Here at Books & Authors, we spend most of our time huddled on couches or comfy chairs, reading our weekly fix of genre fiction and heartbreaking works of nonfiction (honestly, if anyone can recommend a nice nonfiction work that won’t bum us out, please share). The rest of our time we spend online, searching for news/criticism/commentary/amusing arcana about the books we love. (It’s a sickness.) Here are some of our recent favorite lit links we’ve stumbled upon:
- The American Booksellers Association have announced the inaugural inductees into the Indies Choice Book Awards Picture Book Hall of Fame – Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak; Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey; and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems. Seems a little skewed to the avian traffic obstruction lobby, but great choices, nonetheless. (Bookweb.org)
- The UK’s Guardian asked five children’s laureates – Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, and Michael Rosen – to select their all-time favorite children’s books. Surprisingly, Harry Potter and Walter the Farting Dog did not make the list. (Guardian.co.uk)
- Did you know that Guillermo Del Toro, director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the upcoming Hobbit movies, was co-authoring a series of vampire novels called The Strain? Neither did we. Here’s an overview and a nice video introduction to the project by Del Toro himself. (Harpercollins.com)
- Want to know about every tiny little reference/allusion/inspiration behind one of your beloved children’s classics in excruciating detail? Newsweek profiles two (that’s right, TWO) new annotated editions of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. (Newsweek.com)
- Are you a fan of graphic novels who can’t get into the whole Dan Brown/Angels & Demons craze? The Times Online is offering a free download of the entire first issue of Rex Mundi, the acclaimed comic book series by Arvid Nelson and EricJ, which treads similar thematic ground as The Da Vinci Code and has a movie adaptation by Johnny Depp in the works as well. (Timesonline.co.uk).
- The Elegant Variation, one of our favorite lit blogs, presents this nice recap of last weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books with links to other takes on the event to boot. (The Elegant Variation)
- Even though the world economy is about 2 degrees away from being a J.G. Ballard-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, sales of romance fiction are booming. Guess we all need some lusty comfort after reading our 401K balances, eh? (Suite101.com)
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