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Despite being fictional, literary characters are near and dear to our hearts. But sometimes, those fictional characters turn out to not be so fictional after all. Yes, even famous whales and grumpy Potions professors have ties to living, breathing things. It's art imitating life in the most literal sense. Or rather, art stealing bits of life. Here are ten incredible examples.

The quality of songwriting is something of a Catch-22*. As record-store owner Rob muses in High Fidelity (the movie version): “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

You could say the same thing of allusions to famous works of literature in pop music: are they bad because the song itself is dumb, or is the song dumb because it’s got a hamfisted reference to Nabokov wedged in there? You be the judge. Here are six of the best/worst songs written by people who have clearly read at least one book and want you to know about it, dammit.

*I mean, I assume. I haven’t actually read it, but I wanted to make a book reference in the lede for this post about people throwing around casual literary namechecks, so IPSO FACTO

OTP: “One True Pairing.”

Ship: To endorse a romantic relationship.

Now that you know what I’m talking about, here are ten random ships that are truly meant to be together.

When we’re feeling down and need a pick me up we usually head over to YouTube to look at cat videos.  We found something equally as awesome.  If you’re a Whovian we’re sure you’ve seen these videos floating around cyber space.  We’re talking about fan made YouTube Doctor Who Mashups—and boy are they amazing!

We know the Doctor Who universe is much bigger than what we see on the show.  Thanks to YouTube, fans have taken it upon themselves to make some pretty interesting videos.  These are much more than fan fiction.  They’re a way for fans to give back to the franchise they love so much.  

We are still beyond thrilled that Countdown City by Ben H. Winters won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished original science fiction paperback—and now we've got pictures! Thanks to our pals at GeekyLibrary for snapping these. More under the jump!

Wow. It seems like just yesterday the entire Quirk Books office was freaking out over Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs being selected as a World Book Night title. We were absolutely thrilled and honored. 

And now, tonight's the night!

Join us and all the other publishers and authors involved in World Book Night! Tweet along and follow the hashtag #WBN2014 to interact with people participating, and celebrate the love of reading. You can also follow World Book Night and Ransom Riggs on Twitter. 

And guess what? We've decided to throw a fun giveaway to celebrate the special day. Check out the Rafflecopter below, and enter for a chance to win one of two bundles of Ransom Riggs books, including Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City, and his first book with us, The Sherlock Holmes Handbook. Each will have a signed bookplate inside. We'll also include some posters of Miss Peregrine and Hollow City. 

Good luck! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway