Category Archives: Links

Free Comic Book Day

by Anna

Free Comic Book Day Comic: The TickIt’s that most wonderful time of the year (tomorrow)! On the first Saturday of May each year, comic book stores around the country host Free Comic Book Day, where they offer free special edition comics from the various publishers, as well as store-wide sales and raffles. The free editions aren’t the best stories, of course, but they can be good introductions to new series, and if you are a comic book fan, it is just a fun community event. The official website has a store finder, and I definitely recommend just stopping by your local store if you have any interest in comic books.

—Anna

An “Atlas Shrugged” Theme Post

by Rebecca

I’m still grinding my way through Atlas Shrugged (I’ve made it past the 300 page mark! I’m a quarter of the way through! … Urg.) But, it also appears to be taking over my life.

For instance, The Colbert Report talked about The Atlasphere: a dating site for fans of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. (It starts at 1:55 in the clip below.)

(Wowza. Plus, given the skeeviness of the sex scenes in this book, I would not want to date anyone taking their pointers from it.)

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

I also joined a new gaming club, for board games and card games and the like. I’ve learned two new games in the last few weeks. Both of them are a lot of fun… and both of them involve building train systems.

Welcome to “Ticket to Ride” and “Trans America.”

TicketToRide     TransAmerica

And finally, when I was just talking (read: venting) to Anna about the book, my playlist comes to Billy Joel singing about living in a small dying industrial town, Allentown:

Atlas Shrugged is taking over my life!

But at least the extra bits are really fun.

The Word Made Flesh

by Anna

I ran across this site somewhere on the internet, probably via my current addiction, pinterest: The Word Made Flesh, www.tattoolit.com, is just photos of tattoos that people have gotten that either are text or reference a piece of text. Some of them include short descriptions from the people on why they chose the tattoos. (Also, the site is mostly, but not entirely, safe for work; some of the tattoos get a tad intimate.)

The tattoos themselves are of varying quality, but I find the whole site really interesting for a number of reasons:

  • I love reading about what pieces of writing have really impacted a person’s life. (Some of them even make me a little misty-eyed, especially when it is clear that the person is using the tattoo as a visible reminder of recovery.)
  • It is super interesting to see which texts pop up over and over again (Catcher in the Rye, of course, lots of Kurt Vonnegut and e. e. cummings, and just tons of The Little Prince)
  • It is additionally interesting to read about someone being so inspired by a piece of text that I have also read but completely shrugged off. What is it about those books that just connected to these people and not to me? (My eventual mild enjoyment of the one Kurt Vonnegut book I have read is nowhere close to the adulation people feel for that same book, and I simply don’t get it.)
  • Some people have tattoos that I consider a little ridiculous (perhaps when you are a young adult, you shouldn’t get a Harry Potter tattoo until you’ve seen if it will continue to be such an impact in your adult life,* and that goes double for A Series of Unfortunate Events), while some people are just way, way cooler than me (the full-color pelvic tattoo of Aubrey Beardsley’s illustration of Oscar Wilde’s Salome, which is also the tattoo that kicked off this website and the photograph of which is totally NSFW)
  • Placement of tattoos is also important (an Ayn Rand quote on the upper thigh seems like it might be a bit of a turn off)

After wasting entirely too much time on the site, I have to say, though, that whatever my thoughts on the tattoos themselves, it just makes me happy to see all these people so inspired by such a range of books.

—Anna

*On the other hand, I didn’t grow up with Harry Potter, having started the series well out of college, and I’m told by my much younger cousins that it is a whole different experience reading each book as roughly the same age as Harry, which I guess I can see.

Steel’s Edge (excerpt)

by Anna

By Ilona Andrews

Book cover: Steel's EdgeSo, Rebecca has previously reviewed the third book in Ilona Andrew’s Edge Series, and in her review she wrote that she thought each book in the series was better than the preceding one, which I disagreed with. The third book was actually my least favorite and had pretty much convinced me to bow out of this series.

Then, I was bored one day and noticed that Andrews had posted a lengthy excerpt from the brand new fourth book, Steel’s Edge, on her website; I figured it couldn’t hurt to read it, just to congratulate myself on my decision not to read any more of them.

However, as you have probably noticed from this lead-in, it is really good! Each books features a male protagonist introduced in a previous book and a new female protagonist, and I was almost immediately interested in the new female character. Both characters are also in their early- to mid-30s, which is both refreshing and increasingly more relatable to me. I’m now very much looking forward to reading this one, though I’m at least sticking to my guns on not buying it, so I’ll await the library.

—Anna

Things I Learned at the National Book Festival

by Anna

National Book Festival 2012This weekend, I went with Kinsey to the National Book Festival on the National Mall, and it was an awesome conglomerate of book lovers! We went to hear John Green, Patricia Cornwell, and Lois Lowry speak, and it was fascinating listening to them discuss their various approaches to writing and relationships with their books, because they really were widely different (and I’d like to encourage Kinsey to comment or post with her reasons for wanting to hear Patricia Cornwell speak, because they are very amusing).

