Casting for Josh Boone’s movie adaptation of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars is coming together nicely. This past week, it was announced that Laura Dern has joined the cast as the mother of Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley). Production is set to begin next month. A few months back, our own Janet Potter wrote that, “besides a small infinity of other things, [this book] will make you cry.”
Start Stockpiling Tissues Now
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern‘s debut novel The Night Circus gets the NPR treatment. She’s totally appreciative.
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More Like George POURwell, Am I Right?
I wonder if time George Orwell spent in India and Burma informed his opinions on “how to make the perfect cup of tea.”
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Indie Bound
Naysayers, consider this: in the digital era, the brick-and-mortar bookstore might be experiencing a resurgence.
100 Notable Disappointments
I’m relieved to see I’ve actually read some of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2011. But Rumpus writer Roxane Gay, is pretty disappointed.
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The State of Reading (in the Bath?)
Hannah Withers and Lauren Ross have written about today’s state of publishing for McSweeney’s. Their conclusion? Young people read more than you. According to Laura Goode, though, moms are reading more YA novels than their kids. Either way, everyone can start reading in the bathtub thanks to waterproof paperbacks.
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Haruki Murakami: Master of Blandness
Over at Threepenny Review, Jess Row expounds on “blandness” in the work of Haruki Murakami, and particularly in his 2.8 lb. tome 1Q84—a book tabbed by Charles Baxter in last year’s Year in Reading as the best he’d read all year. Row contemplates the way Murakami’s characters and sentences “almost never lose this placid, observant neutrality,” or “continuous monotone.”
Fresh Powder
Year in Reading alumnus (and co-founder of The Morning News) Rosecrans Baldwin talks shop with Thomas Stoeckli, a photographer from Switzerland who specializes in photos of snowboarders.
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