Books in News #5

A wrap-up of recent events, announcements, releases, or other news circulating the web.

Welcome back my amazing followers and lurkers to another ‘Books in News’, your go-to meme for book related news.

First of all let me apologized for last week’s miss. May is the end of the road for the academic year and this is the month that we are stretched thin by the professors. Last weekend I was so overwhelmed by work that I didn’t had a chance to even look for some news.

Now, while searching this week I did come across some of the news from the previous week so I’ll incorporate them on this post; a two in one sort of post, please bear with me.

Let’s start the mega post with the previous week, the one between Sunday April 22, 2012 and Saturday April 28, 2012.

Exclusive content from the next installment in the Mortal Instruments series has been and will continue to be posted on Mundie Moms, one of the main go to blogs when it comes to all things TMI. The series of posts are called City of Lost Souls Celebration and they will continue until May 7, 2012. The posts will include deleted scenes, press release, snippets, and more.

In Hunger Games news, Catching Fire has begun its pre-production process, while the DVD (and I’m assuming Blu-Ray) release can be expected to hit stands around 5 months after the movie’s theatrical release day. Since they movie came out on March, we should be expecting it by the end of August. Meanwhile, the newspaper The Guardian did an article on “the woman behind the phenomenon” and her lack of public appearances.

Do you read vampire themed books? Have you read the Chicagoland Vampires Series by Chloe Neill? Are you interested? If you haven’t read the series yet but will like to start it and you are living in the USA (I wish it was international), then you might want to check the Chicagoland Vampires SPRING FLING. The Spring Fling is a two giveaway contest, the prices? For the first contest, a Goodreads contest, the price is a copy of Some Girls Bite -the first book on the series; the second contest will have two Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) of Biting Cold, the newest book from the series coming out soon. Head on to the site through the link above for more info.

Ever wonder what to do with copies of old books that you just want to throw out? What if they are turned into an iPhone or iPad charger? That is exactly what the designers behind Rich Neely Designs are doing. The cheapest charger, from what I saw while browsing the options, costs $47.00 for an iPhone charger while iPad chargers are $70.00+. The price of the charger on the picture to the left is $55.00, shipping not included.

Last but definitely not least, The Alpha Showdown 2012. This is yearly competition hosted by Vampire Book Club where the readers (and blog followers) nominate their favorite badass characters that had beed published the previous year for a voting showdown. Nominations are done and the grid is up on the site; on May 14 voting begins. Vote weekly for your favorite character until only one remains. Follow THIS LINK to see who’s been nominated.

Bonus:

Lately, Dystopian genre have become the 'It' trend when it comes to books, but another trend that it’s also resurfacing, not only in books but also in movies –albeit at a slower rate, is the Steampunk genre. Heather Massey from Heroes and Heartbreakers has an amazing article about Steampunk Romance, drop by and check it out. In the meantime, if you dig cosplay, here is a tutorial on how to do a Steampunk makeup.

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Now let’s move on to the currently past week (yup, I know, that sounded weir but given the nature of this post still valid -I think ^.^). The week between Sunday April 29, 2012 and Saturday May 5, 2012.

Let’s begin this news round-up with The Hobbit. Recent reports (from a few early screenings) said that the next installment by Peter Jackson is not as good as The Lord of the Rings were. Now the director himself has come forth to defend his movie saying that the movie “is different in a positive way”. I loved the LOTR and I thought that the trailer for The Hobbit looked amazing; fingers crossed! What about you?

Attention Jeaniene Frost Fans! Mrs. Frost has made available a third snippet from her upcoming book Once Burned. Now, when I read it I swore that I had read it before, so I went back to my Night Huntress books and I found that I had indeed! This snippet is part of a longer excerpt from Once Burned that can be found at the end of Home for the Holidays by Jeaniene Frost, short story about Cat and Bones that appears on The Bite Before Christmas.

Meanwhile, another of my favorite authors, Kim Harrison, has recently written a post about how to categorize writing, sort to speak. She calls it Transitional Writers; she might be onto something here.

On the other hand, Kresley Cole’s new book Shadow’s Claim has had its very own cover reveal this week, here is the cover for your enjoyment.

In more Hunger Games News, the movie has been nominated in 8 categories for the MTV Movie Awards; voting is currently open. And, although it’s been known for a while now, the official press release naming Francis Lawrence as the director for Catching Fire has finally come out.

If you are a fan of fiction on TV you will love to know that both The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural have been picked up for new seasons by the CW.

For Shadowhunters fans and Facebook users there is an event currently open to everyone; The City of Lost Souls Launch Party. This event was open right on the heels of Cassandra Clare’s announcement that The Mortal Instruments has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for an entire year.

Speaking of great authors, have you ever been interested on reading some of Paulo Coelho’s books? If you have an e-reader you can now get them at $0.99, thanks to the author’s own request no less! You can check them at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Since the e-reader has become such a great phenomenon, one that I believe will only continue to grow; here is an article by Benjamin Samuels for the Huffington Post about the ever constant print vs digital book debacle.

And keeping with the e-reader trend, this one is for parents with little kids that have begun to read. This one comes to you thanks to Scholastic and it’s called Storia. Storia is a free, “fun, interactive and educational eReading App for children”. Currently available for PC and iPad and coming soon for Android; is an app, just like any of the kindle apps or B&N apps that we download for our devices, but the books are for children and design for their enjoyment. Downloading the app and registering with Scholastic grants you 5 free books to start your child’s collection. The age range of the Storia book catalogue is from Pre-Kindergarten to Young Adult level (13+).

Bonus:

For this week’s bonus I have a few juicy news and videos for you.

First of, a call to all Indie Authors out there, some of you that follow me found me thanks to the Making Connections Group at Goodreads and you might already know this, but for those who don’t, there is a new online magazine that it’s debuting this month of May and it’s all about you, Indie Author! The magazine is aptly called InD’tale and they are offering –for a limited time– free subscriptions; so don’t waste time and check them out. While you are there don’t forget to check their Facebook Page and their Twitter.

The Washington Post did a piece a few weeks back on none other than Nora Robert’s and her 3 decades as a writer.

Now let’s get serious for a moment, this is something that has been doing the rounds this past week on the internet and I bring it because I believe that incident’s like this must be known by everybody; it’s the only way we can prevent this from happening in the future. What am I talking you wonder? I’m talking about the transgression done by a group of full grown adults to an autistic child. They say that an image is worth a thousand words, right? Then how many is a video worth? Check this video and find out:

If this has left you in such an utter state of shock and you wish to do something about it check out the petition created by this brave father. You can also check his website for more unbelievable footage as well as visit his Facebook Page.

In a lighter tone, the official trailer for the Expendables 2 has hit the net and OMG it looks amazing! Joining an already start studded cast, this time around we have Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Dam, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and new Hollywood sweetheart and Hunger Games actor Liam Hemsworth; the rest of the original cast seems to be back. Here is the trailer:

Lastly, given the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, Ellen DeGeneres has taken on the arduous task of voicing the first book on the series, take a look:

That is thankfully all for this week, thank you for dropping by and for sticking to this huge post. Any thoughts or something you want to share? Don’t forget to use the comments section below. See you around!

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