Five things I learned at the National Book Festival:

  • If I listen to an author talk about a book for long enough, I will want to read that book.
  • Authors really appreciate libraries and librarians, which I had sort of wondered about since it conceivably cuts into revenues.
  • Having an author talk about a fictional character as a separate, independent entity makes me a little uneasy.
  • There are lots of ways to ask the infamous question, “where do you get your ideas?” (but the answer is always a variation of “beats me”).
  • All spouses of authors deserve our respect and sympathy.

I also was embarrassed to realize that the one-year birthday (September 17) of this blog had blown right past without me realizing it, so happy belated birthday, Biblio-therapy!

This was brought to my attention at the booth for Banned Book Week, which is also coming up (September 30-October 6, 2012), and which was our first collection of themed blog posts. For many years, I have been fielding many, many recommendations for Kurt Vonnegut, and have been slightly ashamed that I haven’t actually read any of his books, so I may pick up the frequently banned Slaughterhouse-Five in honor of Banned Book Week. It appears to have been most recently banned in 2010 because it “glorifies drinking, cursing, and premarital sex,” all of which I am very much in favor of, so it might be a good pick for me. However, I have a couple of other books on my list, as well, so I guess I’ll see how I feel next week and surprise you!

—Anna

Most Awesome Things I Saw On the Internet This Week

by Kinsey

No book review today, although I’m working on a post about Tana French because I just finished her latest and thought it was amazing. But I did want to quickly share the two greatest things I’ve seen online this week.

First, another book review blog that has the BEST NAME EVER: Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. The best, right? (If you don’t get it, you need to go watch yourself some Friday Night Lights.) I am both mad that I did not think of this myself and admiring of them that they did. Plus, they cover YA and fantasy and have all sorts of good lists of books. And, they offer a recommendation service! You fill out a form saying what you’re looking for, and they will recommend your next book! Go check them out.
Second, I must have seen this in twelve places on the Internet today, but I need to do my part to make sure no one misses this genius cartoon. You’ll want to devote some time to this one–once you start clicking and dragging, it just goes on and on, and there seem to be endless wonderful things to find.

Rest in Peace, David Rakoff

by Anna

I have been seeing and reading a lot of eulogies for David Rakoff today, and wanted to add my two cents. I knew who he was, of course, but hadn’t realized how ubiquitous he was. Author, commentator, artist, dancer, comedian: truly a Renaissance man in the modern world. I only realized now how much he contributed to so many of the mediums I love. I’m sad that I didn’t know his works better, and am going to try to remedy that as soon as I can.

—Anna

Restaurant Reviews From a Privileged Nine-Year-Old

by Anna

By Jesse Eisenberg

A couple of nights ago, I was just feeling kind of off, you know? Like, nothing was wrong, but nothing seemed quite right, either. Probably because my days are no longer spent mostly on the beach, napping, and snacking. I couldn’t find anything interesting to me, and I was sort of half-heartedly browsing my regular blogs and one of them linked to a series of fictional essays that actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network or Zombieland, depending on how high or low your brow is; I think you can probably guess which movie I know him from [go see Zombieland—it is awesome!]) has been writing for McSweeney’s.*

Anyway, Eisenberg is enviably as good an author as he is an actor, and the stories, called Restaurant Reviews From a Privileged Nine-Year-Old, both made me laugh and kind of broke my heart, and were just the perfect reading for an hour before bedtime.

*I don’t know what it is about McSweeney’s, but I find it really daunting, so I never just go on and browse. Maybe because it is so beautifully designed or so chock full of very clever writing? Whatever it is, it is clearly too nice a site for me. However, whenever anyone sends me a link to an essay on McSweeney’s, I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll love it.

—Anna

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

by Rebecca

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
By Hank Green and Bernie Su
2012

I would not have thought it was really possible to transpose Pride & Prejudice into a modern setting, but then I watched some of the episodes of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and was amazed. This is the Bennet family in the current time as told through Lizzie Bennet’s online video blog. And it’s delightful!

It’s also still a work in progress, still being updated twice a week with new episodes. So far there are 30+ episodes, each between 2.5 and 5 minutes long, and Lizzie and Jane are staying at Netherfield, visiting Bing Lee, his sister Carolyn, and friend Darcy.

The translation of the story from the 19th century to the 21st century is both really well done and kind of fascinating. What changes and what doesn’t change is pretty awesome.

While the majority of the story is told diary-fashion about off-screen events, some of the events take place while Lizzie is recording the videos and seven characters have directly appeared on camera (so far): Lizzie Bennet, of course, but her also her friend Charlotte who helps with the video editing, her sisters Jane and Lydia, Bing Lee and Caroline have appeared a couple of times, and, in one memorable episode, Mr. Collins.

It’s really well done, and it’s a bit like potato chips: each episode is short and quickly watched and yet you can’t just watch one. There’s more to watch and you want to watch them all!

Thus, you should go start watching! Here’s the first one.