Category: books

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7 Facts About Stephen King’s “It”

The original TV adaptation of It remains one of the biggest scares of my childhood, and I’ve been told that the latest reimagining was also pretty darn good. Now, we’re getting a second chapter to the story, and to celebrate, how about some fun facts about the source material (it was once a book, after all!)?

Join me!

7. King was high on cocaine when he wrote it.

King has over 30 years of sobriety under his belt, but more than a few of his novels were written between 1978 and 1986, when he (along with a lot of other people) used cocaine heavily.

It was the last novel he wrote before getting sober.

6. The novel was inspired by a Norwegian fairy tale.

The classic Norwegian fairy tale, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, is about 3 goats outsmarting a bridge troll. It’s the inspiration, King says, for this tale.

“I decided that the bridge could be the city, if there was something under it. What’s under a city? Tunnels. Sewers…I thought of how such a story might be cast; how it might be possible to create a ricochet effect, interweaving the stories of the children and the adults they become.”

5. Pennywise isn’t always a clown.

It is a mythical creature that takes the form of what people fear most when it returns to terrorize Derry, but he shows up most often as a clown, King says, because what scares children more than that?

“I thought to myself, ‘What scares children more than anything else in the world?’ And the answer was ‘clowns.’

4. The book took 4 years to complete, and is King’s second longest draft.

The book is 1138 pages long – just 15 pages shorter than The Stand, King’s longest tome – and (depending on the edition) weighs up to 4 pounds.

3. King had his own childhood scare from a clown…called Ronald McDonald.

King revealed to Conan O’Brien that he once sat next to Ronald McDonald on an airplane.

“You think, ‘What if this plane crashes? I’m going to die next to a clown.’”

2. The novel contains a controversial scene that will probably never be adapted.

The novel contains a scene that basically boils down to gang rape – the 11 and 12-year-old boys of The Losers’ Club have to have sex with the long girl in order to escape the sewers – and even King acknowledges it wouldn’t fly today.

“It wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood … Times have changes since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”

1. The fictional Derry is basically Bangor, Maine.

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we using more friends references ?

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King has lived in Bangor since 1979, and most of his novels are set in similar fictionalized versions of his adopted hometown.

 

I, for one, love facts about authors and books, so these were pretty cool!

Were any of these news to you? Let us know in the comments!

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There Are 42 Movie Adaptations of Stephen King Books. How Many Have You Seen?

Stephen King, “The Master of Horror”, just turned 72 years old the other day, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

I think it’s safe to say that Stephen King has had one of the best careers in the history of books. His first novel Carrie was published in 1974, and he’s been on a roll ever since.

A whopping 42 of his books, short stories, and novellas have been adapted for the big screen, and It Chapter Two just recently hit the big screen, adding another notch in King’s belt. And there are more adaptations in the works and coming soon.

Take a look at this list of King’s books that have been turned into films and see how many you’ve seen. Anybody out there with all 42?!?!

1. Carrie (1976)

2. The Shining (1980)

3. Creepshow (1982)

4. Cujo (1983)

5. The Dead Zone (1984)

6. Christine (1983)

7. Children of the Corn (1984)

8. Firestarter (1984)

9. Cat’s Eye (1985)

10. Silver Bullet (1985)

11. Maximum Overdrive (1985)

12. Stand by Me (1986)

13. Creepshow 2 (1987)

14. The Running Man (1987)

15. Pet Sematary (1989)

16. Graveyard Shift (1990)

17. Misery (1990)

18. The Lawnmower Man (1992)

19. The Dark Half  (1993)

20. Needful Things (1993)

21. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

22. The Mangler (1995)

23. Dolores Claiborne (1995)

24. Thinner (1996)

25. The Night Flier (1997)

26. Apt Pupil (1998)

27. The Green Mile (1999)

28. Hearts in Atlantis (2001)

29. Dreamcatcher (2003)

30. Secret Window (2004)

31. Riding the Bullet (2004)

32. 1408 (2007)

33. The Mist (2007)

34. Dolan’s Cadillac (2009)

35. A Good Marriage (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjOnIbXU–M

36. Mercy (2014)

37. Cell (2016)

38. The Dark Tower (2017)

39. It (2017)

40. Gerald’s Game (2017)

41. 1922 (2017)

42. It Chapter Two (2019)

Okay, I’ve seen 21.

Also – that list is straight up insane.

How many do you have under your belt? Share your number (and your favorites) in the comments! Let’s compare!

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Alan Rickman’s Personal Letters Reveal He Had Some Mixed Feelings About Playing Snape

Moviegoers, co-workers, directors, and everyone enjoyed the time they spent working with Alan Rickman, watching him, or just being around him. But just because he was so well-liked doesn’t mean he had a complex personal life. Actors are emotional beings, and Rickman was no different.

