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Pint-sized history
Shakespeare’s Pub sorts through tall tales and famous names to soak up English culture’s single most defining institution natpo.st/1a23jJc
Mouse-filled Redwall books getting video-game adaptation
Redwall was one of the first fantasy series I read back in elementary school, and any news about video game development makes my imaginary mouse tail wag a little.
In a blog post on Soma Games’s website, the studio revealed its plans to create a game based on the Redwall series of books which they say will stay true to the series while offering up a new story to fans. The game is being developed for Mac, PC, iPad, and tablet devices. (The Miller Brothers)
The literary life of R.A. Dickey
When already-legendary Blue Jays pitcher Dickey was in Grade 7, a teacher submitted a poem of his to a statewide contest, which he ended up winning. At the time he was struggling with the ramifications of abuse, and the success buoyed him: “From then on, I knew that I wanted to write. Unpacking literature and writing for me came very natural.” READ MORE: natpo.st/13AS6BU
Edward Gorey, eerie illustrator, master of morbid humour, gets a posthumous Google birthday gift
Edward Gorey did not make it his business to be cheerful, despite the fact that a number of his titles are popular with children. “If you’re doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point,” Gorey said of his work. “I’m trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that’s true, there really isn’t. And there’s probably no happy nonsense, either”
The macabre author and illustrator, who would have turned 88 today, was a fan of nonsense — his books and short stories are largely surreal, often completely without text, and are for their black humour popular among gothic subcultures. His illustration style was decidedly eerie: Gorey drew in black and white, mostly, anrd relied heavily on crosshatching method — his particular style, whimsical as it is chilling, significantly inspired filmmaker Tim Burton. (Tom Herde/Boston Globe Photo files; Google)
Prose in the nude: Canadian authors get naked for Bare It For Books calendar
It’s often said that authors bare their souls on the page. Now, some of Canada’s most successful writers are baring a little bit more for charity.
Bare It For Books is the brainchild of Allegra Young, a classical music producer, and Amanda Leduc, an author who first proposed a calendar featuring Canadian authors in the buff on Twitter this past summer.
“It’s a risky venture,” Leduc says. “A naked calendar isn’t something that you see everyday.” (Shelagh Howard)
Anne of Green Gables gets a sexy makeover, blond dye-job for new edition — and Canadian fans are not amused
A new image of Canada’s most beloved literary orphan has Canadians seeing red, but not where they’re supposed to.
A new edition of Anne of Green Gables depicts the notoriously youthful and ruddy-headed heroine as a curvaceous blond teen, sparking a fierce backlash from scholars and casual readers alike.
Critics derided the cover — which shows the heroine reclining against a hay stack, clad in a plaid shirt and smiling suggestively — saying it is a far cry from the feisty, 19th-century 11-year-old brought to life in the pages of L.M. Montgomery’s classic series of novels. (Amazon.com; Postmedia News files)
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What’s the nature of the myths behind the beauty industrial complex?Our own style guru Nathalie Atkinson goes behind the fakery, Photoshop and cosmetic wizardry of the women’s magazine biz[Illustration by Steve Murray/National Post]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/4d42ac23578caa1ae3efea4898876fd3/tumblr_mhghx61Bmc1s0oiwfo1_1280.jpg)
What’s the nature of the myths behind the beauty industrial complex?
Our own style guru Nathalie Atkinson goes behind the fakery, Photoshop and cosmetic wizardry of the women’s magazine biz
[Illustration by Steve Murray/National Post]
Apparently this was the work of a rogue librarian, and not their official policy on Lance Armstrong. But it’s still funny.
“All non-fiction Lance Armstrong titles, including Lance Armstrong: Images of a Champion, The Lance Armstrong Performance Program and Lance Armstrong: World’s Greatest Champion, will soon be moved to the fiction section,” a sign, sporting a smiley face, tells library patrons.
Armstrong’s books have also taken a beating from reviewers on sites such as online bookseller Amazon.com — the once-faithful readers now skeptical of every word in the cyclist’s autobiography Its Not About The Bike. (Photo via Reddit user Evadregand)
Grimm’s Fairy Tales turn 200 — and they’re just as creepy today as they were in 1812
Grimm’s Fairy Tales — the fairly disturbing and ever-iconic “Children’s and Household” stories about cannibals, death’s messengers and a girl without hands — first rolled off the presses in Germany 200 years ago. And Germany is excited.
Like other Grimm tales, the version of Riding Hood best known to us isn’t the one that the Brothers Grimm originally penned. The brothers’ original tales were fables, yes, but they were meant to teach lessons and morals and often employed scare tactics to do so. For instance, in the Grimms’ original “Little Red Riding Hood” — also called “Red Cap” — the Big Bad Wolf eats both Riding Hood and her grandmother, and is cut open by a passing lumberjack. Some cleaned-up versions have the Wolf instead hiding Riding Hood and her grandmother in the closet.
Live Chat: How do you self-publish a novel? Ask the experts!
Everything you’ve always wanted to know about self-publishing, but had no idea who to ask.
A team of genetic researchers in Texas have concluded that the legendary forest-dwelling ape-man, also known as the Sasquatch and, in colder climes, the Yeti, is indeed real. DNA testing has revealed the beast is the result of a human woman coupling with a primate some 15,000 years ago. When reached for comment through his official biographer, Graham Roumieu, Bigfoot had a few things to say: natpo.st/StM8cS
Film Review: Life of Pi
Based on Yann Martel’s extraordinary, 2001 Booker-winning novel, Life of Pi has been in development so long that film has grown another dimension in the meantime. Actors, writers and directors have come and gone. At one point, M. Night Shyamalan was attached. Then (twist!) he left. The good news is it was worth the wait. Read the full review here: natpo.st/Y2ysdO
How did comic-book store The Beguiling survive a boom-and-bust market?
Peter Birkemoe doesn’t just sell comic books for a living, he is also a cartoon character in his own right.Bespectacled and slyly sardonic, Birkemoe made a cameo appearance in the 2005 graphic novel Wimbledon Green, a gentle farce about the mania of funny book collectors crafted by Guelph, Ont.-based cartoonist Seth. Birkemoe fit in well with Wimbledon Green because he’s a long-time denizen of comic book subculture, someone well-versed in the arcane lore of trading yellowing back issues lovingly sealed in Mylar bags. Read on: The Beguiling’s 25th
A clockwork original: McMaster University bought manuscript of iconic dystopian novel for $250
In the bowels of Hamilton’s McMaster University research archives sits the original manuscript of A Clockwork Orange, typed by Anthony Burgess and featuring his hand-written corrections, notations and illustrations.
“The McMaster typescript is the only surviving text of the novel. Burgess wrote directly on the typewriter and made handwritten corrections on the typescript later,” said Andrew Biswell, director of the U.K.-based International Anthony Burgess Foundation. (Photos Glenn Lowson for National Post)
