Why This "Forager's" Cookbook Almost Killed Someone

Johnna Holmgren is a hugely popular Instagram star known as "foxmeetsbear" who's built a following around her natural, raw diet so it seemed natural to release a cookbook. The new book Tales From a Forager's Kitchen hit shelves but was quickly removed after it was discovered some of the recipes weren't just wrong but lethal.

Wendy's Released a Trashy Romance Novella About Fruit Tea

I want to make absolutely clear that this is not an endorsement of Wendy's or its products. I'm sure Wendy's Berry Cherry Fruit Tea is very nice, but I think iced tea is disgusting, so I haven't and never would drink it.

Fast food companies have a lot of competition and have to promote their products in different ways, so they've done some pretty crazy schemes. The annals of advertising are littered with wild campaigns like  Wendy's "Where's the Beef" to Burger King's Coq Roq website, but Wendy's has done something I can get behind. They released a trashy romance novella on Wattpad called The Forbidden Fruit Tea. It's a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a cup of Wendy's Berry Cherry Fruit tea. Here's the description:

China Has the Most Beautiful and Horrible Library in the World

In 2017, China unveiled a library that captured the imagination of the entire world as what was called the ultimate library.

The Tianjin Binhai Library was designed by Dutch design firm MVRDV, working with local architects from the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute. It was completed in only three years and stands five stories with more than 36,000 square feet.

The really impressive part is the atrium. Designed to look like a gigantic eye, the main area looks like it has bookshelves that run from the floor to the ceiling.

That's where the problems start.

Sci-Fi Legend Ursula Le Guin is Dead at 88

Ursula Le Guin, one of my favorite authors, has passed away.

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin* worked mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction, but she also wrote children's books, short stories, poetry, and essays. She started in the 1960s when women sci-fi and fantasy writers were rarely published. and her work often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality, and ethnography. The New York Times described her in 2016 as "America's greatest living science fiction writer", but she said that she would be known as an "American novelist."

Shakespeare Officially Made a Co-Author on Three Plays

William Shakespeare is no stranger to controversy with scholars debating whether he wrote the plays under his name or whether he partnered with someone else. There's a whole Wikipedia section on the debate. Some claim Shakespeare didn't write any of his plays. While this has been a theory among only fringe scholars up until now, Oxford University Press has waded into the fight by announcing that its new edition of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare will credit Christopher Marlowe as a co-author on three of Shakespeare's plays.

Bob Dylan Won the 2016 Nobel Prize For Literature

The definition of "literature" is a broad one, and one that's been contested many times. But the term "literature" has been stretched further by the Nobel Prize committee, because they awarded Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016.

I'm Writing For ComicBookResources.com

I've joined a new team at Comic Book Resources, where I'll be writing lists and news articles. Here's a handful of the articles I've written.

"Surge Order" Sends Fans on a Comic-con Scavenger Hunt For Rare Comics
New "Star Trek Beyond" Clip Sees Scotty's Introduction to Jaylah
Report: "Divergent" Finale Could Move to TV, Spawn Spinoff Series

"My name is Timothy McGill, and I'm a time travel addict..." Time Junkie, only 99-cents for a limited time!

"The Boy Next Door" Made The Dumbest Book Blunder Ever

(Jennifer Lopez/Universal Pictures)

Wow, there is a real shortage of English literacy in this world. The best evidence came recently from The Boy Next Door, the Jennifer Lopez thriller about a teacher who has an affair with her student. I haven't seen it, but apparently in one scene, Lopez's character is given a "first edition" of The Iliad.

Supreme Court Keeps Sherlock Holmes in Public Domain

Fans of Sherlock Holmes can rejoice about a US Supreme Court ruling that keeps the Great Detective's stories in the public domain. According to Fine Books Magazine:

An ongoing copyright case closed on Monday after the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal about Sherlock Holmes stories in the public domain. The Court left intact a ruling from the seventh US circuit court of appeals that 50 Sherlock Holmes stories published before 1923 are no longer protected by copyright. An appeal to that ruling had been filed by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate, but their last-ditch effort to preserve an undoubtedly generous stream of income was denied. The Estate can, however, still collect royalties on the final 10 Holmes stories, which were published between 1923 and 1927 and remain protected by copyright.

All this hoopla began last year when writer and attorney Leslie Klinger put together an anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories from modern writers. Klinger was asked by the Conan Doyle Estate to pay a $5,000 licensing fee, which he refused. Klinger then sued the estate and a legal battle ensued.

In the meantime Klinger's publisher, Pegasus Books, refused to publish the book after threats from the Conan Doyle Estate to stop sales from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Presumably, the book - entitled "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes" - will now move forward with publication.

This is good, not just for those who want to read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but also those who want original fiction and adaptations (BBC's Sherlock is excellent).

But what do you think? Should Sherlock Holmes be free or should it be licensed by the estate? Should other authors be allowed to create their own versions of the character?

[Image Source: "Sherlock Holmes Portrait Paget" by Sidney Paget (1860-1908) - de.WP. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons]

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