“Charles Dickens had orphanages and workhouses, the Brontë sisters had the wild moors, and modern writers have high school.” So begins L.A. Times television critic Mary McNamara‘s take on The Vampire Diaries, the CW’s answer to Twilight (premiering tonight at 8). The show is loosely based on L.J. Smith‘s books of the same name and McNamara gives it a qualified thumbs up. She concludes that this latest addition to the vampire canon is “pure froth, but it is very welcome froth, especially in a genre that seems sometimes in danger of taking itself a little too seriously.”
The Vampire Diaries
Discussing Book Design with Jamie Keenan
James Cartwright caught up with London-based book designer Jamie Keenan to discuss his work and his process. (Related: How do American book covers stack up against their counterparts from across the pond?)
In the Frame
Photographers who are tired of weddings should start shooting book covers. When New Directions asked to use one of Allen Frame’s photos for the cover of Robert Bolaño’s Last Evenings on Earth, he gave them access to his archive instead. Today, nine Frame photos have been used on Bolaño book covers. You can view them here or at New York City’s Gitterman Gallery.
The New Vintage
Is hardcover the new vinyl? Over at The Literary Hub, Yahdon Israel argues for the irreplaceable magic of tactility and print books: “There’s something gratifying about being able to underline a sentence or write a response in the margin of a book, knowing with certainty that it will be there later. I can’t get that guarantee from a phone. My data could be hacked, a new upgrade could wipe its memory, my battery could die mid-sentence and cause me to lose everything I’ve typed. They say that what goes up into the Cloud must come down, but ‘they’ can’t always be trusted—least of all with the things I value most, my books.”
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Appearing Elsewhere
For those in the Bay Area, Millions contributor Edan Lepucki will be reading from her novel Days of Insignificance and Evil at the Intersection for the Arts Award Celebration tonight at 7:30 p.m. The address is 446 Valencia St, San Francisco, 94103.
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On Dr. Seuss and Pluto, Etc.
It may not surprise you to learn that Neil deGrasse Tyson wishes he’d met Oscar Wilde. As part of the By the Book series in the Times, the astronomer talks about his favorite writers, including Carl Sagan, Bill Bryson and Jonathan Swift.
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Ancient Welsh Book To Be Made Available Online
A 13th century Welsh book originally written by monks on pages of animal skin has finally been made available online thanks to the country’s National Library. The ancient Book of Aneirin contains the Gododdin, one of the oldest poems ever written in the language.
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From Page to Screen
Some of the most revered literary novels that have appeared in recent years will be adapted for television. Jonathon Sturgeon writes for Flavorwire, “What do we call this new relationship between prestige and streaming TV and the literary novel? The two now shape each other in peculiar, formal ways—like lovers who share an apartment, they’ve started speaking and looking alike.” Pair with this Millions piece on literary magazines in film and TV.
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The Art of Villanelle Isn’t Hard to Master
The villanelle, beloved by Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and Dylan Thomas, might be making a comeback.
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Am I the only one that wants to take way too much Ambien over terrible vampire stories being compared to Dickens?
No. I’m with you. Though it is true that the site of suffering for young people in contemporary popular entertainment is high school (My So-Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the loathesome Vampire Diaries), whereas Dickensian and Brontean child heroes usually did their suffering elsewhere–the streets of London, workhouses, remote bleak English landscapes, etc. (not always true though; in Nicholas Nickleby there’s that horrible Yorkshire school, Dotheboys Hall, and there’s Lowood in Jane Eyre).
Vampires Diaries, by the way, was godawful. Made me think better of Twilight–which I firmly believed impossible. Mary McNamara’s review was much more entertaining than the show itself. My apologies to any who might have taken a look.
Honestly, I liked this show. It stays very true to the novels yet includes the audience expectancies. One thing I know for sure: It’s way better than Twilight!