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Likely Stories readers will recall my post on January 6 announcing that the Booklist staff had embarked on a project: putting together a jigsaw puzzle–not just any jigsaw puzzle but one illustrating a nifty pulp paperback cover. Well, we’re making progress, thanks especially to Annie Bostrom, Sarah Hunter, and Courtney Jones, among others, we now [...]

You never know what will appear on a Booklist mail truck. Today, along with the usual 200 galleys, Donna Seaman found a jigsaw puzzle–not just any jigsaw puzzle, mind you, but a puzzle made up of pulp-era paperback covers. I wouldn’t have expected such a thing from Harlequin Books, and in fact, there are other [...]

It has been an ongoing quest to bring book-themed board games to the attention of our readers. First came It Was a Dark and Stormy Night. That was followed by Bookchase, deemed “soul crushing” by participant/editor Ian Chipman. Now, by e-mail, we were alerted by beloved Daniel “the Dungeon Master” Kraus, that a new offering had appeared in [...]

All right, I’ve kind of been tuning out all the media hype around the new Dante’s Inferno video game — maybe I’m worn out from thinking of new titles for Quirk Classics, or maybe it just seems like the classic lit/video game jokes write themselves. (I love NPR’s observation that “some Dante scholars bristle at the [...]

Seven months ago, four Booklist editors were shown up by the book-themed board game It Was a Dark and Stormy Night. Seeing how our scattered egos were approaching reassembly, it was time for another round of humiliation. That’s just how we roll. Thus: Bookchase. The box claims as its audience everyone from “people who have [...]

So was it for our first session of A Dark and Stormy Night. For fun, and because the check hadn’t arrived yet, we played another round. This time, instead of taking books out of the box each time we got an answer right, we put them back–the first team to reshelve all its books won the [...]

(Previously on The Nerds and the Beautiful.) Category: Children’s Movies The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. I had no idea. Fortunately, my partner had a very definite idea, and it was very definitely the correct idea. And, at 8 books to [...]

(Previously on One Nerd to Live.) A tied game. One more correct answer and The Winners take home bragging rights. Who will win? Will it be the team identified in Round 1 as “The Winners”? Or was that some kind of annoying postmodern joke? Category: Science Fiction & Fantasy In the nighttime heart of Beirut, in [...]

(Previously on Guiding Nerds.) “This is exciting,” said someone who I will not humiliate by naming publicly. “It’s a photo finish.” As I mentioned, we’re nerds. Category: Shakespeare’s Plays Scene I Britain. The garden of Cymbeline’s palace. [Enter two Gentlemen] FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods / No more obey [...]

(Previously on Nerd Hospital.) Category: Novels, 1900-1950 It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks– “1984, by George Orwell!” I shouted, modestly. –were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not [...]