Awards! The Orange Prize Shortlist was announced last week and consists of: Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan, The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (I’m sure Godelinde will be more than a little suprised 
), Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick, and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.
- A very interesting article on the future of academic publishing – I think there are quite a few valid parallels to “regular” book publishing here, too. Speaking of which, here’s a post on a new way of marketing books.
- We tweeted you the link a few weeks ago, and now smalldemons.com’s book-connecting database has made quite the impression on last week’s London Book Fair participants.
Quiz! We missed Shakespeare’s birthday last week (d’oh!), but here’s a HuffPost quiz on the man for a little after-celebration (apparently I can only Shake or Speare, not both, since I got 5/10).
- Lists! For the young and academic among you (in body and/or in spirit), flavorwire.com has a list of 10 Literary Party Animals – just in time for Koninginnedag! They also have 10 Great Books to Read Aloud (not picture books to read to your children, though, fun as those might be).
- The fine link between editing and altering, as laid down by Raymond Chandler.
- And finally, for those of you happily into season 2 of Game of Thrones on tv, here’s a drinking game to go with it (via buzzfeed.com):
Tags: awards, Bookbits, drinking games, lists, quiz, raymond chandler, smalldemons, the future of marketing, the future of publishing
8 out of 10 on Shakespeare, but with the good luck that I’ve been rereading some of the plays lately…