinous UPN show "Get This Party Started."

Um, can we pre-order tickets to Summer Love this far in advance?

ELSEWHERE:
* Check out an excerpt from Summer Love
* McAuley's got a shitty-lookin LiveJournal

8/7/2006 2:18:26 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

"Ashima never thinks of her husband's name when she thinks of her husband, even though she knows perfectly well what it is. She has adopted his surname but refuses, for propriety's sake, to utter his first. It's not the type of thing Bengali wives do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over."

It's our general feeling that movies based on books never quite measure up. That's probably because we're book nerds. Not film nerds. Even so, there's something about this trailer for Jhumpa Lahiri's best-selling tour de force The Namesake that gave us a little chill down our spine when we watched it -- and that's saying a lot, considering it's a thousand degrees and counting outside. We feverishly enjoyed The Namesake (if you're first-generation in your family, as this half of WU is, this book is an absolute must-read). And we're zealots when it comes to each and every tale in Interpreter of Maladies. There's a reason why a short-story collection won a Pulitzer Prize: it's honestly THAT good. You guys probably already knew that. Lahiri got her MFA at BU, and many of the pieces in Maladies take place right here in our fine city. Live it, love it.

Maud Newton tipped us off to this Tube'd version of the trailer. It's visually arresting, no doubt (and holler, Kumar looks damn good when he's not at White Castle) but the insane emotional weight of Lahiri's words is what makes this thing. She's a wizard at understated dialogue. Perhaps The Namesake will actually match the beauty of the novel, perhaps not. We just hope that even more people pay due attention to Lahiri. She's still quite a young writer and has many surprises in store, we think.

ELSEWHERE:
* Listen to "This Blessed House," one of the best stories in Interpreter of Maladies, read on NPR's This American Life
* Read the first story from the collection: "A Temporary Matter", via The New York Times
* Listen to an interview with Lahiri on WHYY's Fresh Air, in which she discusses The Namesake
* Read a lovely excerpt from The Namesake

8/3/2006 1:26:08 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |