Abandon ye pride, prejudice, panty twisting - this one is super eligible for your Summer Reading List: Eligible, by Curtis Sittenfeld

Eligible

Curtis Sittenfeld

Random House, 2016

ISBN: 978-1400068326

Review copy provided by NetGalley

My delight in British costume dramas, Jane Austen, and smutty books is, well, not a secret.  I’m not known to miss a BBC show on PBS involving long skirts, repressed and eventually unrepressable feels (yeah, I know it’s not a word, but try and pretend like you don’t know what I meant), drama of a sensibly British nature, and smoldering male leads in tight pants and long coats. If you’ve been paying attention, you also know well my love for ridiculous smutty books, as well as a good old case of the terribles.  Pretty much forever, Mrs. Bennet has been my all-time favorite unintentional Austen heroine (sorry Anne Elliot, you’re a close second); in fact, though Persuasion has persuasively stolen my heart, I really think Pride and Prejudice is actually the best, funniest, and most entertaining of all of Austen’s novel...which is probably why it’s so, sooooo widely adapted.

Hearing that there was another adaption of Pride and Prejudice was kind of like hearing that the Italian men’s national soccer team had flopped to excess again in international league play.  Hearing that it was written by the wryly amused and perceptive Curtis Sittenfeld, and set in Cincinnati, Ohio (a great spot I’ve visited, but not necessarily one of the sexiest places to set a romantic novel, yaknow? But then again, neither was Milwaukee, so maybe the Midwest is onto something?) however, perked my ears right up. This did not smell like an Armani scented flop!   And you guys.  IT WASN’T.

Tidbits

This link should prove to you how long I've been putting off this Tidbits post. Yeah. Christmas, 2013. Seems like just yesterday huh? It's like I'm a hoarder. Don't judge meeee!  

Books and Libraries

• If you need a very uh...saucy gift for Valentine's day for the book fondler in your life, try these.  The 50/50 slap vs chuckle is on you though!  
• 50 Shades of Linger-grey.  Eyeroll. Probably another V-day gift idea, but could be a loaded one. 
• For the more discreet yet naughty, NPR is onto what you're really reading on that cell phone!  
• Struggling with which great YA to pick up next?  Struggle no more!  Book Riot put together a very thorough flow chart to help you muddle through this crisis of great import.  
• According to the most recent Pew study on libraries, "Some 90% of Americans ages 16 and older said that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their community, with 63% saying it would have a “major” impact."  Thank you for recognizing the importance of your library, Americans who took this survey!  Now please, go and make all your friends agree with you!
• I'm calling it a three way tie between Alec Baldwin, LLCoolJ, and Stephen Hawkings in theRead posters of the 1980s and 1990s, compiled by Book Riot.  
• I want all of these Harry Potter stilettos, or just an invite to this inevitably awesome wedding! 
• Here is a very delightful trailer for BJ Novaks new book, One More Thing, a review of which, I promise, is coming soon.     
• Behold, the worlds worst allergy.  

Food

• How great are these fantastic tea blends based on books and TV/movies/fandoms I am not cool enough to understand?  I want to try them ALL!
• I obvi want to try these literary cocktails (especially the Sherlock and Watson), but not as much as I want to go to Novela in San Francisco! 
• It's Girl Scout Cookie season, and I have as yet failed to mention that an 8 year old in the subway station selling me them tried to get me to give her my credit card...because they take credit cards now.  Those wily minxes!  Here are some wine (they're kind of gross, in my opinion) and beer pairing ideas to go with your cookies as you ponder a world in which you can instantly buy things on credit from children.  

