Everyone has that person on their street or in their apartment who lives alone, has multiple cats, and everyone silently is secretly freaked out by. Reading this autobiography can make you feel just like that person especially when you’re sitting alone at Starbucks cackling really weirdly because damn, Tina Fey really is that funny. That’s when everyone is suddenly freaked out by you and will probably try to get away from you. But again, this book is so funny, that you won’t even care.
If you’ve heard of Tina Fey, you know that she is one of the funniest women to ever grace television or the big screen. Her autobiography keeps on track with her witty persona and page after page, it’s as if you are being punched in the throat with her sometimes cheesy one-liners.
YouTube channel screenjunkies spent 20 hours of their lives watching all eight Harry Potter movies to create the Harry Potter honest trailer.
As a Harry Potter fan myself, it’s pretty hilarious and hits a lot of great points. Obviously I have to address some, so watch the video above then click the READ MORE button to see my thoughts on the whole thing.
Let’s face it: one’s teenage years can be some of the toughest to endure. In Ned Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, we are brought into the world of a teenager living with depression and suicidal ideations.
While you might think it’s a strange title for a book that tackles such serious issues, it’s actually pretty fitting. Whether it’s school, relationships and friendships, Vizzini has precisely depicted the torment and pressures that teenagers experience. How did he do it? Well, he lived through it. In this semi-autobiographical novel, Vizzini relives his time in an inpatient psychiatric ward. Whether you’re a teen or know someone going through hard times, this is one novel I recommend adding to your bookshelf.
The novel follows Craig Gilner who about to begin his post graduate life from Stuyvesant High School to Pre-Professional High School. But after he’s accepted, he starts thinking about his life, all the pressure he’d be under and finds himself struggling with the suicidal thought of jumping off The Brooklyn Bridge. It’s in that moment when he manages to dial 1-800-suicide and even walks himself to the nearest hospital where he gets checked into an inpatient treatment program—much to the pride of his mother: “This is the bravest thing you’ve ever done.” Vizzini takes us on a rollercoaster of laughs and sadness, introduces us to some great characters and shows how his outlook on life changes after checking out.
Libraries are truly the most mystical, beautiful places. There are gorgeous, almost museum-like libraries all around the world—you just need to find them. Libraries can be magical, scary, an escape, modern, or relaxing.
Considering books are can become personal objects, the same can be said for libraries. Everyone has their own type of dream library they would love to visit, or have in their home.
Some of the most iconic film and television moments have occured in libraries. There’s the famous Restricted Section scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, there’s The Never-ending Story, and there was that episode of Doctor Who where all the library’s patron’s mysteriously disappeared.
Who doesn’t remember going to the library with your class as a kid? Whether you went to your school library or a public library, it was always a magical experience. Nothing felt better than handing back the books you already read, and going to find new ones to take home.
Libraries are magical things, and there are so many out there for people to explore.
Here are 27 libraries to suit your personal fantasies:
For those who want to feel like they are in Hogwarts: Trinity College Library (Dublin)
For those who want to feel like they are in Superhero headquarters: Belarus National Library (Minsk)
For those who want to feel like they live in the Downton Abbey estate: Abbey Library of St.Gall (Switzerland)
For those who want to feel like a lumberjack: The Bedales Memorial Library (UK)
For those want to pretend to be a dinosaur in Jurassic Park: Amsterdam Public Library (Netherlands)
While Japanese school girls are Kamehameha-ing in photos, the boys are re-creating Quidditch game.
For those who are lame and aren’t into Harry Potter, Quidditch is sort of like a cross between soccer and basketball as witches and wizards race up and down the field to throw balls in hoops (there’s a lot more to it but I’m trying to keep it simple). According to the Laughing Squid, the first photos were initially posted on a Japanese bulletin board 2ch and have since gone viral.
I know there are some real life muggle Quidditch teams out there. You need to do this. I’m sure you already have, but pics or it didn’t happen.
So this is pretty much how all book lovers sound when their favourite book gets adapted for TV or film. You’ve already read the book, but everyone keeps hounding you about how you should watch the movie or TV series.
