News & Notes -- 7/13/13

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:

• "Apple Loses: Judge Finds Price-Fixing in E-Book Case" on Wednesday.  If you've followed this case at all, the verdict is not surprising, since there appears to have been ample documentary evidence to support it.  (Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly)  At GalleyCat, you can see a DOJ graph documenting revenue share for the major ebook retailers (Amazon, B&N, Apple, Google, Sony, and Kobo) as the agency model took effect.
• "Barnes & Noble Gets Closer to Breakup as CEO [Lynch] Resigns" -- especially given Riggio's interest in buying the bookstores and website and taking them private, and the company's proposal to disengage from device manufacturing. (Matt Townsend, Bloomberg.com)
• "Penguin Random House Begins".  So what will the newly-merged powerhouse look like? (Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly)
• "Big Brother Fears Reignite a Classic" Revelations about the scope of NSA data-gathering on Americans propelled Orwell's 1984 to the top of Covercake's Top 10 Books in Social Media list, meaning it was the most talked-about book in the social-media scene. (Rachel Deahl, Publishers Weekly)
• "Jane Austen May Appear on £10 Note", replacing Charles Darwin. (BBC News: Business)

Worth Reading:

Photo © K. Pekar

• "Reading, writing may help preserve memory in older age" (Michelle Costillo, CBSNews.com)
• "BuzzFeed Identifies Red Flag Favorite Books, Which Is A Red Flag" By now you've probably seen that Buzzfeed list of "28 'Favorite' Books That Are Huge Red Flags."
    NPR's Matthew Weddig articulates what's wrong with that list, and puts it better than I could.
• In "Bookshelves Are the New Medicine Cabinets", Emily Ansara Baines talks about judging your dates (or anyone else) by the contents of their bookshelves.  Well, of course! (Read It Forward)

Photo © Alexandre Duret-Lutz. Used under Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Literary Losses:

Photo: Margerie Pinto-Liete

• Barbara Robinson, author of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, died July 9, 2013, at the age of 85.  (Publishers Weekly obituary)

Book Announcements:

• George R. R. Martin revealed in a blog post (on his "Not a Blog") what the Iron Throne really looks like, in a painting by Marc Simonetti for the cover of an upcoming anthology.  Hint: The HBO series got it wrong.  (Thanks to Jason Boog of GalleyCat for pointing me to this post.)
• "23 Writers 'Face Off' in Upcoming Anthology".  The stories will pair characters from well-known thriller series by writers such as Lee Child, Jefferey Deaver, R. L. Stine, Heather Graham, Steve Berry, Lisa Gardner, and more. (Jason Boog, 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 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)  
•  July 18 to July 24: Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers (read by Erin Moon; Recorded Books) and Hamlet by William Shakespeare (read by a full cast; L.A. Theatre Works)
• Open Road Media has 150 ebooks on sale, including Dorothy Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon, John Jakes' North and South, Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides, and plenty of SF, thrillers, literary fiction, and even nonfiction.  

Awesome lists: 

• "Best of Literary Google Doodles" (Kelly Jensen, BookRiot). Unfortunately, she didn't include any links, but you can explore these and more by going to Google Doodle and searching for "book" and "literature".
• "16 Fancy Literary Techniques Explained by Disney" (or rather, using Disney movies as examples.)  A remarkably useful post! (Adam Moerder, Buzzfeed)
• Fairy tales/Folk tales starring clever and courageous girls (A Mighty Girl)
• "The Audiophiles: 25 Audiobooks Librarians Want You to Take on Your Next Road Trip" (Rachel Smalter Hall, BookRiot)
• "Love's Better in Books: Five Romantic Summer Reads" chosen by novelist Eloisa James (NPR Books)

Really Cool:

World's longest book domino chain, produced by and in the Seattle Public Library.

Just for fun:  

• "The Magic Schoolbus Characters are All Grown Up and Dayum They're Hot".  Well, I don't know that all of them are hot, but if you or your kids were fans of the Magic Schoolbus books or animated TV show, take a look at what Phoebe, Arnold, Carlos, Wanda and the rest of the gang might look like as hip young 20-somethings. I love the geek-chic Arnold is sporting. (Buzzfeed; art by Nebraska artist Celeste)

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.