We had a ton of fun celebrating our dads last week for Father's Day...and it also brought out a ton of Dad jokes. After all, one of the great joys of being a parent is being able to make a child cringe, especially when it comes to cheesy jokes. Dad jokes are a staple of pop culture, as fathers in films, books, and TV strive to out-do each other when it comes to corny one liners and groan-inducing puns. And of course, while we may roll our eyes and shake our heads at them, everyone loves a dad who knows how to crack that joke at the perfect time.
This month sees Nicholas Hoult appearing on the big screen as the legendary fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien in the biographical film Tolkien. From the author’s childhood through his time in the war, from his creative passions to his loves, Tolkien promises to be a phenomenal look at the man behind The Lord of the Rings. However, it’s far from the first time that Hoult has starred in a film that is either an adaptation of literature or a portrayal of a literary great. In honor of his latest, we take a look at some of his biggest and best literary roles—and some yet to come.
The final season of Game of Thrones is nearly here, and fans are waiting to find out which of the remaining faces in Westeros will actually make it through the entire series alive, which is no easy feat in a world as violent as Westeros! So far, the ones still standing seem to have a solid handle on how to play the game, but everyone could use a little help sometimes! From strategy to personal development, these are the books that we’d recommend the Westerosi read… whether an individual recommendation, or something that pretty much anyone aiming for the throne could benefit from.
April 9 is National Name Yourself Day, which isn’t about celebrating your own name, but about taking a day to choose a new one. It may just be for a day, but it can be extremely liberating to take a new name for a while; maybe a Jane is sick of feeling plain, and wants to be Arabella for a while. Maybe a Veronica acts a little differently in the world than a Mildred. Maybe you’ve just always wanted to see how the world would react if you could choose your own moniker.
Of course, for authors, there’s no need to wait for National Name Yourself Day to choose a new name. Many authors write under a pen name, for all kinds of reasons. Some do it so that they can cover sensitive topics without offending loved ones. Some do it to avoid public scrutiny, or to try something that doesn’t fit with their usual brand. Did you know that these famous authors have all written under pen names?
There’s a day to celebrate just about everything, and that includes alien abductions! March 20 is Extraterrestrial Abductions Day, and it’s for everyone who is actually enthusiast about the prospect of meeting some little green men. It might be hard to understand why, though. Most depictions of aliens in pop culture are less than charming: the psychotic killers in Mars Attacks, the faceless insectoids in…well, pretty much all of science fiction, even the pleasant but deeply strange aliens encountered on the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Truly friendly, funny, charming extraterrestrials are few and far between when it comes to alien portrayals, but that doesn’t mean that there are none to be found. We’d be happy to have these little green (and not so green) men abduct us this month!
Prophecy and fortune telling may seem like a good idea - a way to know what’s coming up, to be able to plan, to prepare, to make sure that the right decision is made. However, with few exceptions, prophecies are either completely off-base… or so difficult to interpret that those trying to just end up making things worse (or even fulfilling the prophecy because they were trying to avoid it). One of the most famous prophetic lines, of course, is ‘beware the Ides of March’. Spoken by a soothsayer to Julius Ceaser in Shakespeare’s play, it’s something of a perfect prophecy. Doomy, gloomy, and so completely vague that anything from a stubbed toe to a stabbing can still be considered to ‘fit’.