Movies and TV

• I truly madly deeply hope the BBC plan to adapt Anansi Boys comes to fruition! 
• These Broken Stars has been optioned for TV, but I'm more excited for the sequel.  When's that happening already? 
• Remember Little Golden Books?  Here are some TV shows reimagined as Little Golden Books (or, perhaps, cautionary tales for children about dealing meth?).  
• Oooh, Daughter of Smoke and Bone has a director.  I am so hopeful!
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has been optioned, because the illustrations weren't scary enough in 2D.  Fat chance I'll see it; still recovering from my 1994 reading experience.  
• Did you hear that Fault in Our Stars has a trailer?  Yes, yes you did, because everyone did.  Torn between being over it, and glad that people are picking up a book - hoping it leads to more exploration of YA titles!  Still kind of weirded out about the brother-lover sitch though...
• I've save the best for almost last.  OUTLANDERHASATRAILER.  Repeat, one more time, on the slow-like: Outlander has a trailer! Two, actually.  I'm embedding the better one. You know, the one in which Jamie talks and doesn't wear a shirt? Duh.  

Lastly, here is the one of the best things I've read on the Internet in a while, written by a teenage girl.  Suffice it to say, she's tired of being patronized:   

"When you applaud or critique a young girl’s taste based on how well or badly it aligns with yours, you are suggesting that your taste = THE RIGHT TASTE, because you are the one IN THE KNOW."

Huge high five to this young woman.  Well said!

Tidbits:

Let's play two lies and zero truths: I haven't been hoarding these links since July or anything...it's also not September, and I'm not back at school. 

Mish mash and some bookish things

• I love to hear about things like this pseudo Little Library, real library, book store mashup happening in the Shanghai subway.  It sounds like a library done right! 
• I think I found my how to guide for my Halloween costume!
• I love running, but some days, some days it is hard, juno?!  Thank the sweet baby lord jay-zeus that Book Riot knows about our woes  and made us this handy guide to Fitness for Book Nerds, fellow fitness doing book nerds! 
• You guys already know how I feel about food, but I also think the best karaoke I've ever seen done was to Coolio's Gangsters Delight, in a bar that served jello shots and was best known by it's pet name, Uncle Stabby's. This makes me think investing my $12 of life savings in this venture is a great idea!
• Check out the first six chapters of the lovely Laurie Halse Anderson's upcoming book, The Impossible Knife of Memory. 
• Aziz Ansari is going to write about my, your, OUR life, amigos of my day and age (aka modern romance).  I'm kindasortareallyexcited!

Movies and  TV show galore!

• I was SO excited, I forgot to post about the news that Jamie had been cast in the thing I'm probably most anticipating since the last thing, the Outlander miniseries.  What do you think?!  It doesn't really matter, because DGabs seems to be pumped!
• And then I continued to forget...because they cast Black Jack/Frank Randall, and I missed my opportunity to ask, "Et Tu Brutus?" Such a rookie.
• I think my PopTart will be hella excited about the hills coming back to life - I know I am.  Do I smell a family slumber(less) party, or is that just some kielbasa you started to grill in anticipation?
• Uh - Laura Linney and now (okay, a few weeks ago) Sam Tramwell for Hazel's parents?  Well played, casting director casting a cast right into my heart.  (Except for the incest part.   Still TBD.)
• I'm pretty Undeclared, but it is unlikely chance that I will be able to watch 50 Shades of Grey from anything but behind my fingers while giggling nervously has greatly been increased by the casting news. 
• This trailer is such a tease, but it will prove Divergent to your attention for a moment.   
• Who want to go and cry in a movie theater with me?  This trailer for The Book Thief looks so true to the book, I suspect that will be the case!

Until next time I realize I've been hoarding links, I'm back to school, back to school.  If you need to find me in September, I'll be busy. 

Black Spring, by Alison Croggon: A Wuthering Heights a magical allusion? (#wordplay)

Black Spring

Alison Croggon
Candlewick Press, August 27th 2013

ISBN: 978-0-7636-6009-3

ARC copy provided by Candlewick

In the rough northern territories, the rule of vendetta is the law, and the king and wizards share power over the peasants.  When a southern noble comes to stay to escape scandal and goes to greet his landlord, he unwittingly stumbles into a slightly more magical adaptation of Wuthering Heights.  His housekeeper reveals that she once worked in the household of Lina, a young witch.  Witches are marked for death by wizards under the laws of the north, but she is protected to by the noble status of her father, who is punished when a silent, stoic young boy is sent to be his ward.   Lina and the ward develop a tempestuous, dangerously passionate and desperate link in childhood that is tested when the bottom falls out and Lina’s father passes away, setting them on a course that may destroy their own lives and the lives of those of around them.  Told alternatively through the housekeeper, Lina’s journal, and the southern noble, Black Spring is a gothic, dark read for those who love Heathcliff and Catherine.  

