See the First Posters of the Main Characters from 'The Hunger Games' Movie

Exciting! As the hype for the upcoming film version of the hit series The Hunger Games builds and builds Lionsgate has given a few major media outlets exclusive posters of some of the Games' biggest characters. As a proud member of District 8 I am overjoyed!

Although the film won't be in theaters until March 23, 2012 take an early look at Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, Cinna, Effie, Rue, Cato and Gale -- several whom we're seeing for the first time! Click to enlarge:

Watch the Latest Sneak Peek of 'The Hunger Games'

The highlight of last night's lackluster MTV Video Music Awards for me was definitely the exclusive clip from the upcoming film adaptation of The Hunger Games. Unfortunately we had to sit through the entire two-plus hour show to see it, but it was well worth the wait!

Check out this short but sweet clip of Jennifer Lawrence as the series' heroine Katniss Everdeen braving the elements of the arena in the games after the jump!

Exclusive Q&A with Author Krissy Gasbarre

Although her publishing debut is just hitting shelves today, author Krissy Gasbarre already has plenty of buzz surrounding How to Love an American Man (like here, here and here).


Author Krissy Gasbarre
Centering around her relationship with her grandmother, Gasbarre shares her real-life experience of travel, family and the search for true love. Despite being so busy with its debut, Gasbarre took the time to answer some questions from A Blog About Things.com on her memoir.

ABAT.com: At what point did you decided, "I'm going to write a book!"?

Gasbarre: When I was in high school, I really really REALLY liked boys -- one in particular, for a very long time. I read a lot of self-help books like Mars & Venus and grew super interested in psychology. I decided when I was about 16 or so that I wanted to be a psychologist who had a radio show and wrote books, but when I interned in college at the Cleveland Clinic, I found the field of psychology to be a little too clinical to hold my interest -- I wanted to explore emotions and the female psyche more. Still, I knew women like me needed insight about love and how we operate in relationships, and so for about a decade and a half I'd wanted to connect with an audience of women about the topic we all care about, no matter how different our backgrounds are: Love.

Which came first; The idea for the book, or the idea that you wanted to write a book?

The idea that I wanted to write a book. The book idea came about very naturally when I was spending a lot of time with my grandma after my grandpa passed away. I'm so fortunate the idea hit me when it did, because it was so obviously something women needed -- love advice from a grandmother who was married for 60 years and held such a different approach toward relationships -- that it would have been easy to miss.

Who exactly is your book written for?

I wrote it with women in their twenties and thirties in mind, because women in my generation need a reason to believe that love really does exist. But a friend of mine -- actually my friend Joelle, the photographer who took my author photo -- said when she closed the book, she wanted to call her grandma and share the book with her. Just maybe this story really is something that women across generations can share to bond closer together and understand each other better. I really discovered who I was as a woman through this bond with my grandma.

What's the biggest piece of knowledge you took away from the time you spent with your grandma?

That there is such thing as true love, but that no relationship is perfect. I'd never known how much my grandma sacrificed in her marriage to my grandfather until she revealed it all to me. He moved her and their five kids around to build his business, and she jokes, "Oh, he had a mistress, alright: It was his work." I really had been looking at my relationships and asking, "What can he do for me?" In real love, so much joy comes from giving. I really believe it's our feminine nature to be nurturers and carers, and love brought that out of me really softly and naturally, same as it did for 59 years in my grandma.

First Look at the Men of 'The Hunger Games' Films

The hype for The Hunger Games films is growing by the second! First Entertainment Weekly gave us our first look at Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen, then the movie's official and fiery motion poster was revealed, and now EW has the men of the Games on the cover of their latest issue.


From Entertainment Weekly:

Two months ago, Entertainment Weekly revealed the first images of Jennifer Lawrence as the teenage hero of The Hunger Games, based on Suzanne Collins’ blistering dystopian trilogy about children forced to fight to the death on national TV (and due out next March). In this week’s cover story, we introduce you to the devoted young men who fight for her.

We sat down with Josh Hutcherson, the 18-year-old actor whom director Gary Ross fought hard to cast as the deeply decent Peeta Mellark, at a cozy diner in Asheville, N.C., where The Hunger Games shoot was mid-way through filming...

