2009 – Page 4 – Pop Culture Nerd

More TV Flippin'

The DVR was about to explode this weekend so I chained myself down with popcorn and cake for some marathon TV viewing. Some quick impressions:

Three Rivers. Warning: This soporific show might induce a coma. Though the actors—including Alex O’Loughlin (Moonlight), Daniel Henney (Agent Zero in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Katherine Moennig (The L Word), and Alfre Woodard—are pretty, their characters are dull and saddled by storylines that are neither compelling nor groundbreaking. It’s all been done better on the myriad of medical shows that have gone before. Nerd verdict: Needs life support.

Mercy. For a better new hospital show, try this NBC series instead. It focuses on three nurses working at Mercy Hospital in Jersey, with stories revolving more around their lives than medical mysteries. The lead, Taylor Schilling, is a TV newcomer but she comes across like an old pro, playing her Iraq veteran character, Veronica, with intelligence, forthrightness and sly sexiness. Jaime Lee Kirchner injects sass into her role while Michelle Trachtenberg is a little annoying as the green, earnest nurse (more how the character is written than the actress’s fault), but she has less screen time than the other two so I’m okay with her for now. Nerd verdict: Check into Mercy.

FlashForward. Three eps in and it’s growing on me. At first, I thought it was too much a Lost rip-off, with references to Oceanic Airlines and Australia in the pilot, plus Lost‘s Penny, Sonya Walger, as a series regular (additional Losties include Kim Dickens guesting in ep 3 and Dominic Monaghan joining the show in episode 6). But I’m now caught up in the Mosaic and the visions and mystery without being pissed off—yet—by the obliqueness of it all. Nerd verdict: I see it being around six months from now.

Are you hooked on anything yet this season? What started out strong but has already lost you?

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Winner & Runner-Up of the 1st Best Nerd Award

As part of my first blogoversary celebration, I asked you to share your nerdy stories for a chance of winning 1 hardcover or 2 paperback books of your choice from my list of available titles. The stories made me smile because it’s clear we’re united by our nerdiness, but I think our owning it also makes us cool.

There were many good stories so this was really hard for me to judge, but I finally chose the following two people as winner and runner-up. The winner gets first choice of book(s) from the list.

Winner: Poncho from Mexico, for traveling all the way to Germany for a trading card tournament and—this is the deal clincher—speaking Elvish. If you don’t even know what that language is, that’s exactly why Poncho won.

Runner-up: novelwhore from New York, for counting authors instead of sheep when she can’t sleep and for terminating relationships with people who use cutesy text lingo and/or emoticons in e-mails.

Congrats to both of you! Please e-mail me or hit “contact” in the upper right corner of this page, provide me with your address and let me know which book(s) you’d like.

Thank you to all who joined in the celebration, old and new friends alike. Stay tuned for more giveaways and another year of nerdy moments!

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Movie Review: AN EDUCATION

In this coming-of-age movie, 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) receives quite an education—in academics, sex, music and fine living. She owes most of this to her much older lover, David (Peter Sarsgaard), whom she meets one day in the rain when he offers to shelter her cello, if not her, in his car.

Soon, she and David are devising ways to convince her parents to let her go out with him to dinners, dancing and even Paris (there’s a romantic Parisian montage which made me ache to go). Her stellar school grades plummet and her goals of attending Oxford begin to recede. Like David, it seems Jenny would rather attend the “University of Life,” much to the chagrin of her teachers. Her glamorous experience abruptly ends, however, after an upsetting discovery, forcing her to re-examine what kind of education she really wants.

You may or may not have heard of Mulligan (she played Kitty Bennet in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley) but I believe she will be well known here in the States very soon. The 24-year-old actress believably conveys the giddiness and innocence of a 16-year-old, then blossoms before our very eyes into a sophisticated young woman—with her plummy voice and gazelle legs—who learns a lesson she won’t forget. The movie is based on the life of British journalist Lynn Barber, who wrote an article about her rude awakening.

I found the casting of Sarsgaard a bit problematic. While I think he’s an extremely talented actor who does good work here, he brings with him cinematic baggage from often playing edgy/smarmy guys who can’t be trusted. David is supposed to be a suave and classy gentleman who not only seduces Jenny, he charms her parents into practically pushing their daughter into his arms. Knowing Sarsgaard doesn’t do the straight-up, nice-guy thing, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it does, the impact is muted.

