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  • Posted 4/12/12 at 3:45 PM
  • Books

Alison Bechdel, Lauren Redniss Among 2012 Guggenheim Fellows

Alison Bechdel, the graphic memoirist whose forthcoming book Are You My Mother was reviewed in New York earlier this month, and Lauren Redniss, who wrote the acclaimed illustrated history of Marie and Pierre Curie, Radioactive, were both named Guggenheim Fellows today. It's unclear how much each award winner will get as part of the fellowship — the foundation decides the amount of the grant on a case-by-case basis — but let's hope Bechdel and Redniss at least receive their prizes on giant novelty checks.

  • Posted 4/12/12 at 2:45 PM
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Which YA Novels Have the Silliest Character Names?

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Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) in THE HUNGER GAMES.

Young Adult novels can get away with a lot on the page, but now that Hollywood is buying up every hit YA franchise to adapt for the big screen, something is becoming very clear: These characters all have hilarious names, and when you say them out loud, it's an altogether different experience than it is to simply read them. "Katniss Everdeen" from The Hunger Games sort of works, but will we ever come to terms with "Peeta," which sounds less like the moniker for a romantic hero and more like it was recovered from a list of rejected Lucasfilm alien names? What of "Renesmee," the vampire-baby name from Twilight that sounds so goofball when spoken that the movie had to include a whole scene where the other characters give Bella the side-eye for picking it out? And now that we've got The Mortal Instruments on the way, where characters are named things like "Clary Fray" and "Magnus Bane," we put it to you: Which YA franchises have had names so silly, you simply couldn't get over them?

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - NOVEMBER 07: J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, buries a time capsule to mark the start of building work on a research clinic for patients with multiple sclerosis on November 7, 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The clinic at the University of Edinburgh is being set up following a £10 million donation from Ms Rowling and is named after her mother, Anne, who died of multiple sclerosis aged 45. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

J.K. Rowling’s Next Book Is Called The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling's first book for adults will be about a tiny British town in turmoil. Rowling's publisher, Little, Brown, announced today that the book will be called The Casual Vacancy, and it will be released on September 27. The story is set in Pagford, a charming little town "with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war," according to the release. Pagford's internal strife comes to a head when parish councilman Barry Fairweather unexpectedly dies, and the race for his seat "becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen." Little, Brown describes the book as "blackly comic," and everyone else describes it as "hotly anticipated."

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FX Trying to Whip S&M; Memoir Into Shape With Vince Vaughn

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LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 11: Actor Vince Vaughn attends the 10th Annual Chrysalis Butterfly Ball on June 11, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

The ink has barely dried on the deal to turn E.L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey into a feature film at Universal Pictures, but already it seems that Hollywood is hot for S&M: We hear exclusively that Fox’s FX Network is partnering with Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Productions to develop Shawna Kenney’s memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix.

Jose Julian, Chris Weitz== Huffington Post Screening of A Better Life== Museum of Tolerance, CA== June 13, 2011== ©Patrick McMullan== Photo - DAVID CROTTY/PatrickMcMullan.com==

Chris Weitz Will Write His Own YA Novels Now

Writer-director Chris Weitz is more than comfortable spending an afternoon in the Young Adult section of Barnes & Noble — in addition to directing Twilight: New Moon, he also adapted Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass for the big screen. That particular project did not go the way that he or His Dark Materials fans might have liked, but Weitz is undeterred; in fact, he is so committed to the YA genre that he will now be writing his own novels for the teen set. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will publish Weitz's trilogy of fashionably postapocalyptic novels in which teens run the world. Vulture sincerely hopes it looks nothing like this video.

Stephen King May Have Another Gore-Fest in Him Yet

Many latter Stephen King novels have noticeably, mostly pleasantly eschewed all-out horror in favor of directions like romance, impenetrable domes amplifying small-town politicking and neighbor-murdering, and time-traveling adventures in getting JFK un-assassinated. Now King is pressing pause on all that messing about, at least for a moment. "He’s writing a book called Joyland, about an amusement park serial killer," author Neil Gaiman almost offhandedly notes in an amusing profile in the U.K.'s Sunday Times (transcript here). With so much semi-prestigious (or at least unusual) showbiz goodwill amassing around King lately — Ron Howard's crazy ambitious plans for The Dark Tower, Ben Affleck's potential trilogy adaptation of The Stand, John Mellencamp's King-written stage musical, Showtime and Brian K. Vaughan's Under the Dome miniseries, Jonathan Demme snagging the rights to 11/22/63, theatrical and Hollywood resurrections of Carrie — we could all use at least one more schlocky horror film based on a bloody work straight out of King's wheelhouse. (And King's Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, due in 2013, may even beat Joyland's return to the murder-y roots.)