So exciting! Head over to EW.com to read the full piece on the men of The Hunger Games.

'The Hunger Games' Movie Gets a Release Date

Mark your calendars, tributes! The first movie from The Hunger Games series will hit theaters on March 23, 2012.


I'm about half-way through the final book of The Hunger Games series called Mockingjay (read the review here. No spoilers!) and can't wait to see the books adapted for the big screen! The films star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, and a ton of other notables like Josh Hutcherson, Liam Helmsworth, Lenny Kravitz and Donald Sutherland -- just to name a few. Meet the full Games cast here.

Keep reading after the jump to see the fiery badass motion poster for the film's release:

Yes or No? A Resounding “Yes” for Bethenny Frankel’s Latest Book

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

Bethenny Frankel’s motivational/semi-memoir A Place of Yes does the job that motivational stories are supposed to: motivate. Yes, it’s that simple.

With the popularity of celebrities, and anybody who thinks they are a celebrity, writing books and making perfume, it’s getting difficult to sort through the sludge of publicized media anymore. Is this famed person actually writing it? Or is some sad intern making $150 ghost writing the whole mess?

However, it is best to give Frankel the benefit of the doubt, as the writing in the book is undoubtedly her. The callous directness, humor, and ball-busting attitude is something we associate with her from the shows The Real Housewives of New York City and Bethenny Ever After. Frankel breaks down ten rules for making your life your own, and for making it well-lived. She opens up all the skeletons in her closet for us to see, so that we can learn by her mistakes and successes. Dysfunctional family? It’s okay, she’s got it. Failed risks and crappy jobs? Yep. Finally finding love and success? That, too.

The phrase "a place of yes" resonates throughout, and the message sinks in. It’s not about saying yes to everything, or even being overly optimistic. Here lies the key difference between this book and the thousands of other self-motivating texts out there: it’s not about being the happiest person alive, but about learning what’s true to you and embracing it. Only then can the rest of our life, and subsequent relationships, follow suit and become complete and healthy. There is a lot of "noise" with family, money, friends and social expectations, but Frankel reveals behaviors and patterns that we can break in order to free ourselves from... well, ourselves. Her no-nonsense attitude reads like an authentic viewpoint and honest assessment rather than a vapid attempt to make money off a book .

So, why does this book connect to the majority of people? Because it’s not written by a super chipper person that exhausts us as we think, "I will never be like that." We all want to be happy, but not that happy. As Frankel admits, "Hell I’m in a crappy mood half the time, I’m a pain in the ass, and nobody would describe me as cheerful or agreeable." This book is from one moody human to all others. She has managed to find a way to make life work in a crazy world, and hopes to pass that lesson on to others. Now that’s motivation I can buy into.

A Place of Yes is recommended for:

• Book clubs
• Therapists,
• The millions of disaffected of Americans

Not recommended for:

• Oprah Winfrey
• Dr.Phil

How I Played Gay God (And Still Am)

By Justin Luke, Contributing Writer

Back in May I published my debut gay novel, Gulliver Travels, the story of a Los Angelino who flees his family, friends, and ex-boyfriend to start his life over (or at least try to do so) in New York City. Already it has become the #2 highest rated book in the Gay and Lesbian Kindle store on Amazon, while being named the 4th hottest entertainment item of the week by The Advocate. But Gulliver had a more interesting Genesis story than most novel protagonists. In fact, before he was a character in my book, Gully was a real live human being. Or, at least the Internet thought he was.


Earlier this year, I took the first draft of a novel I had written during National Novel Writing Month, and began to post it, chapter-by-chapter, on a Tumblr. I imagined this would help me stay interested in the piece long enough to edit and revise it for publication. This ended up being true. However, once I picked my Tumblr theme, I saw I needed a large photo to occupy the left side. I Googled "Hot Blonde Gay Guy" and found just what I was looking for, and added it to the left side. (FYI: the guy there now is a model who has approved my use of his photo, pictured above.)

From there I realized: there should be more to this than a Tumblr. So I created a Twitter, a Facebook profile, a Facebook fan page, and a Formspring for my darling creation. All of them, in tune with the source material, were written in first person. I blew up an announcement on all my social media channels that I had created a character and would be posting his story, day-by-day, for people who were interested.