Among the stellar supporting cast, Alfred Molina stands out as Jenny’s blustery father, who at first pressures his daughter to strive for Oxford but then thinks maybe a rich man would be better for her future. Despite the character’s temper, Molina makes him sympathetic, a father who simply wants to assure his daughter’s well-being in an age where professional options for women were limited. Olivia Williams turns in a subtle yet effective performance as Jenny’s teacher, a “spinster” whom Jenny eventually sees in a different light. Rosamund Pike, known for playing classy or icy smart women, displays her comedic chops as a dim-witted blonde who often parties with Jenny and David and her own boyfriend, Danny (Dominic Cooper).

Danish director Lone Scherfig, in her American feature debut, does a nice job guiding the actors to strong performances, which is crucial in a film that’s more character study than plot-driven. Novelist Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay, peppering it with his usual humor and smart dialogue, and consulted on the music, which is 1960s groovy.

Scherfig, Sarsgaard, Mulligan, Cooper and Williams showed up to do Q & A at the Variety screening I attended. Insights gleaned from the session:

Sarsgaard is handsome and personable in real life, not creepy at all.
Mulligan is sporting a chic pixie cut and will use an American accent for her role as Gordon Gekko’s daughter, Winnie, in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, currently shooting in NY. She’s more sophisticated in person than in Education, speaking in a lower register and showing no signs of Jenny’s gigglyness.
Cooper, whose on-screen presence has never made any impression on me, was hilarious in person. He had a funny answer to everything and was very flirtatious without being obnoxious.
Scherfig is a smart, fascinating woman. She said the people she’s inspired by are completely different from the people who influence her work. Example: She gets a lot of advice from Lars von Trier (Antichrist) and admires him but would never try to do anything resembling his work.
Williams identified with her role as Jenny’s teacher in the film because she’s a grammar nerd. (Love that!) She said the crew on her current Fox series, Dollhouse, is constantly teasing her for picking out split infinitives and dangling prepositions in the scripts.

Nerd verdict: A worthwhile Education

All photos by Kerry Brown, courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

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Book Review: Lorrie Moore's A GATE AT THE STAIRS

Written by Thuy Dinh, contributing writer

My children, ages 11, 8, and 6, are discovering the Beatles for the first time. Not only do they listen to the songs endlessly during the rides to and from school, but they also play some of the Beatles’ simpler melodies on their piano keyboard almost 24/7.

It might have been a simple case of osmosis, then, or it could have been just a quirky coincidence that I heard the whole message of Lorrie Moore’s most recent novel, A Gate at the Stairs, summed up in “All You Need is Love,” but with double negative lyrics:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be UNdone

Nothing you can sing that can’t be UNsung

Nothing you can say but you can’t UNlearn how to play the game

It’s NOT easy….

There’s nothing you can make that can’t be UNmade

No one you can save that can’t be UNsaved.

Nothing you can do but you can’t UNlearn how to be you

in time…

Though the message is unflinching, it’s affirming in that it holds the reader in high regard and tries to portray the world in a complex way. Told in the voice of Tessie Keltjin, a 20-year old college student, Stairs begins in the fall of 2001, shortly after 9/11. Right away, Moore sets the stage for the polarizing forces of her novel: faith versus faithlessness, love versus the absence of love, life versus death.

Tessie comes from the rural town of Dellacrosse (of the cross) and she goes to college in Troy (like its Greek antecedent, a liberal, cosmopolitan town somewhere in the Midwest). Soon, Tessie is hired to be the nanny of a mixed-race child adopted by the Thornwood-Brinks, a white, upper-middle class, progressive couple who live and work in Troy.

While working as a nanny, Tessie becomes involved with a darkly handsome but vaguely dangerous classmate in her Introduction to Sufism class. The man may or may not be Brazilian and only speaks or sings in Italian. The third plot strand is Tessie’s relationship with her family, most notably her close connection with her younger brother Robert, who plans to join the U.S. Army after high school. Moore takes her time getting to the heart of the story so at first it’s challenging, but once it speeds up, she covers impressive ground in a take-no-prisoners way.

The title of Moore’s novel is both literal and elusive. A Gate at the Stairs may simply mean a baby gate to prevent Tessie’s 2-year old charge, Mary-Emma, from reaching the stairs, or it could mean Babygate, Watergate, or even…Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (The novel, which was clearly written before Professor Gates’ July 2009 incident with the Boston police, has a character in a consciousness-raising group casually mentioning a story about a black youth being accidentally shot by the police in his own home). A gate, therefore, can be something shameful and secretive, an impediment to progress, barring the stairway to heaven, blocking the path to true understanding.

