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If there’s one thing Nintendo is good at, it’s making money. Whether it’s new games coming out or taking old games and remastering them, they clean up every time. With Link’s Awakening and onward, they’ve shown a willingness to remaster and re-release Zelda titles that haven’t gotten a lot of recent attention, and Skyward Sword is the perfect example of that. Being a Nintendo Wii game, which meant a low-powered (but nifty) console running it as well as adding in motion controls, quite a lot of people skipped it or soured on it. Now, though, with the re-release of the HD edition, people who haven’t played it yet, or want to give it a second chance, will be able to on the Switch with prettier graphics and hopefully better controls.

But enough about video games. We’re here to talk about books, so with that in mind, let’s supposing you’re looking for more books that give you the same sort of feel as Legend of Zelda and its expansive world.

Photo by Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash.

Here in South Eastern Pennsylvania we have this heinous tradition of committing rambunctious pranks and acts of petty vandalism the night before Halloween. It is dubbed Mischief Night or Devil’s Night or Gate Night… or Moving Night, Goosey Night, Cabbage Night, Mat Night…you get the idea. New Jersey, Cincinnati, and Detroit know what we’re talking about, but for the rest of America and the globe, here’s a brief history.

No matter what you call the night though, it’s a night for throwing toilet paper into trees, egging houses, sticking forks in lawns (yeah, it’s a thing), and causing a good ol’ fashion ruckus. Think of it as The Purge, but not sanctioned by the government and hopefully with less destructive and life-threatening consequences. Sometimes it’s harmless and even fun, like hiding candy for your friends, but other times it’s more tricky, and we know a few mischievous characters who would take Mischief Night by storm.

[Photo by Kenan Kitchen on Unsplash]

Christmas is going to be here sooner than you think—and while that it true every year, this year it feels particularly sudden, as most people are still on their two-hundredth day of March! So to start building that Christmas spirit and adding a little positivity to the world, General Mills has blessed us with a brand new vehicle for morning sugar: Elf-themed cereal. This maple-flavored corn cereal comes with Christmas-shaped marshmallows, and after a year like this, no one is going to judge you for eating it from now till February.

So in honor of these little bowls of sugary joy, we’re taking a look at some of the most iconic elves in pop culture and seeing which are the best of the best.

[Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash]

There are many different types of punches in existence. The jab, the straight, the cross and the uppercut all of these are parts of the repertoires of the best pugilists in the world. Yet even all of those different punches don’t even scratch the surface of all of the punches in the world. To celebrate National Punch Day, we at Quirk decided to take a look at some of the greatest popular culture punches.

[Photo by Sound On from Pexels]

Here at Quirk we love video games with all our nerdy hearts, and since National Video Games Day is September 12th and we also love books, we thought we’d combine the two and pair some of our favorite video game soundtracks with your favorite book genres. 

Many of the following scores include tracks with more distracting sound from grand choral movements to light breathing (thank you, horror genre), so you may have to filter out some tracks for a more personalized playlist, depending on your individual tastes. But if you’re looking for some nice background music while you jump into your next adventure, romance—what have you—these soundtracks are a good place to start.

[source: blog post author Gabrielle Bujak]

Over the years, the Animal Crossing franchise has brought us comfort and joy via adorable animal villagers, ridiculous word play, and rewarding activities from catching that rare coelacanth to terra-forming the perfect waterfall. The irony of Blathers’s entomophobia makes us laugh, the way Timmy and Tommy echo one another makes us aww, and the surprising drama between Redd and Tom Nook build a world we can easily immerse ourselves in.

With the current state of the world, it only makes sense that we turn to the latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons to bring us that much needed sense of control and peace of mind, and because of their ability to delight and comfort us, it’s only fair we pay it forward…with personalized book recommendations! We’ve seen them pulling out books with their down time, and it’s about time they got that right. Here’s some reads they can add to their TBR piles.