I quickly learned that one announcement wasn’t enough. Facebook and Twitter are such rapid streams of information that people most likely missed my initial statement. But the Tumblr, fan page, and twitter account spread like wildfire in less than seven days. And everyone thought Gulliver was real.

Is Anybody Out There? 'Heaven Is for Real' Tackles the Age-Old Question with a Child’s Insight

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

With modern technology so apt to provide us with immediate solutions and clarity, it is sometimes grounding to realize that the oldest questions of humanity remain unanswered. What is our purpose on this Earth? Is there a Heaven? Did God see me eat that entire half gallon of ice cream or cut off that person in traffic? If so, will that send me to Hell or just Purgatory?

In all seriousness, no matter what our religious background or belief (if we have any), we all wonder what lies beyond. It’s why the Greeks are rich in mythology, and Dante illustrated his great Inferno. With the bestselling success of Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven in 2004, the near-death experience narrative remains relevant and gripping. We suspend our belief, or disbelief, and hope to know it all after reading these accounts.

Pat and Carolyn Skype with Oprah

I am very lucky to be able to say that I did something that very few other people in the world can say they have done, too. I had direct contact with Oprah Winfrey.

In November 2009 my best friend, Carolyn, and I skyped with Oprah in an online Webcast about her book club selection Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan.

Fittingly, we discussed the chapter about best friends and talked for a few minutes with the Big O and Mr. Akpan. Oprah even called us cute! I still can't believe it.

The embeddable version of the Webcast is no longer available, but you can watch it on Oprah.com to see the proof! We pop up around 1:40.

We'll miss you, Oprah!

First Look at Jennifer Lawrence in 'The Hunger Games'

Get excited! The first photos of Jennifer Lawrence at Katniss Everdeen in the highly anticipated film adaptation of The Hunger Games novels has arrived!


From Entertainment Weekly:

Fans of The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins’ terrifically urgent dystopian trilogy about children forced to fight to the death — have always been protective of 16-year-old heroine Katniss Everdeen. So when Lionsgate and director Gary Ross announced that they had cast 20-year-old Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) in the lead role, the community was thrown into an inevitable tailspin. Was she too old, too blonde, too pale, too pretty to do the gritty warrior girl justice? In this week’s cover story, EW was granted an exclusive interview with a newly brunette Lawrence, and spent hours watching her train on a Los Angeles archery range and track, just days before she was due on the North Carolina set.

In a free-wheeling interview, Lawrence describes her first encounter with Ross last winter, during the height of Oscar season. “He was asking me what the experience was like,” she recalls, “and I just kind of opened up and said, ‘I feel like a rag doll. I have hair and makeup people coming to my house every day and putting me in new, uncomfortable, weird dresses and expensive shoes, and I just shut down and raise my arms up for them to get the dress on, and pout my lips when they need to put the lipstick on.’ And we both started laughing because that’s exactly what it’s like for Katniss in the Capitol. She was a girl who’s all of a sudden being introduced to fame. I know what that feels like to have all this flurry around you and feel like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t belong here.’”

Read the full piece over at EW.com. Anyone else as excited for the films as I am?

Descend Into the Next YA Series with Jeremy Robinson’s 'The Last Hunter'

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

With my review of Mockingjay a few months ago, I noted that there was no shortage of Young Adult novels, and that as soon as you felt deprived with the end of one series, another would be waiting to take its place. Jeremy Robinson has already made his mark as the author of best-selling thrillers, but The Last Hunter marks his first time with YA material, and is Book One of the Antarktos Saga.

The plot centers around thirteen-year old Solomon, who is trying to battle the awkward adolescence we have all knowingly repressed, all while grappling with the oddity of being the only human born on the continent of Antarctica. The book opens with him returning to his birth continent with his family on an expedition, and learning more of his seemingly supernatural powers. Antarctica is still the cold and unfriendly continent we currently know, but in this saga it is populated by explorers, scientists, the occasional tourist and an ancient godlike race that lurks in underground caverns with primeval monsters and seeks to enslave mankind. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

Books Become Interesting with Help from the Book Surgeon

Look, kids! A book you might actually want to look at!


I'm only half serious when I say that books aren't interesting, but how cool are these pieces of artwork by Brian Dettmer?

