News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, giveaways on this and other blogs, and other cool stuff.
Books & Ebooks in the News:
- “The Bestselling Books of 2013 (So Far)” Publishers Weekly takes a look at this years’ best sellers so far in both print and digital formats. There’s more diversity between the two lists this year, and more diversity generally. Only one YA book made it onto the ebook list, but two self-published books are there.
- “Being a bookworm boosts your brain power into old age” (Melissa Dahl, Today)
- “Who Spends the Most Time Reading in the World? (We Don’t Actually Know)” The infographic below has been making the rounds, but the data is from 2005 — not exactly current. (Nate Hoffelder, The Digital Reader)
- An author and illustrator opened a Kickstarter campaign last week to fund publication of an illustrated poem inspired by Where the Wild Things Are. (Maryann Yin, GalleyCat) Despite their assurances that they had taken legal advice, Kickstarter shut down the project this week due to a copyright infringement dispute. (Jason Boog, GalleyCat)
Worth Reading:
- “What is ‘New Adult’? Romance Editors and Authors Tell All” (Natalie Zuter, Bookish)
- Jim C. Hines reconstructs the talk he gave at ALA on sexism and kick-butt heroines.
For Writers & Bloggers:
- Camp NaNoWriMo’s July session has begun. Sponsored by the same group that brings you NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November, Camp NaNoWriMo offers the same challenge: write the rough draft of a novel (or other book) in a single month. GalleyCat has collected three years’ worth of writing advice to get you started.
Book Announcements:
- Neil Gaiman is returning to The Sandman with The Sandman: Overture. The graphic novel series will be illustrated by J. H. Williams III. The first installment is scheduled for Oct. 30, 2013. (Press release on DC Entertainment’s Vertigo.com blog)
- Fans stumbled across and shared the new cover for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Scholastic isn’t saying whether this pre-empted a cover reveal event such as the one held at ALA for The Goblet of Fire last Saturday. (Scholastic’s On Our Minds blog; GalleyCat)
Free & Bargain books:
- Don’t forget the free audiobook downloads from SYNC! You will need to download the Overdrive Media Console to be able to download the audiobooks. Here are this week’s and next week’s titles:
- July 4 to July 10: Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford (read by Nick Podehl; Brilliance Audio) and She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith (read by a full cast; L. A. Theatre Works)
- July 11 to July 17: The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann (read by Peter Altschuler; HarperAudio) and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (read by Simon Vance; Tantor Media)
Awesome lists:
- “Book Titles with One Letter Missing” 20 Photoshopped covers with one lettter missing from the title (by @darth on Pleated Jeans). (Heads up: one of them involves a rude gesture; the others are pretty family-friendly.)
- “Free Books for the Fourth of July” Sorry I’m a little late reposting this, but it’s still useful. Links to 12 free documents and books by the Founding Fathers, including the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and writings and orations by Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. Also included are links to other lists of free books, all of them available through Project Gutenberg.
- “Nonfiction Summer Reads for Parents and Kids” from Bookish. Topics include Marie Curie, space exploration, the race to build the atomic bomb, slavery, archaeological discoveries at Jamestown, and the assassination of Lincoln.
- “Fascinating First Editions from the 1950s” (Covers curated by Richard Davies for AbeBooks)
Really cool:
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| Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales |
- You can actually stay overnight at this library in Wales. Gladstone’s Library (pictured below) which looks like a stately home on the outside, offers rooms at a reasonable rate. Guests get access to the library, reading rooms, and grounds as well as their private bedroom. The library is located in Hawarden, near the Welsh border and not far from Chester, England. (BookRiot; Gladstone’s Library website)
- Stephen Fry reads Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” (yes, the whole thing.) (from Open Culture)
- “Visit Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley with Google Street View” (Book Riot) Well, the Warner Bros. UK studio tour version, anyway. You can “walk” up and down the rather short street, but you can’t enter any of the shops. Fun, but brief.
That’s it for this week!
I’m always on the lookout for interesting articles, lists, and links for News & Notes, so please let me know if you see (or write!) anything that might be good for this feature. You can leave me a comment or send me an email — my address is on the About/Review Policy/Contact page.
Jennifer Hartling
Those book titles with one letter missing are so awesome! 🙂
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
I love them! The guy who did them is really good with Photoshop, too.
Bea
A library hotel? Sign me up!
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
I know, it sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? If I ever get to visit Great Britain again, I’m going to try to stay there.
kimbacaffeinate
I want to spend the night at the library in Wales!
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Me too! I’m not sure how much sleep I’d get, though!