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Category: Books

  • New Poll

    That V.C. Andrews reference down below sent me on a total nostalgia trip. Did you ever read any of her books? Would you admit to it? Go vote and then read the rest of this post.

    Okay, in case you’re wondering, V.C. Andrews wrote all these weird melodramatic serial novels generally about young women in incestuous circumstances. They were really popular in the 80’s, I swear. In junior high my group of girlfriends used to pass copies of them around until they were ragged. Apparently they’re such a publishing cash cow that even though the author died, her family have continued to publish new books under her name. They’ve all got lurid covers with a blond waif peeking out of a cutout on the front. No, I’m not proud of knowing this.

  • Firth problems

    Also note down at the bottom of that same IMDb news page, there’s a blurb entitled “Colin Firth Causes Problems For Bridget Jones Sequel.” And what is it about? “Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding has found a flaw in the adaptation of her sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason — Colin Firth has to be in it twice.” DUH. I’ve been telling everybody I know this for weeks. I don’t really think it’s much of a problem though. The main reason is that the Colin Firth interview in the second book only makes sense when you know about Bridget’s obsession with Pride & Prejudice. Since they cut all of those references in the first film, there’s no reason why they have to include them in the second. Also, as I pointed out before, the second book is really sucky plot-wise anyway and the Colin Firth bit has nothing to do with the storyline, so Fielding might as well lift it out and rewrite the whole thing. And lastly, this stupid blurb makes it sound like Fielding really just forgot that Colin Firth was in the second book. Nobody is that stupid. I think she and the filmmakers made a conscious decision to use Firth in the first film knowing that they’d have problems with a sequel. In my opinion, he was perfect to play Mark Darcy and the value of his performance far outweighs a few missing P&P references. (At least, for most of the non-Austen-fanatic moviegoing public.)

  • Flatterland

    Someone has apparently written a sequel to “Flatland”, the 1884 book by Edwin Abbott Abbott. I loved the original. It was recommended to me in high school by my Calculus teacher and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever read. It’s all about A. Square, who lives in a two-dimensional world on an infinitely large plane. In a vision he visits the worlds of one-dimension (a line of points always travelling) and no-dimensions (just a point). Then he himself is visited by a sphere, which takes him into Spaceland and shows him the possibilities of even more dimensions. Apparently the sequel, called “Flatterland”, features A. Square’s great-great-granddaughter, Victoria Line. She is shown “spaces with infinitely many dimensions, spaces with none, spaces with fractional dimension, spaces with finitely many points, curved spaces, spaces that get mixed up with time, and spaces that aren’t really there at all.” In other words she is invited to see the surfaces and worlds imagined by recent theoretical mathematics and physics. Awesome…

  • The Wind Done Gone

    Toni Morrison’s come out in support of that Gone With the Wind parody I mentioned before. Apparently so have Harper Lee and Pat Conroy. Is Harper Lee still alive? I didn’t know that. And wasn’t “To Kill a Mockingbird” her only novel? Wow.

    Edited 18/04/2025: Link is dead and not archived.

  • Bridget Jones sequel

    I knew it would happen. The producers are apparently mulling over a Bridget Jones sequel. I can see A LOT of problems with this. A) The actual book’s sequel wasn’t very good, if you ask me. I liked reading more about Bridget, but the plot itself (which was apparently based on Austen’s “Persuasion,” I think) was a bit ridiculous and not at all funny. B) There wouldn’t be a role for Hugh Grant. Daniel isn’t in the book at all, and for them to write him in would require a major rewrite of the entire story. And besides, they already expanded his damn part for the first one. C) It’s not very romantic. It kills the “happily ever after” you get at the end of the first book/movie. It would be wrong. I’m sorry, Helen Fielding, but I think you should leave well enough alone.

    Edited 18/04/2025: Original link is dead and not archived.

  • ARGH

    I do this weird thing, where I read and watch things that I know are going to piss me off. Do you do that? For example, I just finished reading the latest “Dawson’s Creek” recap over at MBTV. It (the show, not the recap) enraged me, as I knew it would. Another example – I always read Victoria Hervey‘s column in the Sunday Times Style magazine, even though I know she’s a mindless name-dropping upper-class tart that’s just going to drive me up the wall. Another example – I managed to find a copy of the film Danny, the Champion of the World, which was based on the Roald Dahl book. Jeremy Irons aside, they completely ruin the story. They take out all the morally objectionable bits and replace it with Robbie Coltrane and a horrible plot contrivance. It never fails to completely appall me. And yet I watch it repeatedly. These things are my hair shirts, and I must be really penitent subconsciously.

  • Larry Potter

    Nancy Stouffer, the woman suing J.K. Rowling over alleged “Larry Potter” copyright infringement sounds like a real nutcase. I hope Rowling and Scholastic don’t give her a dime.

  • The Wind Done Gone

    I have to say I disagree with Max about the new “black version” of “Gone With the Wind” that’s about to be published. Don’t get me wrong, I love the original book too. But don’t you think that this story (told from the viewpoint of Gerald O’Hara’s mulatto love-child with Mammy) sounds incredibly interesting? Beyond my curiosity, I also like the idea of this woman re-interpreting a supposedly “sacred” text and expanding it to include herself. (Mental cross-reference: that artist who pissed off Guiliani by portraying herself as a nude, black, female Christ.) And besides, it’s not like this is a new concept. Jean Rhys retold “Jane Eyre” from the point of the madwoman in the attic in her novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” and earned critical acclaim. Why should this case be any different? Is it because “Gone With the Wind” is still a cash cow to be milked? I’m just thinkin’ here…

  • Phantom Tollbooth

    Mama Snookums recommended “The Phantom Tollbooth” to me during our visit and I stayed up late one night reading it. It was fantastic. Coincidentally, I was reading NowThis today and came across a link to an interview with Norton Juster, the book’s author. He sounds like an interesting guy…

  • Colin Firth

    Dark Horizons is running an interview with Colin Firth about his role in “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” You know, Colin, you’re really starting to piss me off with this whole “I’m-not-Darcy-and-I-hate-all-my-fans” thing. It’s like Russell Crowe. If you choose to be a movie star, you gotta accept the consequences and stop bitching about the very people who pay your salary. And what the hell is that bit about fighting Hugh Grant? That’s not in the book! Their characters are never even in the same place! Grrrr…