Using tweezers and surgical tools the artist carves out these amazing scenes one page at a time. Dettmer manipulates the pages and spines to form the shape of his sculptures. He also folds, bends, rolls, and stacks multiple books to create completely original sculptural forms. The coolest part is that he doesn't add anything to the books; everything you see was original to the book itself.

Check out a few more pieces from the Book Surgeon here:

'Actions Speak Loudest': Simple Ways to Make Our World a Better Place

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

Approximately one year ago, there was a book published by YELLOWBRICKROAD that had the idea that we need to be held accountable for our generational promise to leave this world a better place for our children. Looking around, it doesn’t seem like that is the case with widespread war, poverty, famine, violence, environmental distress and despair. It often seems easier just to ignore the surrounding problems and to narrow our focus to ourselves in order to cope, but Actions Speak Loudest calls upon us to lift our heads out of the sand and to act.

The book, edited by Bob McKinnon, is comprised of 32 essays and various photographs that cover topics ranging from education, tolerance, childhood obesity, climate change, and motherhood. The contributing authors are just as varied, with notable names like former President Jimmy Carter, Rachael Ray, Joe Paterno and Queen Noor. It’s a simple idea, really: find sustainable solutions for problems that affect our world, country, community, and home. What affects one, affects us all, and readers of the book will find that they can easily contribute to the solutions and make a difference. In a world so reliant on technology and social “networks” rather than interaction, it’s easy to lose perspective on global connectivity, despite having the world at our fingertips.

So, you can really put that holiday gift card to good use and buy the book for yourself or as a gift to someone you think makes a difference. All proceeds go back to the charities and foundations featured in the book, but for every purchase made between now and the National Day of Service, which is Martin Luther King Day on January 17th, they will donate one copy in your name to an individual who is serving others through their partner organizations of Teach for America, City Year, and Harlem Children’s Zone. Simply contact them to let them know you purchased the book.

To make it even easier, there is a special promotion just for A Blog About Things readers. All you need to do is comment on this post that you bought a copy of the book, and YELLOWBRICKROAD will donate a book in your honor!

Buy one, give one. Not a bad way to start off the New Year.

Spend Your Gift Cards on These Winter Reads

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

Thanks to the gift-giving season, many people now have gift cards for bookstores, or are looking to return The Purpose-Driven Life because they already have three copies.

To ease your literary angst, take a look at this short list of various reads; some old, some newer, that fit a spectrum of tastes and purposes. Break out the hot cocoa, fleece blankets, and the adult footy pajamas you ordered secretly from the SkyMall catalog, and happy reading.

Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara This short collection of poems is poignant and arresting, with O'Hara writing in the same time period of other poetic greats like Ginsberg and Kerouac. However, he manages to stand out against such a powerful crowd, and his words have stayed with me since. For a contemporary reference, Don Draper on Mad Men read from this collection during the second season of the show. Recommended for: Those tiptoeing on the side of literary and looking for a good commute read. Not recommended for: People avoiding self-reflection.

"Art with No Easel" -- Jay-Z Paints a Vivid Picture with 'Decoded'

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

"It [hip-hop] was going to be raw and aggressive, but also witty and slick. It was going to boast and compete and exaggerate. But it was also going to care enough to get the details right about our aspirations and our crumb-snatching struggles, our specific, small realities...and our living-color dreamscapes." - Jay-Z in Decoded

Jay-Z was recently on the The Daily Show promoting his book Decoded, which balances autobiography and commentary on the evolution of rap and hip-hop as an art form. Jon Stewart was joking during the interview about finally understanding rap lyrics because Jay-Z decodes a number of his songs in the the book. He fleshes out his thought process about the rhyming couplets and double entendres and explains the various nuances and terminology the average person doesn't always get, like with using "precipitation" in terms of a drought with hustling. But don’t get excited that you are going to be a rapper or street smart after reading, because even with the explanations, you can’t understand the lyrics if you don’t understand the music as an expression of art, and as a representation of a cultural and historical movement. And that's what Jay-Z writes for: to make us understand that much of hip-hop and rap moves beyond the stereotypical rhyming about pimping and drugs. Even the seemingly superficial rhymes deceive us upon closer examination, and we realize that we’ve been duped.

