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Friday, January 16, 2015
The Boy Who Said He Came Back From Heaven Didn't Actually Go To Heaven
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
The boy author of the best-selling book The boy who came back from heaven admitted he didn’t actually go to heaven. So the publisher won’t sell the book anymore.
In a dark day for non-fiction, the boy who wrote The boy who came back from heaven admitted Tuesday he didn't actually go to heaven, prompting his publisher to take the best-seller out of print.
Getty Images/iStockphoto lilkar
The book, published in 2010, purported to describe what happened when the aptly-named Alex Malarkey went into a two-month long coma following a car crash that left him mostly paralyzed.
Getty Images/iStockphoto Ig0rZh
Malarkey, who was six at the time of the accident, claimed that he spent those two months in heaven, chilling with angels, listening to music, and hanging out with Jesus, according to the book's Amazon description.
Getty Images/iStockphoto IMNATURE
With a little help from his father, Christian therapist Kevin Malarkey, Alex turned his experiences into a detailed memoir, which promptly landed on the New York Times non-fiction best-selling list.
Getty Images David De Lossy
If "Goosebumps" Books Were About Modern Britain
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
Warning: These books are not for the faint hearted.
Robin Edds / BuzzFeed / Thinkstock
Robin Edds / BuzzFeed / Thinkstock
Robin Edds / BuzzFeed / Thinkstock
Robin Edds / BuzzFeed / Getty
If Hermione Was The Main Character In "Harry Potter"
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
Hermione Granger And The Goddamn Patriarchy.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger of London were proud to say that they had a witch for a daughter.
Not that they said it much, or at all, to anyone. But they were proud all the same.
Warner Bros.
Proud, that is, until their daughter, Hermione, wiped all trace of her existence from their memory.
It was act born not of spite or rebellion, but of love.
Warner Bros.
Though it pained her beyond measure to do it, Hermione was in the midst of a war, and she was trying to protect her parents from harm.
To make sure they were completely safe, she shipped them off to Australia, where nothing dangerous ever happens.
Warner Bros.
Hermione had been doxxed by supporters of the cause she'd been fighting against for years: The Patriarchy.
The Patriarchy's first mistake had been to assume that women were somehow lesser. Their second mistake was to fuck with Hermione Granger.
Warner Bros.
24 Things No One Ever Tells You About Book Publishing
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
Ten years ago, my first novel Prep came out. Here’s what I’ve learned about the publishing industry and writing since then.
My first novel.
Via amazon.com
1. When it comes to fellow writers, don't buy into the narcissism of small differences. In all their neurotic, competitive, smart, funny glory, other writers are your friends.
2. Unless you're Stephen King, or you're standing inside your own publishing house, assume that nobody you meet has ever heard of you or your books. If they have, you can be pleasantly surprised.
3. At a reading, 25 audience members and 20 chairs is better than 200 audience members and 600 chairs.
4. There are very different ways people can ask a published writer for the same favor. Polite, succinct, and preemptively letting you off the hook is most effective.
5. Blurbs achieve almost nothing, everyone in publishing knows it, and everyone in publishing hates them.
6. But a really good blurb from the right person can, occasionally, make a book take off.
7. When your book is on best-seller lists, people find you more amusing and respond to your emails faster.
Summit Entertainment / Via Tumblr
8. When your book isn't on best-seller lists, your life is calmer and you have more time to write.
9. The older you are when your first book is published, the less gratuitous resentment will be directed at you.
10. The goal is not to be a media darling; the goal is to have a career.
11. The farther you live from New York, the less preoccupied you'll be with literary gossip. Like cayenne pepper, literary gossip is tastiest in small doses.
12. Contrary to stereotype, most book publicists aren't fast-talking, vapid manipulators; they're usually warm, organized youngish women (yes, they are almost all women) who love to read.
13. Female writers are asked more frequently about all of the following topics than male writers: whether their work is autobiographical; whether their characters are likable; whether their unlikable characters are unlikable on purpose or the writer didn't realize what she was doing; how they manage to write after having children.
13 Books You Need To Read If You've Ever Felt Like The Odd One Out
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
These main characters are each on a journey to find their place in the world. Their stories are wild and beautiful.
This Wild Family Tale Written for a Girl with a Tail
Miranda is part of a family of circus freaks made to have deformities devised purposely to create a homegrown freak show, (accomplished by the parent members' experiments with radioactive material and drugs). She looks normal save a small tail she flaunts as a stripper. It's written as a family history by her mother who gave her up.
Little Back Story: The book's original cover art by Chip Kidd sports a five-legged dog, (he added an extra leg to the Knopf dog logo in honor of the characters).
Bottom line: You'll love the stripped bare raw humanity in this tale that defies the most freakish deformities of the physical body.
Amazon / Via amazon.com
This Laugh Out Loud Story Written By An Author Who Tragically Committed Suicide Before It Was Published
“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
Thus describes the uncanny roguish hero Ignatius J. Reilly, a man in his 30s working at a pants factory and hot dog stand while living with his mother. He is highly educated despite his low skilled jobs, and the novel follows the format of Ignatius' favorite book, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy .
Little Back Story: Toole's manuscript was rejected by Simon and Schuster during his life, then his mother discovered a carbon copy of his manuscript after his suicide and pushed it for publication. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Bottom Line: Read this for a rollicking good time with a crazy cast of characters that will have you rooting for the idealist underemployed Ignatius to the last page.
Amazon / Via amazon.com
This True Memoir of a Boy Left to His Own Devices
"I was like a packet of powdered Sea Monkeys and they were like water."
This is how Augusten describes his experience growing up in his mother's shrink's home, the psychiatrist's family acting as the "water." He has almost total freedom, allowed to drop out of school but actually craves adult guidance. He settles for attention in adolescence in the form of sex with the shrink's adopted son, a man over twice his age. His road to self-reliance is kicked off when he literally knocks down the ceiling of his house to put in a makeshift skylight.
Little Back Story: The names of people in the book had been changed, but the psychiatrist filed suit against Burroughs and his publisher, alleging defamation, demanded that it be marketed as a "book" rather than a "memoir." So it was printed with the description of book in the author's note, but it still stated memoir on the cover and in marketing.
Bottom line: Brace yourself for truth that's stranger than fiction and by the end wanting to hug and high five the man who wrote this memoir.
Amazon / Via amazon.com
This Classic Tale of an Orphan and an Unusual Benefactor
Pip never knew his parents and is raised by his sister who is constantly berating him and whips him with a rod called "tickler." But he's kindly treated by his sister's husband and becomes needed in a strange sort of way by an old jilted-at-the-altar woman who has never taken off her wedding dress. Later on, he acquires a mysterious benefactor.
Little Back Story: Dickens wrote two different endings. His wealthy aristocratic pal, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, advised him against the original ending which was much more downbeat than the one in current editions.
Bottom line: If you've ever craved support while at the same time wanting to stand on your own, you'll like this classic which is a classic for good reason. Its themes are timeless.
Amazon / Via amazon.com
Which Dr. Seuss Character Are You?
Posted by Unknown on Friday, January 16, 2015
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” ― Dr. Seuss
Random House
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