We’re in the dog days of summer and I could use a break from all this heat and humidity. (Humidity is not good for books, after all!) Still, it helps to maintain perspective. In another six months, I’ll be bemoaning the cold, frigid temperatures of winter and wish for warmer weather. In the meantime, I’ll escape the heat when I can and spend the cooler evenings on my balcony with a good book. Here’s this week’s book news:
- I didn’t even have to turn the book upside down to find the answer. Donald J. Sobol, author of the Encyclopedia Brown stories, died at the age of 87 earlier this week. Sobol wrote more than 65 books and even won a special Edgar Award for his mystery writing. The first Encyclopedia Brown book was published in 1965, and in addition to having been published in 12 languages, the books have also never gone out of print since the 1960′s.
- Tick tock – Hunger Games casting alert! Actress Amanda Plummer will play the role of Wiress in the upcoming film version of Catching Fire. Plummer, the daughter of actor Christopher Plummer, is well-known for playing crazy-killer types in other movies, which makes her perfectly suited for the part of Wiress, an older Games survivor who has gone a bit batty since her time in the arena.
- It’s one novel approach: read according to your personality. The Huffington Post has created a list of novels to read depending on your Myers-Briggs personality type. Each of the sixteen suggestions corresponds to one of the Myers-Briggs types, with the suggestions running the gambit from classic literature to more contemporary works. The suggested novel for my personality type, INFJ, was Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Having spent many hours with Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth, I rather liked this suggestion.
- Funny, I don’t remember the Wizard looking like a stoner dude. The trailer for the upcoming movie Oz: The Great and Powerful (a retelling of The Wizard of Oz) released at Comic-Con last week. The movie will star James Franco as Oz himself, Michelle Williams as Glinda and Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz as rival witches. The movie will track the Wizard’s arrival in Oz and his rise to power in a land unlike his own.
- Now for the just for fun stuff: The Hairpin has some hilarious imaginary text messages between Rochester and Jane Eyre. Among the choice texts: Rochester snarkly asking what kind of name St. John is. (Seriously, what kind of name IS St. John? A stupid one, that’s what.) Over at Book Riot, the staff looks at the top literary references from Aaron Sorkin television shows, whether it was from a character mentioning something in conversation or the title of the episode itself. As a Sorkin fan, I enjoyed finding some of the references I may have missed before.
As always, happy reading.
