Month: April 2017

Crime Fiction: August Snow
by Stephen Mack Jones

April 24, 2017 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Steven Nester, host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a weekly Internet radio show heard on the Public Radio Exchange [PRX]. Nester is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap Sheet, Mystery Scene and Firsts Magazine. He last wrote for January Magazine about Shirley Barrett’s debut historical novel, Rush Oh!) “Being from Detroit, I’ve never quite trusted happiness,” says the eponymous August Snow, whose name […]

Big Thumbs-Up for American Gods  Adaptation

April 17, 2017 admin 0

We’ve been waiting a long time for an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s stunning 2001 novel, American Gods. Word is, the mini-series just delivered was worth waiting for. From Deadline Hollywood: Starz’s cunning adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods may be the most ambitious and successful series the premium cabler has launched since it hit the reset button a few years back. The eight-episode series executive-produced by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green that debuts April […]

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The Haunting of Hill House  Heads to TV

April 11, 2017 admin 0

Shirley Jackson’s classic novel, The Haunting of Hill House, will come to horrifying life as a 10-episode Netflix series. From Deadline Hollywood: Netflix has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to an untitled horror drama series from genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil, Oculus, Hush), Steven Spielberg’s Amblin TV and Paramount TV. The project is a modern re-imagining of Shirley Jackson’s classic 1959 novel, The Haunting of Hill House, considered one of the best […]

New This Week: The Perfect Stranger
by Megan Miranda

April 10, 2017 admin 0

The Perfect Stranger (Simon & Schuster) offers up a perfectly delicious framework for a novel. How well do you know your best friend? It’s not as odd a question or as obvious an answer as it may seem. We discover hidden truths about ourselves all the time, things we never knew we were capable of doing, so just imagine how little you might know about someone else. And reciprocity is scarcely guaranteed; just because you’ve […]

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Lionsgate in Talks to Acquire
Inkshares-Published Book

April 9, 2017 admin 0

Lionsgate Entertainment is in advanced talks to acquire The Punch Escrow by debut novelist Tal M. Klein, according to Deadline Hollywood. The biggest part of the story may be that The Punch Escrow is co-published by InkShares, the crowd-funding themed publisher that will release the book in July. From the InkShares page on The Punch Escrow:   Have you ever been on the New York Subway or the London Underground when the power went out? […]

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Listening As a Form of Art

April 9, 2017 admin 0

As always, Maria Popova does a brilliant job of picking through brains with an exploration of the importance of listening. From Brain Pickings: “An experience makes its appearance only when it is being said,” wrote Hannah Arendt in reflecting on how language confers reality upon existence. “And unless it is said it is, so to speak, non-existent.” But if an experience is spoken yet unheard, half of its reality is severed and a certain essential […]

Non-Fiction: Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History  by Bill Schutt

April 3, 2017 admin 1

Whatever you expect when you pick up Bill Schutt’s Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History (Algonquin), humor is probably not part of it. Cannibalism is certainly not laugh-out-loud funny. It is, however, muscularly written and the dark material is tamed somewhat by a deep and intelligent wit that cuts a strong thread through all of this surprisingly enjoyable book. I was knee-deep in a temporary pond that seemed to be composed of equal parts rainwater and […]

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My Favorite Thing Is Monsters 
Scares Up Bidding Battle

April 2, 2017 admin 0

We’re having trouble imagining how Sony is going to bring My Favorite Thing Is Monsters to the screen. Here’s the synopsis of the Emil Ferris graphic novel as described by its publisher, Fantagraphics: Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her […]