Thanks to some of his personal letters coming up for auction, we’ve gotten a glimpse into his complicated feelings about playing one of his most well-known roles.

 

The collection of letters, which are part of an auction at the ABA Rare Book Fair, seem to indicate the actor struggled with how the film franchise’s directors were handling his character, beginning as early as A Chamber of Secrets, the second installment in the Harry Potter franchise.

One letter from producer David Heyman told Rickman “Thank you for making HP2 a success. I know, at times, you are frustrated but please know that you are an integral part of the films. And you are brilliant.”

Later, after filming Half-Blood Prince (the sixth film), Rickman wrote a note, titled “Inside Snape’s Head,” that seemed to indicate he was unhappy with choices made by director David Yates.

“It’s as if David Yates has decided that this is not important in the scheme of things i.e. teen audience appeal.”

He’s clearly frustrated, but about what, exactly, we may never know.

The collection does include happy notes, as well, like one from author J.K. Rowling thanking Rickman for “doing justice to my most complex character,” and one from Daniel Radcliffe, who idolized Rickman (rightfully so).

“To Alan, Thank you for all of my presents, I can’t wait to read Catcher in the Rye.”

The entire collection includes 35 boxes of diaries, photos, scripts, and other personal effects like notes from Prince Charles, Tony Blair, and Bill Clinton.

If you want to bid on it, you’d better have deep pockets – they’re expecting the whole thing to go for over $1.2 million.

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The Kids Book ‘Go the F*Ck to Sleep’ Is Getting a Sequel

If you’re a parent or have spent a lot of time around kids, you know the nightly routine. Your kids are totally adorable and they mean the world to you, but you just want them to get some shut-eye so YOU can get some shut-eye. That’s why Adam Mansbach’s 2011 bedtime book Go the F*ck to Sleep was such a huge hit. Mansbach hit exactly the right nerve for exhausted parents who were ready to throw their hands up in the air.

Well, good new parents! The hit book is getting a sequel titled F*ck, Now There Are Two of You that will be released on October 1 by Akashic Books. The official description says, “The third installment in Adam Mansbach’s international best-selling Go the Fuck to Sleep series addresses, with radical honesty, the family implosion that occurs when a second child arrives.”

In 2014, Mansbach released another book in the F*ck series, You Have to F*cking Eat that details the challenges of getting your little monsters to eat a (hopefully) nutritious and delicious meal.

We’ll have to wait until October 1 to see what Mansbach’s new creation has in store for parents, but we can probably assume that it’s about how the family dynamics change when a second child is introduced into the mix.

One more thing we can speculate about right now until the book is released in a couple weeks: will Samuel L. Jackson do the audio narration for this new book like he did for Go the F*ck To Sleep back in 2011?

Let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one.

UPDATE: This is great. It’s been confirmed that none other than Larry David will record the audio narration for F*ck, Now There Are Two of You. I’d say that’s a pretty great choice.

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15 Jokes That Writers Might Find Funny

Writing for a living is a tough gig. Always wracking your brain to come up with something interesting or witty to say. Hitting that inevitable bout of writer’s block at one point or another.

But it’s also a lot of fun, and anyone who gets to write for a living would probably say the same thing.

If you’re a writer, these jokes will most likely make you shake your head and say, “Yup, that’s accurate.”

Enjoy!

1. You’ll all be very disappointed.

2. You can never, ever, have enough.

3. One of the worst feelings of all time.

4. I’m back, baby! Back with a bang!

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Yep, that’s me ?

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5. That’s exactly what he was talking about.

6. Woo! Time for a nap and a snack.

7. Never listen to this advice.

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8. Make them suffer immeasurably.

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9. Among other things…

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10. Check your email every two-and-a-half minutes.

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11. Maybe it’s time to focus on one thing.

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12. Pretty much sums it up.

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13. “The man devoured the baked bread like it would be his last meal.” How’s that?

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14. Moments of inspiration.

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15. Let’s jump ahead a few years.

Photo Credit: Tumblr

Time to keep working, writers! You know we never get a day off…

Do you have any funny jokes about writing? If so, share them in the comments. Thanks!

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A School in Tennessee Banned ‘Harry Potter’ Books. In 2019.

What year are we living in? Oh, that’s right, it’s 2019…and apparently, some things never change.

A Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee, has removed J.W. Rowling’s world-famous Harry Potter books from its shelves because the school’s pastor said, “These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”

St. Edward Catholic School pastor Father Dan Reehil wrote an email to parents at the school explaining the decision. Reehil said in the message that he consulted with several exorcists in the U.S. and in Italy before making his decision. That seems like time well spent, doesn’t it?

Rebecca Hammel, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, said, “Each pastor has canonical authority to make such decisions for his parish school. He’s well within his authority to act in that manner.”

This is not the first time that the Harry Potter series has been under scrutiny from schools. From 2001 until 2003, the series was on the American Library Association’s list of “most challenged books.”

Father Reehil started exploring the possibility of banning the Harry Potter books after he received an inquiry from a parent. I bet that kid thinks his parents are a BLAST.

It’s hard to believe that this kind of thing still happens in 2019, but here we are…

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5 Fan Theories About Harry Potter That Hit the Nail on the Head

Surprisingly, there was a time when the mysteries in Harry Potter were actually mysteries, and those of us reading (and then watching) along had to actually guess what was what and who was who.

Needless to say, in the end most of us were wrong.

But thanks to hindsight and the fact that J.K. Rowling is pretty available for questions (and sometimes answers) on Twitter, we know that these 5 people’s mystery-solving games were totally on point.

5. Magic is genetic. Usually.

Let’s take a little historical tour of J.K. Rowling’s comments on how one might or might not come to expect a Hogwarts letter on their 11th birthday, shall we?

In 1999, she said that “Nobody knows where magic comes from. It is like any other talent. Sometimes it seems to be inherited, but others are the only ones in their family who have the ability.”

Fans, however, picked up on the obsession some wizards had with “pure blood families,” leaving them to speculate that there had to be some genetic component to the talent.

Then, in 2012, Rowling addressed the issue of Squibs (non-magical people born to magical parents), stating that they’re rare in her world because “magic is a dominant and resilient gene.”

One biology major wrote a six-page paper on how magical ability could be attributed to “a single autosomal dominant gene if it is caused by an expansion of trinucleotide repeats with non-Mendelian ratios of inheritance,” and she’s joined by Duke University professor Eric Spana, who explained Muggle-borns like Lily and Hermione by way of de novo mutations (a genetic lottery).

4. There was more to Harry’s Invisibility Cloak that he knew at first.

Harry loved his invisibility cloak from the start, given that it was a hand-me-down from his deceased father, but at first he – and fans – had no reason to suspect that “exceedingly rare” meant “one-of-a-kind.”

But fans began suspecting there was more to the mysterious garment long before Ron recognized it as a Ignotus Peverell’s Cloak of Invisibility – and one of the Deathly Hallows – in the final book.

3. Harry and Ginny had a good reason for not naming their children after Remus Lupin.

Harry and Ginny’s children’s names honored a number of late and living loved ones, but fans immediately noticed that Remus Lupin was missing. Most were upset, but a few deep thinkers believed that perhaps they were saving Lupin’s name for someone else.

A fact Rowling affirmed, saying on Twitter that “Harry left Remus’s name for Teddy to use for his own son.”

2. The romantic relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore.

While most fans’ “ships” (relationships) don’t ever come to fruition on the page or on screen, the teen romance between Grindelwald and Dumbledore didn’t disappoint.

In 2007, Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was both gay and “in love with Grindelwald,” a plot point that has made an appearance-ish in the latest Fantastic Beasts movie.

Oh happy day!

1. That Harry would both die AND live.

One of the most enduring questions of the series became this: would Harry earn the title of The Boy Who Lived a second time, or would he die in order to save the world from Voldemort’s rebirth? The prophecy that stated “either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives” certainly made sacrifice seem unavoidable, but some fans guessed early on that there might be a third option.

Harry does die and cross into the afterlife, but he also returns. The best of both worlds? Maybe!

 

We nailed it guys, good work all around.

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This Is Why Men Should Be Banned from Writing Female Characters

“Write what you know.” That’s how the saying goes, remember?

Well, maybe men should consider that advice a little harder before they take a crack at writing female characters. Because a lot of them are waaaaaaaaaay off, and, frankly, they sound pretty dumb.

Ladies, on behalf of all males, I apologize for what you’re about to see.

1. Interesting!

2. WTF?

3. I hate that!

4. Here’s why…

5. Oh my god…

Macaroni and cheese vagina from menwritingwomen

6. Weird

7. Not Phillip K. Dick!

Thinking with his Phillip K Dick from menwritingwomen

8. Mmmmm

9. An awful bit

10. Wait, what?

11. Borrow them

12. Get a load of that passage

13. Dear Mr. King…

14. Creamy

Soft and creamy boobs from menwritingwomen

15. Perfect!

Cringeworthy, isn’t it?

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