Buzz Worthy News
In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: Random House will be on your TV, JK Rowling reads at the Olympics, Awesome Sally Ride passed away. Read for more news and, as always, Scandalous Scandals!
Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly Monday post for all the best book world news and blogging gossip. For Young Adult releases and and all the hottest Cover Reveals, check out our weekly Friday post, Hot New titles.
Book World News
Creator of The Boy Who Lived Reads The Boy Who Never Grew Up
There is a video for those of you who missed the magical moment at which JK Rowling read a portion of Peter Pan before Voldemort attacked her and was beaten off by Mary Poppins look-a-likes.
Rupert Grint ran with the torch from Middlesex University to Barnet near London.
Still, as this big run nears its end, Rupert Grint was successful and among the last to carry the official Olympics torch as this seminal symbol of the games heads for Olympic Stadium. There, the last torchbearer will light the cauldron in a dramatic way during the much-anticipated opening ceremony that say with a lot of pomp and circumstance that the games, herewith, begin.
Kenneth Branagh read some of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, because WHAT ELSE WAS HE GOING TO DO?!
And that completes our requisite Olympics coverage.
NPR Hosts YA Poll – Best YA Ever.
There is a poll going for THE BEST YA EVER. This is important stuff, people. Go vote so that we’re not forever labelled with rubbish (voted on because, like, the guy was SO HAWT!).
You can vote up to 10 books – which seems like a lot until you see the list and, frankly, will probably have a hard time choosing your favourite 20 or 25.
and the question of how well it fits the YA category. The latter sparked plenty of debate; there is, after all, no objective test for teen fiction. Is Pride and Prejudice YA? What about The Catcher in the Rye? Or The Lord of the Rings? (No, yes and yes, respectively.) The judges looked at qualities such as a book’s themes, the age of its main characters, its reading level. But in the end, the most important test was often whether a given book is one that teens themselves have claimed — whether they do, in fact, voluntarily read it.
Hail to a Badass – Sally Ride Leaves The World a Little Less Awesome Than It Was
When people told you, growing up, that girls could do anything – it was because Sally Ride had proved it true. To our great sadness, she passed away this week at the age of 61 after an exhaustive battle with pancreatic cancer.
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space – and we’re pretty sure space has never been the same since she punched her way through the Earth’s atmosphere and made space 20% cooler.
“Studying whether there’s life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there’s something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge,” she said. “That’s something that is almost part of being human and I’m certain that will continue.”
Ride is survived by Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin; and her nephew, Whitney.
Random House Could be Random TV
Presumably sick of watching book rights bought, turned into horrible movies/tv shows and earning a buttload of money – Random House, together with Freemantle Media have joined into a super powered TV station.
“The first-look deal with FremantleMedia will reside within Random House Television, a newly created part of Random House Studio, the publisher’s rebranded and expanded entertainment division led by Peter Gethers, President. Random House Television will work together with Random House’s editors and publishers, and their authors’ agents, to identify and acquire performance rights for the full range of broadcast network, cable, and premium television scripted formats. The partnership will also seek to collaborate with Random House authors to develop original scripted television properties they might create.”
I’m kind of terrified for them – kind of uber excited to see if they can get it right.
Holy Crap – Hotels Replace Bibles With 50 Shades of Grey
The Damson Dene Hotel has taken a leap and replaced the Gibson bible with Fifty Shades of Grey.
Believe it or not I find this preferential to his first and original choice, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
“Because everybody is reading ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ we thought it would be a hospitable thing to do, to have this available for our guests, especially if some of them were a little bit shy about buying it because of its reputation.”
The move has not been without contest from some Christians.
Needed More Katherine Mansfield? We Deliver
A student at King’s College in London found a number of lost works by acclaimed author, Katherine Mansfield. The work is dated to a particularly turbulent period in the author’s life. The collection includes three children’s stories, an autobiographical tale, and a collection of Aphorisms.
Dr Gerri Kimber confirmed the findings and gave the following statement:
“At first I was slightly sceptical – I thought they would be stories we already had in the collection, as we’ve stories which haven’t been seen in 100 years,” she said. “But it only took me a minute to realise that we didn’t have any of them. It’s hugely exciting.”
Scandalous Scandals
The author of Revealing Eden had a backlash after the book trailer and viral campaign for her debut novel received significant criticism for using blackface. Among other things, the concept was criticized as insensitive and racist and her supposedly glowing reviews had their legitimacy called into question.
A couple of her Huffington Post articles were raised as problematic. But it’s okay. She gave to Obama so she can’t be racist.
Also brought into question was her usage of the terms “Pearls” and “Coals” – not only as being somewhat nonsensical in context, but also offensive.
The author, Victoria Foyt briefly had a Wikipedia page about her but it has already been flagged for deletion as self-promotion.
Issendai, of the Goblin author wank, has had her personal information revealed on behalf of the author on several negative reviews. She has blogged about her continued experiences here. The dispute follows after the author took exception to what she felt was an overly long, negative review to her book and threatened legal action.
We were very sad to see that long-time book blogger and generally awesome person, Wendy from A Cupcake and a Latte, has abruptly deleted her blog, her Goodreads and all her accounts. She will be very missed. We knew her to be a genuinely pleasant, lovely person.
Steph says:
Farewell, Cupcake Queen.
Kat Kennedy
Latest posts by Kat Kennedy (see all)
- Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey - May 17, 2013
- Cover Reveal + Giveaway: Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff - May 15, 2013
- Buzz Worthy News: 13th May 2013 - May 13, 2013
- Review+Giveaway: Nameless by Lili St. Crow - May 10, 2013