  • Posted 4/10/12 at 12:13 AM
  • Books

The Walking Dead’s Media Empire Knows No Bounds

Robert Kirkman created The Walking Dead as a graphic novel, then became executive producer of AMC's hugely popular adaptation, then became a staple on the same network's fan series Talking Dead, too. And with all those ventures remaining stolidly ambulatory, it comes as little surprise that 2011's odd non-comic Walking Dead novel Rise of the Governor wasn't immune to the series' success, either. Kirkman and co-writer Jay Bonansinga will launch a second no-pictures-allowed book, The Road to Woodbury, on October 16, detailing more exploits of the soon-to-appear-on-TV baddie the Governor. The release will coincide with the show's third season, robbing the novel's shot at tiding over ravenous zombie-lovers. But with a comic approaching its 100th issue and a show evidently capable of reeling in 8 million viewers all at once, The Walking Dead is no longer a series that needs to play by any rules but its own. Find your own way to abide the wait, fans.

All 87 Times Someone Says ‘Christian Grey’ in Fifty Shades of Grey

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We've given you the thinking woman's guide to Fifty Shades of Grey, the "mommy porn" literary sensation that just sold to Hollywood for millions of dollars, but there is still one notable quirk we need to discuss. In the book, virginal Anastasia Steele is deflowered by the impossibly dashing, 27-year-old ginger billionaire Christian Grey, a sexual dominant who asks Anastasia to fill out an S&M contract a mere day after taking away her hy-hy. The contract stipulates that Anastasia must agree to "address him only as Sir [or] Mr. Grey," and reader, that's not gonna be easy: Anastasia (and author E.L. James) are positively obsessed with saying the full name "Christian Grey" at all times, a stylistic tic even more prevalent than the heroine's hilarious habit of blurting out, "Holy crap!" Vulture has collected each and every time Christian Grey's full name is used in the novel; consider it a literary supercut that also works as a CliffsNotes guide to what exactly goes down in this S&M sensation. Which Christian Grey sentence about Christian Grey is your favorite? (Christian Grey.)

“Wow. Ana Steele, finally falling for a man, and it’s Christian Grey – hot, sexy billionaire.” »

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Fifty Shades of Grey

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E.L. James's Twilight fan fiction turned best-selling e-book Fifty Shades of Grey was recently optioned for a reported $5 million by Universal Pictures, and 575,000 paperback copies hit U.S. stores today. When I heard this, I hadn't yet read the book, but I was nonetheless a little tempted to move to space.

That dry, skittering sound you heard is your fallopian tubes curling like party ribbon. »

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  • Posted 4/2/12 at 4:00 PM
  • Books

What Happened to the Coming-Out Memoir?

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What has the publishing industry put in the water? This spring heralds the arrival of not one but two memoirs by prominent lesbian writers: Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?

Society recapitulates ontogeny, apparently: It Got Better. »

Carrie Brownstein== IFC Hosted Special Screening Arrivals of "Portlandia"== The Edison Ballroom, NYC== January 19, 2011== ©Patrick McMullan== photo - Sylvain Gaboury/PatrickMcMullan.com== ==

Carrie Brownstein Is Working on a Memoir

Carrie Brownstein is working on a memoir for Riverhead Books about her life in music, which means she's poised to conquer yet another medium with what is destined to be a critically beloved but not quite mainstream endeavor. The book doesn't have a title or release date yet, according to the Times. Brownstein is today's guest on "WTF with Marc Maron," and from her description, any book is still a ways off. "I have not written a book," she clarifies toward the end of the episode. "I got a book deal ... and got sidetracked," she says. It sounds like that book deal morphed into this one, which will have "more of a through line" than the book she tried to write previously. The whole "WTF" episode is pretty good, especially for Sleater-Kinney fans. "Image was not a part of Sleater-Kinney or punk at that time," Brownstein says. "Now I look back and think, Couldn't I have shaped my eyebrows? Just a little bit?"

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 23: Director Charlie Kaufman arrives for the Synecdoche, New York premiere at the Palais des Festivals during the 61st International Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Charlie Kaufman Is Writing a Novel

Not content to warp brains solely through the medium of film, Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) has signed a book deal with Grand Central Publishing. The novel's plot is completely unknown so far, but that may remain the case once you've read the whole thing twice anyway. It's not clear how the writing will shake out alongside Kaufman's sophomore directorial effort, Frank or Francis, which has been gaining steam. But, again, it is unclear what Charlie Kaufman's all about. In a cool way!

  • Posted 3/23/12 at 5:15 PM
  • Books
NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 01: Author Zadie Smith attends the 2010 Library Lions Benefit at The New York Public Library on November 1, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Henry S. Dziekan III/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Zadie Smith

New Zadie Smith Novel Coming in September

A quick update on Zadie Smith's newest novel, which will be released later this year: It's called NW, and it follows five northwest London residents who have "made it out" of a local housing estate. (The estate in question takes its building names from the major British political philosophers, so now's a good time to dust off that textbook, probably.) As always, things get dicey when a stranger shows up.  The full description is here; NW is due out on September 4. 

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