Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kate is here to give it all to you. Just, ya know, not in any kinda sophisticated sense or nothing.
In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: Clary for the Shadow Hunters TV show has been found, Brave New World being adapted, and Kim Kardashian’s Selfish book comes out. All this and more in this week’s Buzz Worthy News.
Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two. For new releases and cover reveals of all the best Young Adult fiction, check out our Tuesday post: Hot New Titles.
Alert! Alert! We Have Clary!
They must just be flying through casting for Shadowhunters, because every time I do Buzz these days, I’ve got new details to drop. Here is the biggest news of late: the lead role of Clary has been cast.
“The Mortal Instruments” TV series “Shadowhunters” has found its lead, casting Katherine McNamara as heroine Clary Fray.
In the TV series, Clary is an 18-year-old art student whose future is derailed when she finds out on her birthday that her life is a lie.
McNamara’s credits include the 2011 film “New Year’s Eve” and the TV series “Happyland,” and she also has a role in the upcoming film “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.”
She looks so perky and happy in the pics. I need something of her frowning to know for sure, since TMI isn’t exactly a happy, happy, joy, joy series. But overall, I think she could fit the bill. Not that I’m gonna watch the show or anything, so why does it matter? LOL
PS- There is even more news than that:
Matthew Daddario(Delivery Man) and Isaiah Mustafa (Horrible Bosses) are the latest to join the cast of Shadowhunters,ABC Family’s straight-to-series drama based on the bestselling young adult fantasy book series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare.
Daddario will play Alec Lightwood, who joins Jace and his sister, Isabelle (Emeraude Toubia), in their pursuit of demonic creatures. He’s tortured by his romantic love for Jace, who is his adoptive brother and fighting partner. The eldest of the group, his strict moral code forces him to follow the law to the letter. Mustafa is Luke Garroway, an NYPD detective investigating a string of “demonic” murders. Luke feels a fatherly instinct to protect Clary, a strong affection for Jocelyn and has secrets of his own. Once a strong and powerful Shadowhunter, he has since become the thing he once hated most – a werewolf pack leader.
This show is moving forward quickly!
Steven Spielberg To Adapt Brave New World
I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while and it looks like I’ve just got my motivator.
Steven Spielberg‘s Amblin Television is adapting Aldous Huxley‘s novel Brave New World as a scripted series for the NBCUniversal-owned cable network, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Brave New World — ranked fifth among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th Century by Modern Library — is set in a world without poverty, war or disease. Humans are given mind-altering drugs, free sex and rampant consumerism are the order of the day, and people no longer reproduce but are genetically engineered in “hatcheries.” Those who won’t conform are forced onto “reservations,” until one of the “savages” challenges the system, threatening the entire social order.
Spielberg has a full plate these days, what with this movie and the amazing Ready Player One.
People Will Stand In Line Overnight For Kim Kardashian
Am I old? I must be old because waiting up all night on the streets of NYC to get my book signed by Kim Kardashian is so not something I’d be into. I first read about this and I was like, really? People really did this? But you can check my source and see the pictures. So anyway, Kim Kardashian had a book signing for her book, Selfish:
There were about 300 people waiting on line at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble — some since 7:30 the night before — to get their copy of Kardashian’s visual memoir, “Selfish.”
“She’s amazing!” cooed Alaina Ables, 26, who traveled all the way from Philadelphia. “She’s really funny and she’s a positive inspiration for women.”
Oh, honey. But anyway, she was really nice to her fans, so that’s great.
Fortunately, Kardashian didn’t live up to her book title. As I approached, I noticed that the reality TV stunner was cheerfully posing with her adoring fans as she signed copies of her $19.95 visual memoir.
And I guess being a badass and not really caring about what the world has to say about you could be inspiring to some.
Sure, publishing a book of selfies seems pretty tacky, but as you flip through the pages, the book becomes a snapshot of a bizarre moment in our celebrity culture, when photos taken of the celebrity — by the celebrity — reflect more on the fan than on the star.
Fans agree.
“She’s authentic and starts new trends all the time,” said Jules Dennis, 16, who ditched school to get her own selfie and book.
JK Rowling, Being a Boss Pt. 3
Clearly, JK Rowling needs be in charge of Twitter. We’ve featured some of her great tweets on here before, but this one so poignant and I’m not gonna lie, I teared up when I read it. It all started out with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/BrocaesarTV/status/595148002400071680
Rowling could have answered in a multitude of ways, but in this case, I think she answered with what has touched her own heart.
.@BrocaesarTV I would say: look at this. pic.twitter.com/2N0FUgh1On
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 4, 2015
.@BrocaesarTV And this. pic.twitter.com/YA2MRoGK7g
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 4, 2015
.@BrocaesarTV And even this. pic.twitter.com/Fpx6HYGRaz
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 4, 2015
.@BrocaesarTV And I'd say, the world is full of wonderful things you haven't seen yet. Don't ever give up on the chance of seeing them.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 4, 2015
During an interview with a student journalist in 2008, the author revealed she dealt with suicidal thoughts while she was a single mother struggling to get her work published.
“Mid-20s life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted,” she said at the time. “We’re talking suicidal thoughts here, we’re not talking ‘I’m a little bit miserable.'”
