Ricky Gervais, comedian and creator of the British “Office,” has recently written two children’s books! Flanimals and More Flanimals began as stories that Gervais would tell to his young nephew for fun.
Gervais had wanted to write a book on the Flanimal creatures from the stories for years, and recently talked about the project with Publishers Weekly.
Publishers Weekly reports that a children’s series from mystery writer, John Grisham, is in the works. Grisham’s new books will be for middle readers, and will center around Theodore Boone, a thirteen-year-old “legal whiz kid.” The first book in the series, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, will be released in the U.S. on May 25.
Twilight. Living Dead in Dallas (the inspiration for True Blood). The Sequel to Dracula.
It seems like everywhere you turn in pop culture nowadays, you’re inundated with bloodsucking undead. NPR’s Margot Adler has bravely walked into the land of the no longer living, having digested 75 (!) vampire novels over the last nine months. Her article is a fascinating take on the sociocultural role of the vampire, and how the surges in undead fascination throughout the last century or so reflect broader changes in society and the world.
For those of you who are also fans of the Office, you’ll get a kick out of this scene. Jim joins a book club for the wrong reasons, and finds himself a bit stuck…
James Frey — the controversial author of “A Million Little Pieces” and “Bright Shiny Morning” — is using so many pseudonyms lately that any nom de plume is suspected to be his.
Frey is working on no fewer than nine projects where he came up with the idea and hired a collaborator to write it. All nine books will be published under pen names, sources told Page Six.
The literary world is now buzzing that Frey is “John Twelve Hawks,” the fake name of the author of the best-selling sci-fi series known as the Fourth Realm Trilogy. Fox just optioned the rights and commissioned a script for “The Traveler” from fantasy specialist Alex Tse, whose credits include “The Watchmen,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The reclusive ways of Hawks, whoever he is, has helped hype the Random House line. He’s said to live “off the grid” and has never met his editor or agent.
Imitating some of his characters who battle against totalitarian surveillance, Hawks supposedly communicates with an untraceable satellite phone using a voice scrambler. He’s used stand-ins during book tours.
Click here to read the rest and to see which other big name authors have also been speculated to be John Twelve Hawks.
“The Hangover” was the out-of-nowhere runaway comedy hit of 2009 — so why not make one for the ladies, right? That appears to be the thinking behind “The Bachelorette Party.”
Jennifer Garner and Anna Faris are said to be on tap to star in the comedy about “A high-school teacher recently left at the altar [who] must now send off her uptight cousin with a huge bachelorette bash,” according to Pajiba.
This project, based on the novel of the same name by Karen McCullah Lutz — who is also writing the script and previously penned “Legally Blonde” and “The Ugly Truth,” among others — has been kicking around for three years without gaining much traction. The success of “The Hangover” was apparently enough to get it back on track.
The Huffington Post just published its Most Amazing Libraries in the World, Part II. (Part I is here.)
I can’t think of anything lovelier than a village full of bookshops. Five years ago, Hobart, NY, started to redefine itself as a “book village” — and it’s paying off. The small village, home to more than five bookstores and a publisher, is thriving has many plans for expansion–a mystery and sci-fi specialty shop, a children’s store– in the future.
Depardieu as Dumas
The latest movie starring Gerard Depardieu has opened to a storm of criticism – but it’s nothing to do with his acting.
The French star darkened his skin and wore a black wig to play mixed-race author Alexandre Dumas.
The producers of ‘The Other Dumas’ made it clear that they believed a big-name white actor would attract more of an audience than a black actor.
This was described as ‘extremely shocking and insulting’ by the Council of Black Associations of France.
Dumas
Its president, Patrick Lozes, said the film suggested ‘we don’t have any black actor who has the talent to play Alexander Dumas, which of course is not true’.
He added: ‘In 150 years could the role of Barack Obama be played in a film by a white actor with a fuzzy wig?
‘Can Martin Luther King be played by a white?’ Dumas, 19th- century author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, was born in Paris the grandson of a Haitian slave and often referred to himself as a ‘Caribbean negro’.
He became a national hero because of his literary talent, but this did not stop him being widely mocked because of his colour.
The film, which has no British release date yet, is a fictional account of Dumas’s professional relationship with Auguste Maquet, his shy assistant who helped write some of his most famous books.
Actress Tori Spelling has a reality TV show, a children’s clothing line, and two autobiographical books to her name, and now she is branching out into a new area: children’s literature.
Simon & Schuster said its Aladdin imprint is to publish Spelling’s first children’s book called “Presenting … Tallulah” in September this year.
Spelling, whose acting credits include TV show “Beverly Hills 90210,” has already written an autobiography “sTORI Telling” and follow-up book “Mommywood” about being a Hollywood mother of young children. Her third adult book, tentatively titled “Uncharted terriTORI,” is due to go on sale in June.
“I love reading to my kids. It’s our special time together. That and my passion for story telling inspired me to write a children’s book of my own to read to them and children everywhere,” said Spelling, 36, in a statement.
Click here to read more about Tori.
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