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Thanks to Amazon’s awesome Summer Big Deal promotion, you can get a number of Quirk titles on the cheap for your Kindle, from $2.99 to $3.99.

The selection ranges from our Quirk Classics (including the entire Pride & Prejudice & Zombies trilogy) to some of our Secret Lives titles. You can even grab The Sherlock Holmes Handbook, which was Ransom Riggs’ first book with us before his bestselling YA novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

I’ve got the full list (and links!) below. The promotion ends on the 23rd, so get them while you can.

Photo by Dorkys @ Dry As Toast

Heading to the New York City International Gift Fair? We’ll be there, August 19th though August 22nd. Please stop by our booth (#7549!) where we’ll be showing off all of our classics and our exciting new books for Fall 2012!

All titles will be eligible for the show special; an additional 2% discount off the invoice’s retail value or an additional 30 days dating, (90 days EOM total).

So come stock up! Or at least swing by and say hello.

Quirk @ the New York City International Gift Fair
August 19th – 22nd
www.nyigf.com

If you’re a lover of both literature and body modification, you’ll understand the longing to get a book tattoo.

Between quotes, illustrations, and tattoos of just books in general, we’ve compiled some amazing pieces of ink! Here are ten of my favorite, beautiful book tattoos.

And if you can’t get enough of them (I sure can’t), check out the website Tattoo Lit, now a book published by our friends Harper Perennial.

Primarily known for his contribution to dystopian literature with his publication of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley helped shape the world of literature, especially science fiction.

However, his involvement in culture within and outside the literary realm is far more substantial than one may initially think.

To commemorate Huxley on his birthday (born 118 years ago), here are some fun facts about his life:

Disney rejected Huxley’s screen play of Alice in Wonderland—there were simply too many big words. However, the final portrayal of the hookah-smoking caterpillar is supposedly a nod to Huxley.

Huxley appears on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Huxley’s eyesight problems drove him to give up his dreams of being a scientist and instead begin a writing career. He was practically blind for a few years as a teenager.

George Orwell and Stephen Runcimen were Huxley’s students.

Literary friends of Huxley included Ray Bradbury and D. H. Lawrence.

Huxley borrowed the title of his book The Doors of Perception from a line of William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He similarly alludes to Miranda’s speech in Shakespeare’s Tempest in his title Brave New World.

Huxley died on November 22, 1963—the same day that C. S. Lewis and JFK died.

At Huxley’s request, his wife Laura administered LSD to her husband a few hours before he died.

Photo by Loudest Noise

Some of fiction’s greatest stories revolve around the anti-villains, the wrongfully accused, or the unfortunately misunderstood.

Today, we take a look at ten characters whose crimes ought to be excused by reasons of redemption-by-death, traumatic childhoods, or a shift in the moral event horizon.

Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter): A married woman has an affair that results in a child, but refuses to give up her lover, and is literally branded a slut for everyone to see. Sure, during the era the novel is set adultery is a stoning offense, but by today’s standards, Hester’s dalliance with Dimmesdale would only earn her a spot on Real Housewives of Boston.

When you take into account that her elderly husband sent her to live in the village by herself, the outcome is hardly surprising, or deserving of such punishment. Hester deserves a pardon, and if she lived today, she’d probably have a book deal.

Severus Snape (Harry Potter): The Potions master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry makes the list as it remains unclear whether or not Severus Snape’s bravery is known after Harry defeats Voldemort. The only proof of Snape’s true loyalty lay in Dumbledore’s Pensieve, and probably didn’t survive the Battle of Hogwarts, so the world may never know that Snape was, in fact, the greatest triple agent the Wizarding World had ever seen. With that secret out, he surely deserves forgiveness for whatever crimes he might have committed while undercover.

As a writer, it’s always interesting to see how Hollywood portrays our kind.  I still haven’t seen a movie that shows a writer in her pajamas at three in the afternoon with a sink full of dirty dishes, but there’s hope.

Where do all of these fictional writers get such excellent outfits?

Unforgivable (now playing – limited release) This film, originally released in Belgium last summer, tells the story of a crime writer who moves to an island in Venice.  In a cinematic meet-cute, the writer falls in love with his real estate agent and agrees to purchase this writing oasis on one condition: that she also moves in.

The romance takes a dark turn when the author hires someone to follow his new wife, but doesn’t he look great in that flannel?

Lila, Lila (now playing – limited release) Released in Germany in 2009, this romantic comedy focuses on an unassuming waiter named David who falls for Marie — who claims to fall for writers.  David is defeated, until he purchases a secondhand end-table at a flea market and finds a manuscript hidden in its drawer.  Passing off the novel as his own, David woos Marie and the two fall in love.  But complications arise when Marie secretly submits the manuscript to a publisher and David unknowingly becomes a best-selling author.

Could someone please tell me where these people are who fall for writers?  And grab me one of those excellent suit jackets while you’re at it.