Stairs is streamlined and layered, more like a Chinese shadow box, or a Vidalia onion as opposed to a messy head of radicchio (vegetables are also prominent in Moore’s novel, as Tessie’s father is a gentleman farmer who cultivates organic “pearl” fingerlings for yuppie consumers). The various gates in Moore’s novel are variations on the same theme: love and/or the lack of, and loss of love. Her characters are either recklessly in love or reckless with love. Lust, hunger, lack of faith, neglect and/or mistreatment of children, and racism are simply manifestations of love’s absence. Tessie poetically compares a decadent meal to an empty experience that leaves “the spirit…untouched,” “a condition of prayerless worship,” or an “endless communion” that offers no grace or salvation.

Moore’s cast of passionate yet lonely characters, like her punning/cunning use of language, have names that aptly describe them, yet at the same time may not represent who they really are. Like doomed figures in a Greek tragedy, Moore’s characters misinterpret events, or misinform each other, to escape from their oppressive fates. Tessie always complains of “not hearing things right” or “not believing what she hears.” Language in Moore’s universe is itself a shape-shifting, subversive character. In church, Tessie thinks she hears “Our Father” as follows:

Our father who art a heathen

Hollow be thigh name

Thigh king is dumb

Thigh will is dun

on earth as it is

at birth.

Stairs is the feminine, and feminist, answer to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. (Incidentally, Holden Caulfield’s yearning to save the young children who run too close to the cliff of a rye field is also a deliberate misreading of a literary source. Robert Burns’ 18^th century poem, “Coming Thro’ the Rye,” is sexually provocative and has nothing to do with saving children.)

At the end of the novel, after undergoing many forms of personal losses, Tessie becomes “nobody’s sister” who literally stares death in the eye. Wiser, sadder, but still at heart a romantic, Tessie concludes, “Love is the answer…It was OK…as an answer. But no more than that. It was not a solution; it wasn’t really an answer, just a reply.”

Just a reply, but it was way moore than enough for me.

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BABY, GONE Again As GIRL Arrives

Photo by Rose Lincoln

Hearing huge news about two of my favorite mystery series on the same day almost made me pass out from too much joy. The Boston Herald reports that Dennis Lehane, who last year told Entertainment Weekly “it’s highly unlikely” he would ever write another whodunit, much less another Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro book, will be bringing back the Boston P.I.s for another go-round. Not only that, it’s a sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you know this case really messed up Patrick and Angie. Can’t wait to see how they’ve handled the fallout and what happens when the case rears its ugly head again.

Swedish actress Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth

The other exciting news is that, according to Variety, the Swedish movie version of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (called simply Millenium) will finally get a U.S. release early next year. Lisbeth Salander is one of the most arresting figures in crime fiction today and I imagine she’ll be just as badass on screen.

You excited about these news or is it just me? (UPDATE: Read my review of the Tattoo movie here.)

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Movie Review: THE INVENTION OF LYING

Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying is the funniest serious movie I’ve seen in years. There are many moments that will make you laugh out loud, but at its core, it’s also a smart meditation on faith, free will and happiness.

The movie opens with “chubby loser” Mark Bellison (Gervais) explaining that in his world, everyone tells the truth all the time. They know no other way. They don’t even have a word for “truth” or “true” because everything just is. This situation makes the first half hour of the movie ridiculously funny, with Jennifer Garner’s character, Anna, telling Mark exactly how she feels about him on their date, and a motel advertising itself as “A cheap place for intercourse with a near stranger.”

But after Mark utters the first lie out of desperation (he’d been fired and facing eviction from his apartment), he discovers what a truly awesome power he holds. He goes about making himself and others happy by feeding them lies, until one about “the man in the sky” gets way out of control. Everyone interprets this notion differently, making Mark wonder if it brings people comfort or takes away their free will.

Gervais, who co-wrote and co-directed with Matthew Robinson, shows a side of him we’ve never seen before. In one scene, he exhibits such deep emotional pain, I had to keep reminding myself this is a man who’s always making me do the liquid-spewing laugh. But this is good, because he draws us in with the humor and then takes us to unexpected places.

Garner has never been lovelier than she is here. She imbues Anna with both the childlike innocence of someone with no edit button, and the confidence of the hot babe who knows she possesses excellent genetics. She has wonderful comic timing, cries beautifully, and is dressed in a wardrobe so fetching, I want to own everything she wears in the movie.

There are many comic superstars in the cast but most of them are underused. My idol Tina Fey is miscast as Mark’s assistant. She has such a take-charge vibe, I don’t buy her as anybody’s lackey. At first, Rob Lowe is quite funny as Brad, Mark’s rival for Anna’s hand, but his arrogant act becomes a little one-note after a while. Edward Norton has a wacky bit as a motorcycle cop, but Christopher Guest is frustratingly wasted.

There’s been some concern in the media that this movie might be offensive in its viewpoint but I feel that’s unwarranted. Gervais isn’t trying to make you believe anything; he’s simply showing a version of the world as he sees it and maybe provoke thought about some big ideas. You can choose to agree or disagree with him because hey, that’s free will. Or you can just look at it as a funny movie, which it is, and that’s the truth.

