The io9 Book Vortex has a couple of good things worth reading right now. More than a couple, actually, but these are my favorites right now.
First, note the potential follow-ups to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. However, they missed Little Women, which is their best bet as it requires no change in title whatsoever and only a passing reference to the girls’ miniature stature.
Better still, the site gives us the Cheesiest and Most Inappropriate Book Covers of All Time. I think the grand prize goes to The Little People… plus, it wins extra points for being just plain offensive, which means that if it were on bookshelves today it would sell huge based on the cover alone.
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Frank Sherlock’s “Over Here” is awarded CA Conrad’s Annual Sexiest Poem of the Year. Huh? But I’ve never been good with poetry outside of the 16th/17th centuries, and the last sexy poem I read was Book II of The Faerie Queene about the Bower of Bliss. (But seriously, it doesn’t get better than that.)
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I found this literature map at some point in college but then lost it, so I was thrilled to bump into it again today! I could play with this thing for hours, although I have to say I’m not convinced of the logic behind it. Apparently if you enjoy F. Scott Fitzgerald you are guaranteed to enjoy Ayn Rand and Emily Bronte. Huh? But then you enter one of those names and the distance changes? Some definitely make sense, others not so much. It’s fun, whatever.
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I enjoyed reading this about Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park, which I never thought twice about before. (In fact, I initially read this article because I was in a hurry and got confused and thought the article was about the popular Luna Park by Kevin Baker.) I read Less Than Zero when I was much younger and was somehow disappointed when I compared it to the eye-candy that is Robert Downey, Jr. in the film adaptation, so that book didn’t do it for me. In college I read Rules of Attraction. Eh. I’ve always wanted to read American Psycho and I own a copy, but I’ve never been in a huge rush, for obvious reasons. But now I’m reconsidering.
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And finally, The Guardian celebrates writers who died in the last decade… but leave out Vonnegut? Am I missing something?
ok, as much as i love that lit map, i swear every name i type in has Ayn Rand somewhere in the cloud (must be something about my love of characters dialogue consisting of 10-15 min speeches at each other).
however, Orson Scott Card and JK Rowling are getting dangerously close to one another.
Comment by JoFitz — January 3, 2010 @ 1:34 am
this game is broken. i type in Tolkien and get Grisham.
Comment by JoFitz — January 3, 2010 @ 1:36 am