News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff
Book News
- Harlequin Launches Audio Imprint (Publishers Weekly)
- Margaret Atwood adds manuscript to “Future Library” project (GalleyCat)
- George R. R. Martin responds to fans angry about TV show’s divergence from book storyline. (GRRM’s blog) Basically, it boils down to: TV and books are different media; deal with it.
- Southwest Airlines & Kobo team to bring passengers free ebooks in flight. (GalleyCat)
Worth Reading
- An Interview With Historical Romance Legend Lisa Kleypas (Kelly Faircloth, for Jezebel)
- Why Is Fan Fiction So Powerful? (an interview with Rainbow Rowell) (Buzzfeed)
- About half of us got our last read from the library, according to BookRiot
Worth Watching
Historian David McCulloch talks about how libraries are “essentials” for his working life.
Great Blog Posts
For Writers & Bloggers
- The Master List of Book Blogging Memes (on GirlXOXO)
- Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language (Writers Write)
Book & Movie Announcements
- Herman Wouk writing memoir to celebrate his 100th birthday. (AP, via US News & World Reports)
Freebies & Bargains
- About 15 of Margery Allingham’s mysteries are on sale for Kindle for $0.99 each (You’ll need to scroll through several pages to find them all. Please check prices before purchasing.)
Awesome Lists
- Bill Gates’s Beach Reading List (gatesnotes)
- 10 Adventure Novels To Die For (plus a bunch of extra recommendations) (Kate Scott, for BookRiot)
- 5 Books Where the Girl Saves the Boy (Tina Connolly, for Tor.com) Make sure you read the comments for lots more suggestions (including a few of my favorites.)
- The 101 Best Crime Novels of the Last Decade (The Boolist Reader)
- 17 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Bookstores (Mental_Floss)
- Awesome YA Dragon Books Out This Year (BookRiot)
- 27 Incredibly Clever DIYs All True Book Lovers Will Love (BuzzFeed) From the easy (printable bookplates) to the elaborate (entire staircases.)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
- Want to make foods (or drinks) from your favorite books or movies? Cookfiction.com has recipes for Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice (Harry Potter), Bilbo’s Seedcake, Lembas, and Ent-draught (The Hobbit and LOTR respectively), Princess Tiana’s Beignets and Ratatouille (Disney movies), Fish Finger Cookies & Custard and a Sonic Screwdriver (Doctor Who), Scooby Snacks (Scooby-Doo) and even Klingon Bloodwine (Star Trek), among others. And they also let you suggest recipes.
- How to Name a Baby is about naming trends, and the Baby Name Voyager lets you check out your own name (or your grandfather’s, or the one you’re thinking of using for a character in your book.) It’s a lot of fun to play with, whether you’re just curious or need names for characters. (Turns out my real name is a “fad name,” very popular in the decade I was born – but my blogging use-name, Lark, has never made the top 1000.)
- ThinkGeek now has Star Trek. . . garden gnomes?
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
anna (herding cats & burning soup)
Oh that last image is so very true 😀 Love it.
anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1) by Tessa Bailey
Lark_Bookwyrm
Glad you like it! It’s a cool quote; I was glad I could find a good image to go behind it.
Selah @ A Bibliophile's Style
The name links are interesting. They confirmed what I was already aware of – my name was extremely unique until just a few years ago. Everyone else in I’ve met with my name is under 10 years old. I guess my parents were trendsetters. 😉
Selah @ A Bibliophile’s Style recently posted…Blogging Besties: Patterned Shorts
Lark_Bookwyrm
Your parents were ahead of their time! 🙂 I think it’s a beautiful and unusual name.
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library
I was having such a good time with the name link I almost forgot to comment. Pretty much all my kids have popular names but I figure it’s mostly because they’re so traditional. I’m curious about the Harlequin audio imprint. Looking forward to seeing where that goes.
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library recently posted…Medium Raw – Review
Lark_Bookwyrm
I hadn’t realized our daughter’s real name was a “fad” name too. When we named her, I didn’t know anyone else with that name. But apparently it was most popular in the decade just prior to her birth. We now know several people with the same name around her age and a little older. Oh, well!
Bea @Bea's Book Nook
Oh, a meme master list, what fun!
The name lists are fun too. My real name has, until recently, been mostly ethnic but it’s picking up steam.
If I had a garden, I’d want those gnomes! 😀
Bea @Bea’s Book Nook recently posted…Bea Reviews The Kind-hearted Monster by Max Velthuijs
Lark_Bookwyrm
As Rita noticed, the meme master list hasn’t been accessible today, but I’m hoping it will be back up in a day or two. I’m glad you had fun with the name website. And those gnomes make me laugh!
R_Hunt @ View From My Home
I couldn’t get to your master list of memes for some reason– will try again later. I was intrigued by the Lisa Kleypas interview, even though I don’t read that genre, I still am interested in reading about authors! Also the Girl Saves Boy and all the following comments, and the Best Crime Novels. Thank you once again for an excellent job!
R_Hunt @ View From My Home recently posted…FitReaders 2015 Progress- 5/23/15
Lark_Bookwyrm
I can’t get it to work either; it looks to me like her server is down. Glad you enjoyed some of the other links, though!