Nerd verdict: Lying isn’t perfect but still entertaining

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Movie Review: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

by contributing writer Eric Edwards

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are is a dark, engaging movie that is beautifully shot and composed. This is by no means a kid’s movie, however, and parents wishing to attend with children under the age of 11 will want to think twice because nightmares are sure to follow.

The opening minutes, shot with a handheld camera, has Max (newcomer Max Records) tearing through the house after a dog. Max is dressed in a homemade beast-like costume and alternately growls and howls at the terrified dog. At first, this scene had me laughing, but then I became increasingly aware of the disturbingly feral behavior the boy was exhibiting. This isn’t good-natured, rambunctious fun on Max’s part; he really looks like he might eat the dog when he catches it and throws it to the ground. The moment is so intense I expected the next scene to have Max in bed restraints at a hospital.

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Instead, we next see Max playing alone outside, putting the finishing touches on a snow fort/igloo. His older sister, Claire (Pepita Emmerichs), refuses to come out and play with him and soon a snowball fight ensues, resulting in Max’s fort being destroyed and the boy left crying. Later, an argument with his mom (Catherine Keener) triggers a tantrum that makes him run away from home.

When Max finally reaches the faraway land of alter-ego monsters like Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the levity provided by the beast and his cohorts is very welcome. Once Max is elected King, the long-awaited Wild Rumpus begins. They run, jump, howl and throw dirt balls at each other. Then the realities of their fears and emotional hurts get the best of them and Max realizes that maybe his home life isn’t as bad as it seemed.

In a featurette on IMDb (click here to view), Jonze said he “wanted to make [the movie] dangerous…something that doesn’t talk down to kids or it wasn’t worth doing.” He is to be commended for accomplishing his goals, perhaps a little too well. There are many moments I found disturbing; I imagine they would terrify a small child.

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Records is extremely photogenic, but not enough of an actor to sustain the film on his own. Thankfully, the supporting cast is strong enough to keep the film afloat, with Gandolfini being the standout. His voice is perfect for the growly beast, Carol, having a nasal quality that sounds like it could’ve come from the monster’s snout.

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Shot in a burnt forest in Australia, cinematographer Lance Acord adds depth and shading to gnarled trees and acres of sand dunes to create an otherworldly playground for the imagination. The creatures of Maurice Sendak’s book are brought to the screen with a gentle deftness by art director Sonny Gerasimowicz, who got the job by submitting drawings of big, sleepy bears to Jonze (as revealed in a Q & A after the screening with Jonze, Gerasimowicz, Acord and several others from the creative team). Jonze made a wise selection because Gerasimowicz imbued the faces of the beasts with really strong emotional depth. In fact, they steal scene after scene from the photogenic Records. Then again, it’s all about the Wild Things.

(For two children’s perspectives on the movie, read these reviews from my junior reporters, Aline and Mena Dolinh, ages 11 and 8.)

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Winners of Sara Angelini’s THE TRIALS OF THE HONORABLE F. DARCY

The winners of Sara Angelini’s modern version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are:

Jen Forbus, for claiming Austenian spinsterhood (though that term hardly applies to her nowadays!) and her passionate determination to hold out for the right man. How can I not pick her?

Patti, because I want to help alleviate her plight of possible booklessness in the next few months.

Congratulations, Jen and Patti! Please click on “contact” in the top right corner of this page and e-mail me your address. I’ll forward it to my Sourcebooks contact, who will send you each a copy of The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy.

Thanks, everyone, for entering. If you didn’t win this time but would like a chance to win another book, enter this giveaway here by sharing your nerdy stories. Have fun!

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My First Blogoversary Party

A year ago today, I woke up and decided I wanted to write a blog. Never mind that I’d never read a blog or had any idea how to start one. But due to some personal circumstances, I’d been cooped up in the house for a while and desperately needed a creative outlet.

So I researched blogging and, thanks to WordPress’s super easy setup, published my first post within two hours. It felt like I’d given birth to something wonderful.

I went on to write more posts, happy in my space, oblivious to the fact I was supposed to be doing things like trying to drum up followers/subscribers, reading other blogs, leaving comments, etc. I’d only researched “How to start a blog,” not “How to get people to read it.”

Imagine how I felt, then, when I looked at my stats today and saw I’ve had over 178,000 hits in the past year. HUH?! Who put acid in my coffee?! I mean, most of my own family don’t read my blog.

