2.13.2008

oooh!

this one looks good too...



ALL THE WORLD’S A GRAVE: A New Play by William Shakespeare
(August, Drama)

In ALL THE WORLD’S A GRAVE, John Reed takes Shakespeare’s plays, with a primary focus on Hamlet, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Henry V, cuts them up and recombines them into a new play. All the language is Shakespeare’s, but it has been rearranged and reassigned, creating a new story for these characters to act out their fatal loves and flaws, jealousies and betrayals. Shakespeare often sourced his plays from existing plays and this book takes this practice a step further creating an exciting and innovative new work.

John Reed received his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in journals, newspapers and magazines nationwide.

hodgman lives!

so this one will be of special interest to ray...and maybe someone else out there that reads my blog.

i got a hold of the upcoming penguin catalog, and found the following entry:

MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE
(October, Humor/Reference)

MORE INFORMATION THAN YOUR REQUIRE picks up exactly where John Hodgman’s previous book left off—down to the continuation of the page numbers—and consists of brief articles, overlong lists, frighteningly complex charts, and beguiling narratives on such new and familiar themes as the past, the future, cryptogeography, sword canes, and the mole men.

John Hodgman is the author of THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE. He has written for the New York Times Magazine and Men’s Journal. He is the “resident expert” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has been seen in the nationally televised Mac ads as “PC”.

2.03.2008

gods behaving badly



i found out about this book by marie phillips in one of the reviews in entertainment weekly. the cover caught my attention (i love it! the color is great) and then the brief synopsis drew me in. i knew i would be spending some of my xmas money on this hardcover (though i tend to be a paperback girl).

now, i've read a few not-so-favorable reviews of the book, mainly on amazon, that made me a little worried (that stuff always worries me, especially when i'll be spending a fair amount on a book). more than once i shelled out the cash for a title that, well how should i put it, should have only been library book material. those are always a disappointment, and usually end up on half.com.

but i digress. i enjoy phillips' story-telling technique, and it probably helps that i'm a big fan of mythology. her characters are clever, the story is engaging, and we have two mortals that are a nice blend of sweet and "normal." not gorgeous or popular or trendy. and that is awesome.

i highly suggest this book...though i have to say an early sex scene (well-written) was a little of a "whoa." not because i'm unfamiliar with sex scenes in the book...but because it's between a specific god and goddess, who are technically aunt and nephew. there's a little bit of an eww factor there but at the same time, anyone who has studied mythology knows that's how they rocked back then. in egyptian mythology osirus and isis are siblings and husband and wife. that's what happens when you don't have a lot of partners to choose from.

so, who can't love a book where aphrodite is a phone sex operator and dionysus is a night club owning dj? i've already suggested the book to my professor friend to teach in her classical literature class (she likes throwing in modern adaptations to shake up her students' trees from time to time).

so on a scale of 1-5, i give it a solid 4. good book, good fun.