“I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never,” Rowling said in the interview. “What’s to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that.”
John Green Talks About Papertowns
More John Green news today, so I have my “John Green News Network” icon up. (It’s so wonderfully photoshopped, isn’t it?)
I know you all are very shocked about this, but since Papertowns is coming out soon, many news outlets, actors, and yes, even John Green talk about the movie. In this version, John Green talks about adaptions in general and then in regards to his book. There is a lot of good stuff in this video, I won’t lie, and who could argue with a man that says, “My Harry Potter is just mine.”
So Kids Are Gross, Evidence #4,321
A South Korean publish has run into some trouble lately, when parents around the country demanded they recall their ill-conceived book of morbid poetry for children. At first I was like, “Oh, these parents and their ‘ban all the books’ mentality.” And then I read the poem about the girl who eats her own mother.
When you don’t want to go to hakwon,
like thisChew and eat your mom
Boil and eat her, bake and eat her
Spoon her eyeballs and eat them,
Pick out all of her teeth
Tear her hair out
Turn her into lean meat and eat as soup
If she sheds tears, lick them up
Eat her heart lastSo it’s the most painful.
GOOD LORD, THIS IS FOR CHILDREN???? My child would run screaming from the room and probably have nightmares for a week at the thought of someone eating his mother alive. (at least I’d like to hope so)
What is most surprising to me, is that these poems were supposedly written by children themselves? (I don’t care if I’m naive, I refuse to believe it!)
The poetry book, A Single Dog, was released March 30 by publisher Chulganil and soon drew criticism for the content of some of the poems, including a 10-year-old girl’s poem about eating her mother that was accompanied with an illustration of a girl taking a bite out of a human heart while kneeling in a pool of blood near a body.(sorry, I just had to interject here, but if I was this girl’s mom, I would sleep with one eye open at night, no joke!)
So, on the one hand, I believe in free speech. On the other hand, perhaps the children’s section of the bookstore is NOT the place for this particular book.
(PS- So apparently, Hakwon is like an elite private school where you spend all your time studying, so I kinda understand why this girl was mad. haha Still, that is one seriously pissed off kid. Yeesh.)
100 Previously Unknown Mark Twain Stories Discovered
So, apparently way back when Mark Twain wrote a lot for the San Francisco Chronicle (back then it was called the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle) and he wrote a 2,000 word story EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. to be published by a newspaper branch in Nevada. And now they’ve been discovered. So cool!
Scholars at the University of California, Berkeley have uncovered and authenticated a cache of stories written by Mark Twain when he was a 29-year-old newspaperman in San Francisco. Many of the stories are 150 years old.
Bob Hirst is editor of the UC Berkeley’s Mark Twain project, which unearthed the articles by combing through western newspaper archives and scrapbooks. The author’s characteristic style authenticated some of the unsigned letters.
Hirst told the Guardian the digitisation of newspaper archives had been like “opening up a big box of candy”, allowing as it did Twain’s articles to be tracked down in a way that was not possible when archives were all on microfilm.
Um, wow. Talk about a serious find! What is fascinating about this time period was that he was going through a deep personal crisis about his career. I would love to read these and see if his articles reflect that.
Interesting Links
Little Known Facts About The Grapes Of Wrath
Beth W
More Mark Twain FTW! I hope these are released for public consumption soon. Awesome!
Also, yeah, cannibalism poetry maybe for teens, but for kids? Nopenopenope.
Thanks for sharing so many good things! I’m still excited for the TMI TV series (and intrigued that they cast such a hottie for Luke, who I always imagined as sort of floppy and scruffy…)
Kate Copeseeley
I believe they’re going to put the articles online for people to read. I think they mentioned it in the article. I’m pretty excited to read them myself!
Natalie M.
The poem is disturbing to say the least. But I guess I understand. Asian countries put a huge emphasis on grades and parents basically force their kids into cram schools and extra-curricular activities.
I worked at a cram school for elementary children once and there was a complete-the-sentence exercise like this: “My mom _________ every day.” A bunch of kids wrote, “My mom yells at me every day”, I kid you not. My heart bleeds for them.
Kate Copeseeley
Thank you for your perspective. I’ll admit, the only exposure I have to cram schools is Kdramas, and they always make it out to be more amusing than anything else. Nosebleeds, kids asleep, etc. It’s good to remember there is a sad and serious side. 🙁
La Coccinelle @ The Ladybug Reads...
Sometimes I think people get confused. Just because something’s written by a child, has a child character in it, or details something that happened in the author’s childhood does not necessarily mean it’s for children. We don’t give Emma Donoghue’s Room to children (even though the narrator is five). We don’t give memoirs about childhood sexual abuse to young children, either. Common sense, people! (I wonder if that South Korean publisher has any…)
Kate Copeseeley
I have no idea what is going on with this publisher! The whole thing seems like a terrible idea to me! But what do I know of true South Korean culture. Perhaps this is quite normal for them. The poems were written by children, so perhaps they thought they would be fine to be read by children? No clue.
Lyn Kaye
“[Kardashian] is a positive inspiration for women”
BRB, VOMITING! Sorry, just fucking NO.