So I suspect I owe most of those hits to readers like you. To everyone who has left me a comment and encouraged me to keep writing, recommended or linked to my site, subscribe and/or follow on Twitter, guest-blogged, let me interview them by asking goofy questions, provided me with books and ARCs to review, and befriended me through this blog, I thank you deeply. You have expanded and enriched my life in profound ways. If you’ve been lurking and never left a comment, please de-lurk yourself, even if it’s only for today, because I’d love to meet all my guests.

I’d like to show my appreciation by doing yet another giveaway (sick of all the free stuff yet?). But this one is different in that everyone is eligible, no matter where you are! Two winners can choose their own prize(s) from the ARCs and books I’ve received from generous publicists in the past year. Most titles are in new or fine condition and I think there’s a nice variety. Click on them for more details.

Winners can pick 1 hardcover (HC) or 2 ARCs/paperbacks (PB) from the following list:

Ravens by George Dawes Green (HC)
How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely (PB)
The Hidden Man by David Ellis (ARC)
Trust No One by Gregg Hurwitz (ARC)
Race for the Dying by Steven F. Havill (HC)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception by Eric Van Lustbader (ARC)
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett (ARC)
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton (HC)
Detectives Don’t Wear Seatbelts by Cici McNair (ARC)
The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha (ARC)
The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale (HC)
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (ARC)
White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison (HC)
The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam (HC)
The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos by Margaret Mascarenhas (PB)
Perfection by Julie Metz (ARC)

Now, how do you win? Share with me the nerdiest moment in your life so far and by this, I mean anything that might have been, um, awkward. Ever been caught with your zipper down during an interview? Happened to me. Ever been told on Halloween your costume was awesome while you were just wearing your regular clothes? Yup, me, too. Broccoli stuck in teeth all through a date? Check. That’s right—we celebrate nerdiness here so drag those stories out of your mental closet, share them proudly and loudly, and you might win a prize for Nerdiest Moment!

I’ll pick one winner with the funniest story and one runner-up. The winner gets the first choice of book(s). You do have to be a subscriber/Twitter follower to participate. Contest ends on Sunday, October 11, 5 p.m. PST. Winners will only be announced here and on Twitter; there will be no e-mail notification. If I don’t hear back within 2 days, alternate winners will be chosen.

Now, let’s get this nerd party started!

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Guest Blogger: Author Sara Angelini

I’m pleased to welcome another guest blogger today. First, I had little children do my work, and now a published author. I could get used to this.

Sara Angelini is an attorney and writer living in the San Francisco area. She’s here to talk about her new book, The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy. Recognize that surname? You’ll have to read on to find out more. Sourcebooks is generously letting me give away 2 copies of this book. See details on how to enter below Sara’s post.

I’ll now sit back, have another piece of cake and give Sara the floor.—PCN

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Hellooooo. *peeks head around door* Did I come at a bad time? No? Phew. What a relief. I’m pretty new to this whole blogomajigger, so when I was invited to do a little promotion for my book here, I was nervous. I mean, “Pop Culture Nerd” sounds so…well…cool. And I’m not cool. Not at all.

So please bear with me as I expose my unbearable dorkiness and try to wow you with reasons to read my book.

Oh yeah. The book. Maybe I should get around to telling you about that, hmmm? OK. It’s called The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy, and it’s a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Why, you might ask, would one do a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? Wasn’t the Regency version just fine?

The answer is because I love the characters in Pride and Prejudice and wondered what it would be like to hang out with them, only I have no idea what the Regency period is like. So rather than immersing myself in their world, which would involve lots of research and maybe wearing some funny clothes, I brought them into mine. They got over the culture shock pretty quickly.

I suspect Ms. Austen may be twirling like a dervish in her grave at what I’ve done to her stoic Darcy and her charming Elizabeth. A Darcy who sleeps with Caroline? An Elizabeth who drops the “f” bomb with alarming frequency? A Mrs. Hurst who is actually a gay man? Surely Austen’s beloved characters would never act so crass…or would they?

Modern culture has become extremely relaxed over the last two hundred years, and undoubtedly Austen’s characters would have evolved with the times. Regency spinsters are today’s working women. The landed gentry are today’s internet moguls. Couples are waiting longer to get married and have kids, and serial unmarried monogamy is the norm.

With all this in mind, I set out to give Elizabeth Bennet a makeover, a literary What Not to Wear, if you will. She had solid basics: “fine eyes” and a “light and pleasing figure,” was educated, witty, and determined to marry for love even if it meant the ruin of her family. It was much the same with Mr. Darcy: He was tall, handsome, had too much money and not enough humility but was, at heart, a decent guy.

