Barely Literary is a blog about book reading culture including book reviews, trailers and movie adaptation news. It’s not about writing. We have a healthy relationship with our parents and have never been to Brooklyn.
Please follow along there and tell a friend. I’ll now be using this tumblr to pass along important photos and videos like the one below.
Sorry folks, no posts over the last few days while I’m migrating my blog over to it’s own powerful domain. Fear not, I will be returning very shortly.
Stop everything and watch this dancing zebra. (via The Clearly Dope)
Good job internets with that SOPA thing. Now if we could just harness that power to bring back Community. |Uproxx|
New Hunger Games poster. Movie poster designers talking around the water cooler: Designer 1 “Hey, maybe we should do one that’s not diagonal.” Designer 2 “Shut your filthy mouth.” |Pajiba|
Do you like Banksy’s innovative street art but think it could benefit from more Turner and Hooch references? Meet Hanksy. |Uproxx|
Cormac McCarthy sold a spec movie script. |FilmDrunk|
Baby sloths getting swaddled to take your mind off of sinking cruise ships and Newt Gingrich. |YouTube|
The Nike+FuelBand. Yes please. |The Smoking Section|
Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter adaptation is still a thing. |Pajiba|
Archer returned last night for it’s third season on FX. Here is an interview with real life Lana Kane, Aisha Tyler. |Uproxx|
In Machine Man, engineer Dr. Charles Neumann (get it? new-man. lol) crushes his leg in a gruesome workplace accident. He gets the idea to improve upon the leg’s biological design while building his prosthetic. The only problem? that other “fleshy” leg he has left is holding him back. So begins Charles’ obsession with bodily improvement through science, engineering and amputation.
Just like in Barry’s previous excellent books Jennifer Government and Company, he creates a shallow yet philosophical world where large corporate bosses aren’t referred to by real names, only titles, and corporations exist outside the boundaries of law. The story is absurd at one turn and frighteningly possible in another. If Charles works on his prosthetic leg at work, who owns it, Charles or the company?
There’s also amputee love, bionic security guards and tiny dogs dressed in human clothes. It would be impossible for me to NOT like this book. The pacing is fast and the ending is satisfying. Barry wrote the script 1 page a day, posting each page on his website for his rabid followers to discuss and dissect. They helped him with everything from technical details to story line. Kind of like commentators helping bloggers write…good.
Be sure to check out Machine Man’s book trailer below.
Most highlighted quote from Kindle users:
“It was pointless to ponder who I was because I was whichever combination of chemicals happened to be sloshing around at that time. So I decided not to search for a true self. I decided to choose who I wanted to be.”
If you like anything from Joshua Ferris, you’ll like this.
Movie note: Darren Aronofsky, one of this generation’s greatest directors and hipster clothing fashonista is attached to direct while Mark Heyman (Black Swan) is adapting the screenplay. I haven’t seen any news lately, and Aronofsky keeps himself pretty busy, so I’m not sure where everything’s at right now.
This review is my fourth for Cannonball Read IV. Read all about CBR4 here.
This year I’m participating in Cannonball Read IV. Cannonball Read is a race among Pajiba readers to read and review 52 books in a year. Or 26. Or 13. A charitable donation is made for those who get to 52.
There are 240 people signed up this year. That’s a lot of book reviews. I’ll try to find some of the interesting reviews plus reviews of books I’ve read and post them here.
Books I’ve Read
*Taken from the ridiculously simplified synopsis on Shelfari.
Stolen from The Oatmeal. Be sure to check them out, but not today because they are blacked out.
The internets are full of info about SOPA and PIPA today. Here are some of the more informative articles I’ve read.
Internet property lawyer and Pajiba writer Seth Freilich give us an informative and profanity laden argument. |Pajiba|
An interview with Cheezburger CEO Ben Hue. |Consumerist|
A nice infographic from Google. |Google|
Here is a quick “what if”:
What if SOPA was passed? What if after SOPA passed, one of my 3-5 readers made a comment on my preview of the new Everybody Poops adaptation? What if that comment contains a link to a site that has an unreleased trailer of said Everybody Poops movie? The answer: My site could be immediately and indefinitely taken down. I could be subject to prosecution and possible jail time. oof.
Today Elmore Leonard’s new book Raylan goes on sale. And tonight the third season of Justified premiers on FX. At 86 years old, Leonard is still cranking out crime novels and it sounds like he has quite an impact on the show. In an interview with show producer, star and teen heart throb (probably) Timothy Olyphant, he describes the give and take:
…there seems to be some synergy between the show and Leonard’s upcoming book, Raylan.
I’m well aware of it. [Chuckles.] We steal a lot from that. I’m a big fan of his stories, so I read them at every turn I get as it is. But that book, we stole a lot of it for season two. We just stripped it apart last year. We were sort of privy to the book as it was being written in its various stages, so last season, we read some of what he was writing, and many of the characters are in large part from the book. We did our own thing with it — in the book, it was a patriarch instead of a matriarch — but he had the sons, the storefront, the marijuana, and Loretta McCready hanging out, as well as the coal mining representative coming to Harlan, the town meeting, and Raylan as security detail. That’s all in the book, and he encouraged us to steal from it.
But he’s also stealing right back.
[Laughs.] We had the original stories, Graham [Yost, the showrunner] took those and added some of his own characters, and Elmore, God bless him, then wrote about some of the characters that were created for the show. For instance, Rachel is a character Graham created for the show, and Elmore took her and put her in the Raylan book, and then he took the liberty of telling us things about her that we didn’t know — like where she’s from and how she paid her way through college. So we took it right back, and put it in episode four of this new season.
|Vulture|
The character of Raylan Givens has appeared in three previous Leonard works: 1993’s Pronto, 95’s Riding the Rap and 2002 novella Fire in the Hole on which Justified is based.
Warming Glow reviews the new season of Justified here.
Wall Street Journal’s profile on Elmore Leonard here.
Pic from Vanity Fair outtake. To see more awesome people hanging out with Paul Rudd click here.
20 Books to read before they become movies in 2012 |BuzzSugar|
Mastering the Mix of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo |Underwire|
Rachel Ray leaves Random House |WSJ| - Warning! Stupid pay wall
Paul Rudd to guest on Parks & Rec |Warming Glow|
Avett Brothers working with Rick Rubin again. New album coming. |SKOA|
Interview with Gary Ross, director of the Hunger Games |Hero Complex|
“A La Modeliste” - Mark Ronson, Mos Def and Erykah Badu with help by Trombone Shorty and The Dap Kings.
This year I’m participating in Cannonball Read IV. Cannonball Read is a race among Pajiba readers to read and review 52 books in a year. Or 26. Or 13. A charitable donation is made for those who get to 52.
There are 240 people signed up this year. That’s a lot of book reviews. I’ll try to find some of the interesting reviews plus reviews of books I’ve read and post them here.
Books I’ve Read
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