Continued:

Tidbits:

Movies/TV

• Chuy from Star Wars, I knew I always loved you. 
• If we ever see the Selection on any sort of screen other than my imagination, I will be delighted. (And some other adaptations I've not heard of)
• Divergent is filming already.  I am beyond beyond excited.  

Books

• Even better, the last book in the Divergent trilogy will be titled Allegiant (meh) and will be out in October!
• Here be a cover, another bumped back release date, and an interview with Diana Gabaldon regarding the slightly melodramatically titled Written In My Hearts Own Blood.  Bad that I forgot Jem has been trapped in a mine since like...2009? I just want to read it already!
• A first look at Patrick Ness' new YA book!
• Ugh, the messes the Nazi's are still being sorted out, even in the antique books world. 
• Please meet my new favorite thing: Literarily Drunk.
• Curiouser and curiouser: Jason Segal is writing a YA novel.  Dubious about the whole celebauthor train, but not as dubious in this case?  If that's not enough for you, pour yourself a Game of Thrones Cocktail! I'm all in for a Vodka Implet.

Design

• Bookshelf and home design mixed?  Oh, hello, feeling of nirvana.  (Incidentally, that little boy is such a snatchable little minx!)  But seriously, I want this. 
• Bonus round: a really cool library design, and it's an international library!

The Selection, by Kiera Cass: When The Bachelor does Dystopia, we ALL win

The Selection

by Kiera Cass

HarperTeen, 2012 (available 4/24/12)

In this highly anticipated vision of the future, the United States is no longer a democracy.  Monarchy has returned and a caste system is now in place with social groups rated one (highest) to eight (lowest).  Straight shooting and musically talented America Singer and her large family are fives, artisan class.  When The Selection is announced, a reality show to find teenage Prince Maxon a wife and a future Queen, America feels obligated to enter.  Entrants are well compensated for their participation, and her family can use the money.  But America is madly in love with her secret boyfriend, Aspen, a six, servant class, and for the obvious reasons is hesitant to enter.  Aspen clears the way when he breaks up with her instead of proposing; his pride can’t bear to drag her down a caste level.  Soon America is flying off to the palace with 34 other contestants, one from each province, to compete to win the heart and hand of Prince Maxon.  But things in the palace are not as they seem to be on a TV screen; there are frequent attacks by rebels, not to mention learning to navigate the new royal caste expectations, trying to make friends in a tinderbox, and trying to fall in love with a broken heart.  This book has high pop appeal (a TV pilot has already been filmed), and should find its way into all YA collections with high demand anticipated from girls (11-16) and adults when the pilot airs.

Guys – I think we can all cop to the obvious.  A summary of the basics of this plot is like a recipe for Paperblog kryptonite.   It’s basically The Bachelor meets The Prince and Me meets a beauty pageant meets a girly version of dystopia meets the CW meets fantasies of Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding, shaken, and served in a glass labeled: Strong Potential for Highly Addictive Case of the Terribles.  HOW COULD I SAY NO?  Now, before I go much further, I’ll make a disclaimer:  I have not actually finished this book (my copy is not a complete one), and the origins of my copy, while legit and legal, are slightly not directly from the publisher.  Let’s just say the bidding war paid off for all of our curiosity about this buzzed about book (and don’t worry, HarperTeen legal department, I’m not passing it on...unless of course you want to send me a real ARC, which I’d be delighted to pass on to my many, always eager to read fun things teenage students…). 

Now that we’ve cleared that up and all the boys have stopped reading, let’s debrief. 

Tidbits: Movies, international libraries, and more movies!

