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Pigs often get a bad rap. They’re known for being dirty, shrewd, and violent, even though they actually make excellent companions. But for every Animal Farm villain, for every terrifying pigoon in Oryx and Crake, there is a work of literature that, rightfully, shows pigs as the intelligent and good-natured animals they are.

That my favorites are all from children’s literature should not dissuade kind readers, for what is more truthful than a child’s story? In honour of National Pig Day [March 1], let’s take a closer look:

Doctor Who is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary season. During those tumultuous 50 years The Doctor has come in contact with a number of great characters. Not only does he have an impressive array of companions, but he also comes in contact with historic and fictional characters. He’s met Sherlock Holmes and fought alongside Blackbeard. There is no limit to the Doctor Who universe. Now that Matt Smith is gone and Peter Capaldi has taken the reins (literally) we think The Doctor should run into a few other fictional heroes.

Image via Tumblr

We have all just about survived this winter, even though it has been a tough one and doesn’t seem to be letting up just yet.

Knowing how to survive falling through ice may save your life if you fall through a lake or a large pond, which thankfully, doesn’t happen every day, but this advice may also save your toes (and possibly ankles) from being frozen solid if you are out and about in the city and fall through a large puddle which has iced over, soaking your feet in ice cold water.

NOOOOOOOOO

Ever since the first human scribe put stylus to parchment, books have been destroyed. Bummer, right? And, ironically, not something you read about that often: history’s written by the victors, and sometimes the victors are real jerks and don’t even start writing their own yay-me congratulatory epics until they’ve burned up all written evidence to the contrary. Literal scorched earth, if you know what I mean.

While we may not know what we’ve lost, we at least know where we lost it from. Here are six of the most tragic burnt-up, smashed-down, flattened-over, and ripped-to-shreds libraries in history.

So fashion! Wow. Such style! Very haute! Amaze.

Here at the Quirk HQ, we love the hilarious, grammatical disaster that is the "doge" meme. And by we, I mean myself, editorial assistant Blair Thornburgh, and frequent Quirk blogger Brian Morrell. True story, Brian's favorite doges in literature post is a treasured piece of writing that is referenced weekly via Gchat. 

This April, Quirk is proud to be publishing Haute Dogs by Russell van Kraayyenburg. Full of fancy and appropriately "haute" hot dog recipes, it's just a great cookbook packed with amazing recipes and beautiful food photography. And we'd like to give you a chance to win a copy, in the silliest way possible.

We'd like you to Photoshop your own Haute Doge, and send it over to us here at Quirk! Take the wonderful doge we all know and love, and make that puppy look as fashionable and hip as possible. You can email us your hilarious image (to [email protected]) or tweet it to @QuirkBooks. We'll pick our five favorites on March 10th, post them here on the blog, and send you an early copy of Haute Dogs! 

Note: You can grab the original photo over at Know Your Meme. 

Good luck! Be amaze! 

Writers everywhere were abuzz this weekend with the news that Amtrak is piloting “Amtrak residencies”—train trips provided to authors for the sole purpose of writing. Really, there’s no better place to get some quality authoring in: the scenery flying past, the white noise of the tracks, the chance to eat breakfast one place and dinner somewhere miles away…it’s like Walden Pond on wheels.

We here at Quirk are ALL ABOARD with this idea. In fact, we’d like to submit our entire company for one of these railroad residences. We want to be the first train-based publisher. We think we can, we think we can, and here's our plan!