The real challenge was updating the plot, which I summarize thusly: Destitute spinster turns down marrying obscenely rich man because he’s a jerk and thinks her family is inferior, jerk learns his lesson and cleans up his manners, proves his love by sullying his hands to rescue spinster’s wicked, wicked sister, spinster realizes she does love him after all, and he’s got a *dope* house. Spinster and jerk get married, live happily ever after. Only Austen writes it so much better.

I started by scrapping the Mr. Wickham element. Who cares if Elizabeth’s sister eloped with a gambling soldier? The only purpose of Mr. Wickham was to prove that Darcy could overcome his proud distaste for him enough to become his brother–in-law. Plus he’s a pedophile. Ick.

Then I got rid of the whole your-family-is-rude-and-uncouth angle. Elizabeth’s family is just like the vast majority of middle-class America: sorta loud, kinda embarrassing at parties, but hey, they’re your family and you have to love them or you go to jail.

Next I gave them a conflict they could sink their teeth into: an ethical dilemma. By making Darcy a judge and Elizabeth an attorney, I created a situation that actually prohibits their involvement because it creates a conflict of interest. Somebody was going to have to sacrifice a career in order to make this relationship work.

Finally, I gave them modern sensibilities and humor. Nothing in Austen’s work implies that Darcy is dour, as is so commonly assumed. In fact Mr. Bingley seems to think Mr. Darcy is a real laugh riot when he’s with his friends. Nor is there anything to suggest that he is virginal, prim, or dainty. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me that he and Caroline would be friends “with benefits.”

As for Elizabeth, she has such a sparkle and wit in the original that it only wanted a little lipstick to make it modern. She’s vivacious, talented, and confident. No off-hand remark about not being “handsome” enough to tempt anyone is going to get her down.

For their interactions, I tried to hold to the spirit of Austen while plucking events from my own experience to give them life. Contentious court confrontations? Check. Embarrassing gaffes? Check. Massages with friends? Check. Slow, smoldering, smokin’-hot sex in an elevator? Uh…no comment.

Some might say that I modernized Austen’s characters by superimposing myself onto them. I’m sure that’s true to some extent, since it’s impossible not to imprint onto them. But I also believe that Austen’s characters are so well written, so vivid yet generalized, that everyone can see a piece of themselves in them. We all want to be Lizzy, and we all want to marry Darcy. It’s just a matter of figuring out exactly who Lizzy and Darcy are; and the answer is, they are us.

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Thanks so much, Sara! If you insist that we’re all smart, witty, handsome and rich, I shall not object.

Readers, are you intrigued? Want to get your hands on the book? Did I mention there’s lots of hot sex?

For a chance to win 1 of 2 copies, leave a comment explaining why you must have this book. Make like Lizzy and give me a really persuasive argument for your case. Unlike my other giveaways in which winners are randomly selected, I’m going to be the, ahem, judge on this one. The two people with the most passionate pleas win.

Other eligibility requirements:

Must be a subscriber or Twitter follower
Must live in the U.S. or Canada (sorry, international readers, this is Sourcebooks’ request)

Contest ends on Sunday, October 4, 5 p.m. PST. Results will only be announced here and on Twitter; winners will NOT be e-mailed. If I don’t hear from winners within 48 hours, new ones will be chosen.

10 Comments

National Book Festival Reports from My Junior Reporters

For as long as I can remember, I have loved books and owe this passion to my parents, who were always reading and encouraged us kids to do the same lest we grow up stupid. I don’t have children but my siblings have inspired this same love of literature in my nieces and nephews, two of whom attended the National Book Festival this past weekend in Washington, D.C. and turned in the following reports. Aline, 11, wrote the first article and her sister Mena, 8, submitted the second one. Aline also took the photos.

Hope you enjoy seeing the festival through their eyes. And yes, they really wrote these accounts.—PCN

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by Aline

The National Book Festival took place on Saturday, September 26, 2009 on the National Mall, and I’d like to give you a full account of my time there, from the journey to the overpriced food. The time was well spent in my opinion, so here’s my diary of the hours I was there, covering both the “OMG!” moments and the “When will this be over?” ones.

Part 1: Riding on the Health Nightma—I mean, Metro

Every journey starts with small steps, and so here I go, documenting my time on the Metro with my mom and sister.

After narrowly squeezing in through the doors, we were met with the annoyances of public transit. The seating was cramped and the rest of the train had no space to breathe, but luckily we were holding the Mother-with-Children card and found seats next to a rude, seat-holding stranger. I sat next to a woman who did not acknowledge me in any way as she continued to read her newspaper.

The Metro had other traits that made me slightly squeamish besides the claustrophobia and impoliteness: it was basically a disease-breeding ground. Bodies were pressed up against each other with no personal space, all of the poles have probably been held by hundreds of different people, and we were all breathing each other’s air, which had a variety of body odors in it.