The Odds Are Ever in Its Favor: 'Mockingjay' Ends 'The Hunger Games' Trilogy

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

Diving into the ever popular world of young adult fiction (though the "young adult" label has become as overused as "going green"), author Suzanne Collins released Mockingjay, the third and final installment of her famous Hunger Games trilogy, in August. In case you’re not a close reader, do read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire first, or else you will find yourself adequately confused by jumping into the end of the trilogy. Take my advice, I remember going to see the first film of The Lord of the Rings with my cousin almost 10 years ago, and both of us getting a bit anxious about 3 hours in when Sam and Frodo had only just reached Mordor. ("Wait, there’s more than one film?").

The premise of The Hunger Games series is reminiscent of the rebellious struggle and quest for human unity found in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, peppered with the post-apocalyptic qualities found recently with The Road, The Book of Eli and I Am Legend. The setting is far in the future, when our ever-so-intelligent generation has left the future human race with a depleted world and despair. The Capitol controls the land of Panem (former North America), and it is divided into 13 districts. The Capitol oppresses the people in the districts and exploits them for their unique qualities so that the inhabitants in the Capitol can live luxurious and gluttonous lifestyles reminiscent of Roman Senators. The districts at one time rebelled against the Capitol, and as their continual punishment, the Capitol forces each of the districts to send 2 tributes, between the ages of 12 to18, each year to compete in an epic fight to the death: the Hunger Games. A lavish arena is set up and the event is televised to all until only one adolescent is left alive as victor, after which he/she returns home as a hero and lives with no need to work.

The Naked Truth: Hornby's Book Is Worth Reading

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

Nick Hornby’s most recent book, Juliet, Naked (well, it’s new to paperback, and for cheap people like me, that’s quite new enough) illuminates the self-reflection of four main characters: Tucker Crowe, a washed-up American rocker (we’ve seen characters like his with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart), his precocious young son Jackson, Annie, a driven Englishwoman embedded in a bleak coastal town, and Duncan, her long-time partner/Tucker Crowe music obsessive.

The storyline is circuitous, with Tucker Crowe’s character and music being the catalyst and common denominator. Duncan’s character sheds light onto the sometimes overeager nature of music fans that leads to late nights on the Internet with message boards discussing a musician’s worth and influence. The rumor mills flourish and these people spout off facts and holier than thou musical declarations while the rest of us plug our ears and focus attention back to an Excel spreadsheet... or a vodka tonic.

Heads or Tails: Sedaris's New Book Is a Win

By Sherri Breitigan, Contributing Writer

David Sedaris’s latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, is a departure from his normal short story model in the sense that the characters are animals instead of the usual cynical and misguided humans. This collection includes illustrations by Ian Falconer, author and illustrator of a bestselling children’s series and costume designer extraordinaire. Don’t expect your typical children’s illustrations, though, you’re more likely to gather stares from nosy passerby as you flip open to a page that features the back end of a hippo, or a smiling lamb and conniving crow.

If you are familiar with Sedaris, you will find that while the cast of this book is new, his uncanny ability to make the ordinary events and moments of life hilarious and poignant is still there. However, there is an added shade of disturbia to some of the stories, which will delight loyal fans, but maybe disarm a Sedaris virgin. You may be better off starting with Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim or When You are Engulfed in Flames to wade in the waters before taking this on.

The End/Future of Publishing

As someone who finds himself online more than in a library I thought this video on the end/future of publishing was really interesting. Check out the thought-provoking clip from Penguin. You have to watch it the whole way through to get the message.


Cool, right? You can read an interview with its creator here.

[Thanks, Pierce]

Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom Releases 'The Real You Diet' Book

I have to give a big shout out to my good buddy Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom. Madelyn is a contributor to iVillage.com and the Today show's diet and nutrition expert. Her new book 'The Real You Diet' is out in stores and online and last night we celebrated its release in New York City.


Dr. Fernstrom (center) with me and my colleagues

I'm not one for books -- especially ones about dieting -- but this one is simple and to the point with practical advice on eating and portion control. Check out Madelyn giving some of the tips from 'The Real You Diet' on the Today show.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Congrats, Madelyn!