As the Book World Turns

The New York Times picked their Best Illustrated Books of 2011.

Bestselling YA author John Green signed 150,000 copies of The Fault In Our Stars this week, and urged fans to order their signed copy from their local indie bookstore. We agree! We are currently accepting pre-orders for The Fault In Our Stars.

Mega mall developer Simon Property Group is suing Indiana to force Amazon to pay sales tax.

Walmart, Target and other big box retailers are refusing to sell the new satirical memoir The Last Testament: A Memoir (by God) written by former The Daily Show Executive Producer David Javerbaum. Don’t worry, America, we have plenty of copies for you – and we’ll have Javerbaum himself here on Monday, November 28th, 7p to address this controversy, as well as what it was like to work one on one with the Almighty, directly.

The Millions has a nice little piece this week about the limitless essay topics provided by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

If you have a pirated Dummies eBook on your computer, um, now’s the time to delete it. Wiley’s coming after you.

Stieg Larsson all over again, but different: this week Crown nabbed the next “it’s gonna be big!” Swedish thriller series, The Andalucian Friend, at Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Man Asian Literary Longlist was announced this week. Yes, Murakami’s on it.

The 2011 World Fantasy Winners were announced at the World Fantasy Convention.

St. Mark’s Bookshop in NYC has won some relief from rent woes that would have forced them to close the beloved shop – landlord Cooper Union, who raised the indie store’s rent earlier this year, has made some concessions after a vocal protest and petition from the store’s customers, and the urging of Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer.

Hey there, frenzied NaNoWriMo writers! Not to put any extra pressure on you right now when you’re busy monitoring that word count, but University Bookshop in Seattle is giving you a chance to be published!

HBO is officially proceeding with production of the TV version of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, with Franzen working on the adaptation.

Publisher HarperCollins purchased publisher Thomas Nelson this week.

So there you go, those are the highlights. Next week is a big one around here – John Hodgman, Marcel the Shell, and the Cake Boss. Christmas is coming. The books are getting signed.