Movie News:

• Did you know that Ender's Game is being adapted for film?  I didn't.  But I liked the book enough to sneak it onto my school's summer reading list!  Where are they going to find a Machiavellian middle schooler, who is precocious and also not wholy creepy while being a little intense and occasionally creepy? I will admit to being slightly weirded out that it was optioned by Summit Entertainment, the crew behind the Twilight franchise (aka the people who think it's a good idea to split Breaking Dawn into two movies, if the fact that they were behind Twilight wasn't enough) and the guy who directed the sausage parade that was Wolverine is directing.  Then again, he also directed an Oscar.  Jury's out!
• You already heard that Jellicoe Road is going to be made into more than just a movie in my head. Melina Marchetta is, to my joy, heavily involved in the adaptation process.  Usually I can be a bit of a purist, but the suggest changes actually intrigue me and don't sound as though they'd alter the concept. Color me excited!
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower is also going to be a movie.  A movie starring Percy Jackson as Charlie, Hermione Granger as Sam, and Elena Gilbert as Candace.  YA book to movie mashup mashup!
• Hehe. Cato in the Hunger Games adaptation has also been in another kids adaptation. I recognized him solely because his face is on the cover of the DVD for Seeker: The Dark is Rising, which I checked in and out of the Children's Room I used to work in FREQUENTLY.  Which led me to realize that a certain major player in the Games was also in a much circulated movie adapted from another children's literature classic.  Here's the cover!  Babyface!
• Um...Just when I got used to John C. Reilly as Haymitch, he will now be played by Woody Harrelson.  Which I'm kind of excited by, because he's been alternately kind and nuts in film roles.  Except for the whole Haymitch having hair thing.  Please no wig?

Library stuff:

• I want to go to this library within a converted train in Thailand!  It looks too cute for words.  I want more pictures!
• Things I wish the T would do for $500.  The Bay Area is a step ahead!
• An NGO has opened a small, free children's library in a poor area of Manila.  Having spent some time with a similar project in Nicaragua (The San Juan del Sur Biblioteca), I am hopeful that this new library will bring as much to the kids and families who use it!  Eventually I will post my posts from my time with the SJDSBiblioteca over here, but for now they live here. 

Tidbits

A few newsy items for your critical eyes, fair readers:

1. I dare you not to at least internally squeal at this heinously adorable video of a tiny penguin being tickled. I want one!
2. Curiouser and curiouser:  Neil Gaiman's American Gods adapted for an HBO series?  Not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, I loved how various world mythologies were the backbone of this book; it was truly a cool book.  On the other, I felt it kind of dragged a little and almost felt forced, perhaps because I didn't always like the protagonist.  On the other (yes, I have three hands), this is the exact kind of thing HBO would do a fantasticly magical job of adapting.  See why I am torn?
3. Remember the flash mob happening in support of National Library Week happening at the Holyoke, MA mall that I mentioned in my last Tidbits post?  It happened and it looked like fun in a sculpture garden o'booklovers!  Well done, Team Library.  I'm impressed by those that held their arms up to hold up books and banners for five minutes straight.   But then again, books weigh a lot.  No doubt, librarians have tickets to the gun show!
4. Are you in Boston or nearby?  Are you interested in YA lit?  Then save the date for this really cool event, punks:  (via the MASSYAC listserv)
   

   The Cambridge Public Library is proud to be Boston's only stop on the "Diversity in YA Fiction" national author tour!

   
   

   Don't miss this amazing opportunity to meet these best-selling, award-winning teen authors:

   
   

   Holly Black (Modern Faerie series; Good Neighbors series; White Cat; Red Glove)

   Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon; The Demon's Covenant; The Demon's Surrender)

   Deva Fagan (Fortune's Folly; The Magical Misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle)

   Malinda Lo (Ash; Huntress),

   Cindy Pon (Silver Phoenix; Fury of the Phoenix)

   Francisco X. Stork (Marcelo in the Real World; The Last Summer of the Death Warriors).

   
   

   Come early to be sure to get a seat!  Porter Square Books will have books available for purchase and autographing.