This accurately sums up my feelings about “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
Spoiler alert: The book is always better.
Today would’ve been the 85th birthday of the one and only Mr. Rogers. To celebrate author John Green tells you 35 facts of our favourite cardigan-wearing children’s television host. For example, did you know every single one of Mr. Rogers sweater was knitted by his mother?
Cheers to you, Mr. Rogers.
There’s only so much you can do as a Great Gatsby fan as you count down the days until the Buz Luhrmann’s movie adaptation finally reaches theaters.
You can read the book for the zillionth time, cos-play, listen to some old music to get you into the mood. Now you can play a video game version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic novel in 8-bit no less!
Developed by Charlie Hoey, you play as the book’s narrator Nick Carraway as he flings his hat at butlers and flappers. There are four levels, each with their own unique mission such as finding Gatsby at the party or defeating the laser shooting eyes of Dr. Eckleberg. Of course, the game also features the book’s most memorable character and quotes.
You can play the game HERE.
What do you think of this book-to-game adaptation?!
SEE MORE SCREENSHOTS OF THE GAME AFTER THE JUMP:
John Green recently announced that a director has been chosen to adapt The Fault In Our Stars. We know you’re all thinking, “Why hasn’t anyone adapted his book already?” but this wouldn’t be the first time one of his work was on its way to the silver screen. According to Green, most of his books have been optioned but have never made it all the way.
Last week I told you why TFiOS is a must read, this week I am going to tell you why the rest of his novels should also be turned into movies.
I believe that Green writes in a way that would make his books easy to adapt for the screen. His characters all have unique qualities and ways of acting, making it very easy to picture the character coming to life with the right actor. In addition, his work has been quoted countless of times and being able to hear them said on the big screen is sure to raise many goose bumps.
Instead of comforting ourselves by sitting in the fetal position rocking back and forth until the casting rumor mill starts churning, ANDPOP wants to celebrate Green’s writing and show you why all his other books are movie material.
Looking For Alaska
Looking for Alaska follows the experiences of Pudge during his first year at a boarding school, where he comes out of his shell as he transforms from loner to someone who wants more in life thanks to his friends.
From the brilliant mind of John Green comes The Fault In Our Stars, a story that will have you wondering just how a middle-aged man seems to understand just how a teenage girl’s mind actually works.
The Fault In Our Stars tells the story of cancer patient Hazel Grace, who expects nothing spectacular of life until she meets cancer survivor Augustus Waters at a support group. He turns turns her world upside down, then back upright again, giving her the life and love she would have never imagined.
While this plot line seems like the standard “two sick people fall in love, one dies, we all cry,” Green writes in a way that makes this book stand out enough to land itself on numerous lists and best seller shelves.
Firstly, he has a flare for understanding the mind of teenagers and young adults. Read more…
Animorphs was a book series about kids turning into animals. It was like being an animagus before Harry Potter even came out.
Anyways, this cover on Snoop Dogg’s transformation to Snoop Lion looks about right.
A woman spent a whole year building a lego replica of Harry Potter’s alma mater, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and wizardry.
Seattle-area builder Alice Finch used 400,000 bricks to recreate the magical location using the books and movies to help layout the school grounds and its interiors. Finch also visited the Harry Potter studio in London to see the set in person, according to The Brothers Brick.
The whole feat is impressive and Finch’s attention to detail is amazing. Make sure to check out her Flickr gallery to see more photos!
Harry Potter’s American publisher, Scholastic, will reissue the magical book series with all new covers to help celebrate the 15th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (oooh! American title!).
The new cover for the first installment aptly depicts Harry’s first visit Diagon Alley (a.k.a. his first foray into the magical world) with Hagrid by his side. It’s a good choice considering just how fantastic that first Diagon Alley scene was in the film adaptation.
The old cover, on the other hand, shows Harry catching the golden snitch as a unicorn runs by and Fluffy, Hagrid’s three-headed dog, watches on.
