Friday Link Dump: Coverflips, Face-melds and Disney Students

-Maureen Johnson challenged her Twitter followers to flip the gendered design of famous books, with very interesting results.

-The CW picks up more YA-inspired TV series.

-Here's what Disney characters would look like as modern-day college students.

-Beyond Blue released a great ad about anxiety this week, while Hyperbole and A Half is back from a long hiatus to discuss depression in her own awesome way.

-Interspecies friendships are probably my favourite thing ever.

-Closely followed by these face-melds from Team Coco.

-I also got a giggle out of this The Walking Dead bad lip read.

Friday Link Dump: Game of Thrones, and more Game of Thrones

-This book blogger asked his two-year-old to judge books by their covers. And it was awesome. (101 Books)


-This artist created colour charts out of the content of classic novels and the outcome is super pretty. (Flavorwire)

-One talented guy in the Sydney Uni bell tower played the Game of Thrones theme song and it was brilliant. (Pedestrian)

-These two sites poking fun of Game of Thrones are my new favourite Tumblrs. (Tumblr)

-Here is Jack Gleeson being quite charming and friendly and decidedly un-Joffrey like. (YouTube)

-This is what historical figures would look like today. (The Telegraph)

-What do you get when you ask Redditors the creepiest thing their kids have said to them? A lot of creepy and even more hilarious comments. (Reddit)

-I'm pretty sure this video is the reason the Internet was invented. (YouTube)

-Be prepared to be turned to goo. (Buzzfeed)

Bookish Buys: Penguin Pretties by Coralie Bickford-Smith

Happy Boxing Day! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. But how awesome is Boxing Day? The stress of Christmas is over and you can chillax with the fam and your new toys. Or plan what to spend your money on, if Santa blessed you with cashola. Like the pretties in this post. And hey, even if you're not up for spending in the post-Christmas haze, you can still enjoy the book porn.

See, Penguin sure knows how to do the classics - which basically means they know how to make you want to pay for them as opposed to getting them all online for free. They just have to wrap them in gorgeous covers and put them together as part of a collection, and suddenly I want to give Penguin all of my money. A lot of their best covers are designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, including:

The F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection

The Clothbound Series

Penguin English Library

(click to embiggen)

Great Food Series

Aren't they all just beautiful? So far (ahem) I've got The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle from the Clothbound Classics collection, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte from the English Library collection. Needless to say, there's many, many more I'd like to get my hands on!

Are you a fan of collecting series? Do you judge choose books by their covers? Because I totally do, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Much.

Friday Link Dump: Blurbs, Baby Animals and A Very Bad Idea

Source

Jennifer Love Hewitt wants to adapt Pride and Prejudice. For Lifetime in the US. And she wants to call it Darcy's Town. And I have no words.

Here's the complete story of Harry Potter in poster form. It's pretty awesome.

It's kind of hilarious when book blurbs are the equivalent of: "you've had a haircut." Think, "this is a book" - or about as useful.

HuffPo has a list of celebrities who have modeled for book covers. They forgot Courtney Cox and Jennifer Connelly!

Do you know your celeb doppelgangers? Take this quiz to find out. Either it's super easy or I spend waaay too much time looking at celebs, coz I got 'em all.

This Christmas light hanger (is that the proper title? It'll do) really hates his job, apparently, and decided to troll a whole town. Penis humour FTW.

BABY ANIMALS. 'Nuff said.

Faves of 2011 Book Awards: The Covers

The Faves of 2011 Book Awards are hosted by Nomes at Ink Crush.

 

Day Five: The Covers

TEN favourite covers selected from books you read in 2011

1. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. It's such a beautiful illustration and perfectly captures the feel of the book. 

2. Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. It's pretty, colourful and fun, and a great representation of the glossy, poppy, bright content.

3. Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. For starters, it's pink. It also has super cute illustrations, and the back is designed to look like a postcard. Adorable.

4. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Creepy girl levitating + vintage feel + cool fonts = awesome cover.

5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I got the movie tie-in, so the cover is actually the movie poster, but I adore it. It's haunting and beautiful, just like the book itself.

6. The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens. I have the hardcover, and I love the green and gold design once the dust jacket is removed.

7. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. I'm not a fan of the photo, but the hardcover underneath the dust jacket is a beautiful colour. Unfortunately I can't find a picture of it and I don't have the book with me at the moment to snap one, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

8. Cargo by Jessica Au. Amazing illustration.

9. Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. It's fun, quirky, unique and adorable - a perfect representation of the characters and story within.

10. Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson. This book is a novelisation of the movie, so it makes sense for the cover to be the same as the movie poster. If there's one thing that's great about the movie/book, it's the imagery!

What were your fave covers of 2011?

Bookish Buys: Penguin Classics

Penguin has been releasing such amazing editions of their classics lately. The Popular Penguins are fun, but these designs are on a whole 'nother level...

-The Clothbound Classics, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, are just stunning. I have The Hound of The Baskervilles, but I adore the rest of the collection, too. These are some of my faves:

-There's also a range of Clothbound Children's Classics, which are kinda more beautiful, if that's even possible:

-I think the Penguin Threads are my absolute faves though. The hand-stitched cover art is by Jillian Tamaki.

-In honour of World Aid's Day, Penguin recently released a few Red Classics with really cool covers:

-The Great Ideas series comes in five sets, each with a different colour theme, and they kinda need to be seen as a whole for the design to really be appreciated. But the covers are awesome on their own, too:

 -The Pocket Penguin designs are a bit more varied, but still pretty great:

-Similarly, the Deluxe Editions all have unique and striking covers:

All I have left to say is well done, Penguin! I want everything. Repeat editions and all.