This phase became more annoying when fewer people streamed out of the train [at each stop] than in, squishing the crowd together like sardines. I thought myself lucky for my roomy seat next to the aloof woman.

When the Smithsonian stop finally came along, I knew that more walking and waiting in a crowded place awaited me, but enthusiastically got out of the packed train anyway, breathing in the underground air for about two seconds before the mob swept us along onto an escalator. We were pushed around in this way before I saw it: the first glimpse of natural light.

Part 2: Hurray for Walking and Personal Bubbles

Taking my first step on D.C. ground was incredibly refreshing. Cities are my favorite kind of place. People fanned out in all directions, giving us a comfortable berth as we eagerly made our way to our final destination: the book signing pavilions. We exited a ways from the Capitol, where the signings were, but we were determined after braving public transit and crowds to make it there. The long walk began.

Organizers graciously offered us free brochures that were thick and glossy, but I was too excited to peruse them. I was actually here, I hadn’t done anything memorable yet, but I was here.

But then I got annoyed when Mommy kept stopping at other tents.

I understand the concept of stopping to smell the roses very well, but this was a serious matter. Rick Riordan, an author who had gained an almost cult following among my grade and had converted me as a fan to the popular Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, was here, and I was going to get my copies signed and perhaps even get a few words in. I was convinced people were devoted enough to camp out at the signing tent overnight so I insisted we keep going instead of listening to Paula Deen, who is probably a wonderful person but I didn’t really care at the time.

“But the book signing isn’t supposed to start until 1:30!” Mommy said when I tugged her sleeve as an indicator to get moving.

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t understand. People camp out overnight for these opportunities.”

“We have time. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t you understand? This is a popular author! I’ll bet there are huge lines already!”

In the end, I convinced her and my sister to keep marching, and we finally found the billowy white book signing tents. I felt inclined to give a small “Hurray!” upon reaching another milestone in today’s journey.

“Ha! I told you!” I pointed out when we saw the lines for Rick Riordan, whose signing had not even started yet. There were six different lines already and we moved quickly to secure a spot in the seventh one. I surveyed the crowd of fans, feeling warm and fuzzy inside that these people and I shared a common love for the same book series.

Soon, my friends arrived and we formed a small Internet café under the shelter of an umbrella with our iPods and phones to pass the time.

This wait period of around an hour was highly uneventful. The first real event happened when the author apparently came out, but after a short wave of cheering, it died down and the line ceased to move. It moved a little over the next hour and we heard the occasional whine of “How long now?” But we knew it was worth it, so we waited.

And waited.

Part Three: The Interesting Stuff Actually Happens

Finally that fateful moment came when we were ushered up into the front row by organizers donning purple T-shirts. We were close enough to get pictures [of Riordan]. By now it was drizzling. I made sure to keep the camera safe and dry.

After snapping several pictures, one of which was actually good, it was my turn [to meet Riordan]. I was nearly hyperventilating as I passed my book over the table and a few words were exchanged.

“Oh, I love Percy Jackson!”

“I’m glad you like the books!”

And that was all. Two hours of waiting for a simple signature and a few seconds of conversation.

It was worth it, if I must say so myself. When my friends joined me, we were squealing like obsessive tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert. Except, you know, in a less weird way.

We shared our memorable experiences. “He said he liked my shirt!” said Emily, pulling out her Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. “I should have gotten a better picture!” I moaned, showing them my one good picture that was slightly out of focus.

But we lived in the moment and it was raining. We ducked inside a pavilion where Kate DiCamillo was speaking. Squeezing through a large crowd, we found spots on the grass and once again whipped out our cameras.

I got several good photos of her speaking, though I didn’t get any audio of her reading an excerpt from her new book. It was all a great experience, though, just to see her in person. The Tale of Despereaux, as much as they butchered the movie, is one of my favorite books.

We listened to several questions before she left the stage and Rick Riordan once again came up to roars and cheers. We snapped several more pictures. I felt lucky that my memory card wasn’t full.

He talked to us about the movie [Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, due in 2010] for a bit, which I rolled my eyes about. As a devoted fan, I had already looked up the whole cast and seen the trailer, which I was so afraid was going to be a disaster.

When he announced his new series about Egyptian gods, though, I stopped breathing. Please let me have memory left, I prayed frantically. I pulled out my camera one last time to record and pressed the button. To my surprise, it recorded the whole thing. Yes, I said to myself.

We decided to get out of the place now, as the rain seemed to have stopped, and we were all hungry. I knew the food would be overpriced to trap tourists, but I didn’t care. I was hungry. And the fries looked so good, I didn’t care if they were four bucks. We forked over money and ate ravenously.

