@avclub-29501df08e5d9ae59e432e4f188d3735:disqus The best Dahl book to not understand is fiction is definitely Matilda, because you'll just become convinced you can make things fly.

@avclub-d4c5630db0ec3444ec43c0982a9e83d3:disqus Have you seen Hogfather? I mean, it's BBC, so not big-budget, but it stars Michelle Dockery, so it's pretty amazing. It's an obvious choice, you're right: very high-concept, full of visual jokes.

OR the contract gets cancelled, as happened famously to Rick Yancey's (excellent) Monstrumologist series, which is the very worst case scenario.

It's TERRIFYING and thus AMAZING. Much like the book!

…does he expect that? Because the author's name on the books is Rick Riordan.

Exactly this. It happens more often than you'd think - just because it hasn't been published yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist! I mean, it's been written. Penguin bought it. And it happens with lots of books that never become movies - the rights are probably cheaper now than they will be if the book becomes a hit, and…

She wrote Howl's Moving Castle, which is not actually like the Miyazaki movie at all, but which is completely brilliant all the same. When read by kids, her books are all awesome ideas and great characters and fun adventures; when read by adults, they're full of subtly inverted tropes and completely reinvented…

I don't think they do. The movie kind of bombed, and the good thing about any adaptation - even a crappy one - is that there's repackaging and promotion for the books. They all came out with shiny new covers when the movie did, and they're pretty much a fixture anyway. People who recommend books to kids will always…

Curiously, I was never able to get into these books as a kid. I read about half his Westmark trilogy, but the Prydain books could not hold my attention. It might have been the unpronounceable Welsh names? If I can't pronounce a name, I don't remember it, so that would've been a problem.

Heh, fair enough. I am also pretty obnoxious, but since our apartment has multiple rooms, my roommates can escape it. (Also, they both like New Girl, so it's fine anyway!)

"Come on, AV Club!" When you're addressing a person/sentient object by name, you set it off with a comma. Without it, that sentence is a rather dirty command.

Your roommate is a terrible human being.

"Wind-chafed" is the sort of thing you use to describe, like, aged sailors and farmers, not pretty Midwestern teenage girls. But it made a curious sort of sense to me anyway.

CAUSE THIS ONE WORKS BETTER THAN TWO.

In what is probably Teddy's best moment on the show, even.

Watch it now! Come join us in the discussions! It's really easy to catch up!

Every play I've been in has had at least one relationship develop during rehearsal and end a few weeks after closing night or sooner. God, there were like 5 when I did Footloose in high school. Backstage during "Almost Paradise" was just…couples, everywhere. It's an intense situation full of artificially keyed-up…

And then she makes jokes about it the next season! Geez, Ellen.

I bet it's that he has 7 medals.

Nathan Adrian, perhaps?