E-Book Version of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Coming Soon

It’s been more than 50 years since To Kill a Mockingbird was published, but the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of the classic novel has finally decided to let it be published digitally as an e-book.

According to The New York Times, Harper Lee has approved the e-book version of her novel, which will be available July 8th. Mockingbird and another classic, The Catcher in the Rye, are two of just a few classic novels left that had not yet been converted to a digital format. Mockingbird continues to sell one million copies each year and is read in schools across the country.

A digital audio version of the novel will also be available. It was be voiced by actress Sissy Spacek. HarperCollins has the North American rights; Random House has the rights in Britain.

Magazines Battle Over Long-Lost Hemingway Story

Ernest Hemingway may have already passed away, but he lives on through his work. Though the acclaimed other is best known for his novels like The Sun Also Rises, recently there has been some fighting between magazines over publishing one of his first short stories.

According to The Independent, Ernest Hemingway wrote the 5-page story “My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart” when he was 25 years old. At the time, he sent it to Vanity Fair to be published, but it was rejected. Now, years later — and posthumously — Vanity Fair has offered to print the story it initially turned down. But Hemingway’s estate now turned down their offer, as Paul Bignell explains.

Michael Katakis of the Hemingway Estate, told The Independent on Sunday: “We’re very careful with unpublished material. The question is: ‘If Hemingway were alive, would he want it published in a magazine like Vanity Fair, or would he want it relegated to a scholarly examination of how a writer was developing? […] “I’m not a great fan of Vanity Fair. It’s a sort of luxury thinker’s magazine – for people who get their satisfaction out of driving a Jaguar instead of a Mini.”

Vanity Fair snoozed, lost, and now it’s snoozing again, as according to Entertainment Weekly, Harper’s got the go ahead to publish the story.

Amazon Announces New Comics Imprint

Stories are told through and translated into different media all the time. Books become movies. Television series become books. Movies are turned into TV shows. Now, Amazon will be making money off of books being turned into graphic novels and comics.

According to the L.A. Times, Amazon is launching a new comics imprint under its publishing umbrella. Called Jet City Comics, the imprint will publish graphic novels by George R. R. Maritn (Game of Thrones), Neal Stephenson (Foreworld), and Hugh Howey (Wool). According to its press release, Jet City Comics will publish already-published novels in a graphic novel format. That makes sense, particularly for the Foreworld series, which was originally published by another Amazon imprint, 47North.

Jet City Comics will now be the tenth imprint under the Amazon umbrella.

What do you guys think of the whole idea of turning novels into graphic novels?

Roald Dahl E-Books Now Available

On what would be his 96th birthday, Roald Dahl gave the gifts to us! In honor of his birthday — September 13th — eight of the classic children author’s novels are now available as e-books, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Included in the releases are:

James and the Giant Peach

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Danny, The Champion of the World

George’s Marvelous Medicine

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Twits

Each e-book costs $6.99 — except George, which is $7.99. They’re each available on all e-readers. Just one problem. What about The Witches and Matilda? Those are easily Dahl’s biggest bestsellers, and they’re not included. It’s unclear whether or not more of Dahls’ classics will be released at a later time. What do you think? Oversight or is it all part of Penguin Young Readers’ master plan?

 

‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ E-Book Now Available

First there was the book. Then there was the movie based on the book. Then they were books about the movie. And now there’s an e-book version of the original book. Got it?

Truman Capote’s beloved Breakfast At Tiffany’s was released just last month as an e-book for the first time, thanks to Vintage Books. According to Entertainment Weekly, this is not the only Capote book that’s going digital. Also released were The Grass Harp and Music for Chameleons.

Vintage is also planning a paper reissue of some of Capote’s work, including the classic In Cold Blood.

Get Breakfast at Tiffany’s on your Kindle now for just $9.99.

Get The Grass Harp on your Kindle also for just $9.99.

Get Music For Chameleons on your Kindle for $11.99.

Fifty Shades of Grey and Between Shades of Gray: Not the Same Thing

Fifty Shades of Grey  is not the only “grey” in town. But avid readers think it is and are consistently confusing it with the other one: Between Shades of Gray.

According to Entertainment Weekly, people are stopping in bookstore,s where there are readings for Between Shades of Gray confusing it for the sexy Grey. But what they’re learning is that they’re liking this other story — this completely unsexy story, as Stephen Lee explains.

Many of the E L James fans who wander into her readings — most of them men, she notes — stick around and end up learning something.

Between Shades of Gray is a young adult novel that tells the story of a girl struggling through the Baltic genocide. (See? CLEARLY not sexy.) However, the book is getting great praise on its own accord. And while the author, Ruta Sepetys, could find the confusion between the two hits frustrating, she appreciates it. After all, it’s bringing new readers to her book.

“The subject has come up at every high school and every bookstore I’ve been to,” Sepetys says with a laugh. However, she counts the title confusion as a positive.

Between Shades of Gray is resonating with people in a much different way than Fifty Shades, and despite its unsexiness, it definitely sounds as though it’s worth a read. Find out more about the novel from EW’s interview with Sepetys.

Or pick up a copy of Between Shades of Gray for $8.99 on your Kindle or in paperback.

Making The Hunger Games Your Bible…Literally

In case you haven’t heard or read enough about The Hunger Games in the last two weeks, here’s some out of the ordinary Hunger Games news for you. A Bible study group from North Carolina has been hosting Hunger Games-themed Bible study classes.

That’s right. According to this article by The Huffington Post, two reverends, Andy Langford and Ann Duncan, say they’ve found a number of parallels between The Hunger Games and the Bible, like selfless love and sacrifice. Since January, about 80 people have attended their sessions called “The Gospel According To The Hunger Games Trilogy.” The pastors say they felt this would be a good way to relate to teenagers in their churches, as Duncan explains.

“We’re not trying to make [the series] something that it’s not, but we’re trying to find themes that we as Christians can relate to,”Duncan said in a press release.

The study is available as an e-book on Amazon, as a means to reach people outside of their North Carolina community. So what do you think? Does The Hunger Games have religious undertones? Is this a good way to get people talking about religion?