Before I knew it, all was gone and we were heading home. The exhilaration I had felt earlier seemed so far away, though I felt good that I had brought home some memories of it.

************

My First Book Festival

by Mena

My name is Mena and I am eight. I am in 3^rd grade GT and I have started reading longer books. My sister Aline and I both like Rick Riordan.

When my mom told me we would go to the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. to get our books signed by our favorite authors, I got really excited. I wanted to get my book The Titan’s Curse signed by Rick Riordan. I like his books because they are humorous and have lots of Greek mythology in them. My favorite story is how Hercules tricked the Cyclops. This story is actually in The Sea of Monsters.

Before I came across Rick Riordan, my favorite author was Kate DiCamillo. Actually, I still like her a lot. I love her first book Because of Winn-Dixie. I read it when I was 7.

Mom let us skip our Saturday piano lesson so we could take the train into Washington for the book festival. My dad and my younger brother, Max, stayed home that day. My dad was sorta not feeling well and Max, well, he only gets excited about cars, computer games, and stuff. He said he was afraid that it would be long and boring. So it was a day trip for me, Mom, and Aline.

I like riding the Metro train and seeing all the cars whizzing by on the freeway from our train’s window. Mom said the train is not that fast, but there are no stop signs and no stop and go like you are in the car so it just seems faster. I think Mom wants to live closer to the city. She drives fast and she doesn’t like slow drivers. She wishes she has magic spells so she can make big slow cars turn into tiny toy cars and leave them way behind.

It was crowded in the Metro train. The worst thing was the squishy crowd. The best thing was sitting on Mommy’s lap. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get out at our stop and one of us would be left inside the Metro.

Well, we finally met up with our friends and their mom on the Mall. I was happy to see my friend Helen. She is eight like me and she is the younger sister of Emily, Aline’s friend. Aline, Emily, and Dana can be silly when they get together. They kept wandering off without paying attention to where the adults were.

I did not mind that we waited nearly 2 hours to get our books signed by Rick Riordan. My most favorite thing was standing in line and playing with Aline’s iPod and watching iCarly on Emily’s mom’s phone under the umbrella. We sat on the ground under the umbrella because it was sort of raining and cold, but it was cozy underneath with all the girls.

After we got our books signed, we went into a tent where we listened to Kate DiCamilo and Rick Riordan read their books and talk to their fans. They had lots of adult fans, too, who did not want to leave their seats so we had to sit on the grass in the big white tent. The ground was wet so I got to sit on Mommy’s lap again. We met a woman who wore a black T-shirt with a pink pig. She told everyone she was E.B. White’s great niece.

When Kate DiCamillo came out she looked just like what I thought she would look because I saw her picture online when I did a paper on her last year for my Brownies troop, but in some way she looked different too. In her online photo she had more highlights mixed with dark brown hair. But I liked her when I saw her. I think she looked prettier in real life.

Kate told funny stories from the beginning to end, but Rick didn’t tell funny stories; it’s more like how he talks that’s funny. Kate DiCamillo told people she used to work at Disney World, where she wore a powder-blue spacesuit and told people to “watch their step.” She became a writer because she stunk at everything else.

She told people she wrote Because of Winn Dixie because she was in Minneapolis one winter and it was so cold she wanted to think of some place warm so she set the story in Florida, where she came from. She wanted a dog so bad in Minneapolis but she had no dog so she put him in the story. She also explained how she wrote [The Miraculous Journey of] Edward Tulane. One year she got a giant spooky rabbit as a present for Christmas. The rabbit was dressed really fancy, but one night she had a dream that it was completely naked and lying face down in the water. She wanted to write about how the rabbit got there and it became Edward Tulane. But she said now she is not scared of that spooky rabbit any more because it helped her write the story.

I like both Kate DiCamillo and Rick Riordan. They were both interesting. I would come back next year. It depends on which books I read next year that I like, then I will see the authors.

Foreground: Mena. Back row, from L: Aline, Dana, Emily, Helen

http://www.percyjacksonbooks.com/

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Winners of John Sanford's ROUGH COUNTRY

photo by Lydia @ Putnam

Random.org selected the following names as my 3 winners, who will each receive an ARC of John Sandford’s Rough Country.

Sam Bradley
Marcie
Angela T.

Congratulations! Please click on “contact” in the upper right corner and send me your address. I’ll forward it to Putnam, who will send you the book directly.

Thank you to all who entered and shared your incredible stories. If you didn’t win but still want to read it, Rough Country conveniently comes out today. Also, keep checking back for more giveaways because I’ve got some exciting ones coming up, including the latest from Michael Connelly and Robert Crais!

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