   
   

   Thursday, May 12, 7:00 p.m.

   Cambridge Public Library

   Lecture Hall

   449 Broadway

   Cambridge, MA 02138

   For more information, call 617-349-4027.

   
   

   Created by Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon, Diversity in YA Fiction is a website (www.diversityinya.com) and book tour which celebrate diverse stories in YA.  DIYA is a positive, friendly gathering of readers and writers who want to see diversity in their fiction, encourage an attitude of openness and curiosity, and welcome questions and discussion.

Let's make my dreams of dysentery a reality.

On snow day #4.5 of 2011, I woke up, rubbed my eyes in the dewy morning light, fired up the ole laptop and checked the headlines. I gasped. Not because of what is happening in the world, or because the Snowpocalypse was upon us yet again. Oh no. The following headline caught my sluggish morning attention: "Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego to go on Facebook." The article, which is really mostly about the company doing this game making for Facebook, ultimately fails to adequately capture the fervent love of my generation for the Oregon Trail. It states:

"[T]he game migrated to succeeding generations of classroom PCs, where it became a favorite among schoolchildren. Players are cast as 19th-century pioneers trying to survive a journey from Missouri to Oregon, fending off hunger, disease, and accidents."

Um, just a "favorite?" Hello understatement. A search for Oregon Trail on CafePress turns up 155 t-shirts, all spun from the images and vernacular of the original low-tech graphics game. My personal favorites are all dysentery related. Why, oh why would my favorites be those of the dying a violent death due to epic poo-ing? Because in a highlight of my life, 6 summers ago, my all-American co-administrators at an all-girls overnight camp and I convinced our lone British colleague to create a live-action role playing version of this game.

It was...amazing. As you can see above, we made the teenagers be the hunted animals, and had packs of eight year old girls screaming joyfully while pegging them with water balloons. The bison herd had a rough day. The camp director walked around carrying a scythe, impersonating death. There were old prospectors, a build and test a raft station, and oh yes, oh yes, there was Dysentery. And oh yes, oh yes, I played the timeless and classic role of Dysentery. As you would expect, Dysentery wore brown, carried a roll of toilet paper, and hung out by the water fountains and wash-houses. Dysentery, to her great joy and to the chagrin of her unwitting victims, repeatedly used the infamous Oregon Trail line "You have died of dysentary!"

In short, it was pretty fantastic. Also fantastic? Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. I hard-out loved that show. It was one of the very few programs I was allowed to watch, airing on the ever safe PBS. I wanted to go on that show so so bad, and have my chance to run around and put flaring lights on the correct countries, buzz in to best Carmen at her own game, and rock out with Rockapella. I was delighted to discover that one of my C.I.T.'s (at the same camp, clearly a breeding ground for coolness) had actually BEEN ON THE SHOW.

Now, let me just say that video games in general are not my thing, with the exception of Oregon Trail. Facebook games? Reallllly are not for me. Despite my great love of these two fantastic game shows, I probably won't be playing them on the 'book. But I am excited they will be making it back into the public eye. Why? They are pretty much the two exceptions to my No-Reality-TV-Shows rule (along with Amazing Race, someday). I feel that their increase in popularity could, just maybe, might, result in some crazy-awesome Hollywood producer being all "HECK YES, let's turn this into a show!" I mean, PBS (or rather Thirteen/WNET New York and Wall to Wall Television) did Frontier House, Texas Ranch House, and Colonial House. Why not My House is a Chuck Wagon and We're Headed West for Oregon? And why not an adult game-show version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I mean...come on. If they can be Facebook games, and if film adaptations of Ouija and Battleship are in the works, why can't they have their spot of honor on my DVR list? Seriously, Hollywood. Get. It. Together.

Come on, people. I can't be the only one.
Join me in my appeal:

Thirteen/WNET New York and Wall to Wall Television, if you are out there, make Oregon Trail the reality show happen!

And call then me. If you need someone to ford some rivers, go hunt buffalo, and NOT die of dysentery, I'm your woman.