Here’s the original:
Here’s the new cover:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the new covers will be released in September as paperbacks. If you’re a fan of the original, don’t fret! That artwork will still be used for hardcover and trade paperback editions.
As a Canadian, I can’t help but prefer the original British cover (below) and never really understood why they had to change “philosopher” to “sorceror.” I think kids are a lot smarter than publishers think.
What do you guys think? Yay or nay for the new cover?
One of my biggest pet peeves is when a perfectly good book, with a creative and innovative cover, is replaced by a movie poster. That switch from original book cover to the poster of its movie adaptation is such a sham. I always opt to purchase the book with the original cover. Snobbish? Elitist? I don’t think so. Movie studios love to alter and change the plot lines of the books they’re based on, do they really need to ruin the book covers too?
When I pick up a book, I care about the story — not the cast and production team behind the “new motion picture.” That’s another thing, when you change a book cover to the movie poster do you REALLY need to vandalize the book even more by putting that big metallic sticker on it that says “now a motion picture?” Is that REALLY necessary? I think my rage is justified.
Then there are the books with the metallic “Movie TK” sticker, which never end up getting produced. I had false hope and was a very disappointed child when Meg Cabot’s “All American Girl,” never became a movie like the sticker on the front promised. Raven Symone was supposed to be in the movie to boot. Never forgive, and never forget. This bookworm will not stand for the elimination of perfectly good book covers in exchange for movie posters. A movie poster is a movie poster. NOT a book cover.
See some altered book covers below — which do you prefer?
1) Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was first published by MTV on Feb. 1, 1999. The book was adapted to a movie in 2012 starring Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and Emma Watson. The film was adapted to a screenplay and directed by the original author Stephen Chbosky. Not even Emma Watson can really make up for the cover change, as the original is so basic and reflective of the story.
2) Warm Bodies
The novel Warm Bodies was released by Simon and Schuster on Apr 26, 2011. The movie adaption will hit the big screen Feb. 1, 2013, and will star Nicholas Hoult. He’s beautiful, so I suggest you all go watch, especially Skins fans who miss seeing him on their screens. Still bitter about the cover swap though…
3) The Hunger Games 
This Suzanne Collins novel was published by Scholastic Press on Sept. 14, 2008 with this basic cover that was emulated in all subsequent novels of the trilogy with unique spins. I.e, a different bird is pictured in the same amulet. The movie came out March 23, 2012, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth. Unfortunately as Catching Fire and Mockingjay come out in movie form, their book covers will also change. Endless cycle of book cover shaming.
4) Beautiful Creatures Read more…
They say never to judge a book by it’s cover and I think we’ve found the reason why. This 80′s cover of The Hobbit is somehow simultaneously terrifying and hilarious:
I may be judging this cover a little unfairly considering I’m going to use some references from the 2000s (about 20 years after this cover came out) to describe what is going on. Basically, it looks like Saturday Night Live’s Horatio Sanz (as Bilbo Baggins and pre-weight loss) is in some creepy romantic relationship with the Green Goblin (as Gollum) from the Tobey McGuire Spider-Man movies. I also truly believe there is some weird The 50 Shades of Grey-esque relationship going on because not only is Bilbo carrying his elvish dagger, but the cover looks like it’s been done in the cheesy romance novel style.
Did I just make this really weird and creepy? Good because it totally is. But is this cover creepier than this one:
or this one: Read more…
By Gabriella Zicarelli
Here are 10 book to film adaptations to look forward to:
Divergent
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Written by Veronica Roth, Divergent brings us into a dystopian future where society is divided into five groups based on behavior. Once our heroine Beatrice Prior turns 16, she’s forced to choose the group she will be a part of with the rest of her schoolmates. So far, all we know about the film is that Shailene Woodley from The Secret Life of the American Teenager will play Beatrice and it will actually be filmed in Chicago where the book takes place. The film is set to come out in 2014.
Beautiful Creatures
Ethan wants to break free from his small narrow-minded town. That is until a mysterious dark-haired beauty named Lena arrives. You can’t help who you fall in love with, and it turns out, Ethan falls for this Caster who might turn out to be “Light” or “Dark” on her sixteenth birthday. Not only do they fall for each other but they both set out to discover all the dirty hidden secrets of their families. This film adaptation stars Alden Ehrenreich, newcomer Alice Englert and Emmy Rossum. Beautiful Creatures comes out Feb. 13.
Catching Fire
Everyone was in Hunger Games mania when the first movie of the series was released last year. The second won’t be any different. We left Katniss and Peta just as they became victors of the brutal game. In the sequel, they’ll be competing in the deadly Quarter Quell. All the favourites are back for Catching Fire along with Sam Claflin as Finnick Odair. Filming doesn’t conclude until March and fans are going to have to wait until Nov. 22 to see the finished product.
Warm Bodies
You know how they say “love conquers all”? Well who knew that even included turning zombies back into humans? In Warm Bodies, the lives, or lack thereof, of the zombie race is twisted when one of them falls in love with a human girl named Julie. Based on the novel written by Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies is out on Feb. 1 and seems like it will offer up a few laughs.
The Host
So it may not be as romantic as a family of sexy vampires and werewolves but since the Twilight series is done, fans of Stephanie Meyer can now look forward to The Host. Melanie Stryder is one of the last humans left on earth, when she becomes injected with a parasite set out to control her thoughts and capture the rest of the humans. This backfires when Melanie and the parasite create an emotional bond and instead work to help other humans free from the parasite. The movie’s release date is currently set for March 29.
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
I’m not gonna lie, this one looks pretty good. The thriller follows Clary Fray, a teenager who stumbles into the world of the supernatural and finds out a lot about her own family’s supernatural past. After her mom is kidnapped by Valentine, played by the dreamy Jonathan Rhys Meyers, she enlists the help of other hunters and sets out to find her. One of those hunters includes Jace Wayland played by Jamie Campbell Bower. You can look for this one in the summer when it hits theaters Aug. 23.
Oz: The Great and Powerful Read more…
Who is the best person in the WORLD you can think of to read Fifty Shades of Grey? That’s right, Morgan Freeman because he has that luscious and silky, deep voice. Well, it happened… sort of. Actor/comedian Josh Robert Thompson from Family Guy narrates selections from the erotic novel as Morgan Freeman. Although the passages come from writer E.L. James, Thompson adds his own quirky commentary in.
Listen to it here:
Village people, she’s cutting our books with an exacto knife, masquerading the brutal massacre as craft time!! I call MURDER. Where’s my pitchfork?
In a new DIY craft project, reality show star Lauren Conrad shows you how to take innocent little books and gut them so you can create trendy looking storage units for your extra mascara tubes and waxing kits. This way, people won’t see your oh-so-embarrassing collection of reading materials hidden inside the box (Fifty Shades of Grey, Cosmo) and instead mistake you as a literary genius.
It saves space and it makes you look smart. But I have to ask you Lauren, what did the books ever do to you? And what will Lauren Conrad’s Crafty Creations destroy next week? Retro VHS copies of Brat Pack movies? The thought…
Watch it here:
I understand the awkwardness of reading an erotic novel like Fifty Shades of Grey on the subway. That’s why I’ve come up with this craftacular DIY manual, to guide you through reading it without anyone knowing the better.
Operation: Wrap Around
Level: Easy
Reader: This is the ideal solution for someone with few resources and little time.
Tactic: If you’re not concerned about damaging the spine of the novel, wrap the front cover around the back to block the sultry title from the wide-eyed grandmother sitting in priority seating. If cracking the binding is a concern, consider the following: if you’re standing, face a wall so the title of the novel is blocked from other passengers and if you’re sitting down, balance the book on the top of your thighs. Disclaimer: If you choose the latter, it might be slightly uncomfortable to read the text at this jarring angle but your objective will be fulfilled and judgemental riders won’t know you’re reading about The Red Room of Pain.
Operation: Genius
Level: Medium Read more…
The next time you’re on the subway and you see someone in the middle of 50 Shades of Grey, just think of Gilbert Gottfried reading it in his cranky voice. We hope we didn’t ruin the book for you.
