Today on the blog, I’m excited to have a guest post by Anna Staniszewski, author of the hilarious My Very Unfairy Tale Life series. The last book in the series, My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending, comes out on November 5th, so pre-order your copy now! Take it away, Anna! — Top Five Favorite Fairy Tales 1. East of the Sun, West of the Moon This has been my favorite fairy tale for years. At first it seems like it’s going to be similar to Beauty and the Beast, but then it evolves into

This is just too cool not to share. Make sure to watch towards the end to see the Brontësaurus in action! #charlottebronte #emilybronte #video

Redferret.net has an interesting blogpost about some new e-ink prototypes, including one with a flexible screen: #eink #ereader #video

I’ve decided to declare this week Monkey Week here at Monkey Poop in honor of my two year blogaversary! Okay, so the anniversary was actually about a month and a half ago, but whatever. Close enough! (This blog post is to be read to the tune of “Monkey” by Harry Belafonte from “Jump Up Calypso”–see the Animaniacs version below) First things first—why monkeys? I’m not really sure why. If I ever figure out the answer to that, I’ll probably have to let my family know first. One

In junior high (aka middle school to some) I did a project on Ray Bradbury and ended up reading all of his short stories that we had in our school library. I was a big fan, but somehow I haven’t read anything by him in a while. I should change that. (why are so many of my posts and tweets about things I *should* read?) #raybradbury #video

(via @bookninja #video

(via The Book Bench and via Book Patrol) #link #video

Okay this is a bit off-topic but in the spirit of my new motherhood I thought I’d share a few of my favorite Disney lullabies with you. These are songs I enjoyed as a kid and my baby daughter seems to like them too: “La La Lu” from Lady and the Tramp And here’s a non-Disney related one that I really like (and only recently discovered on a world lullaby CD called Dreamland that I got for Xmas on year): “Dreamland I also like Numi Numi from this same CD, but since it’s in Hebre

I seem to be in (yet another) Jane Austen kick these days. Author and Vanity Fair contributing editor Fran Lebowitz on Jane Austen (via Survival of the Book): [vimeo id=8100960] One thing Lebowitz says is that most people who enjoy Jane Austen are misreading her. What do you think about this? Some of the points she makes are pretty valid–I would agree that most people like the romance aspect of her works–but I’m not sure that reading it this way is “misreading” or “misunderst

Here is Neil Gaiman’s Acceptance speech for The Graveyard Book: You can see the rest of the videos here (including MT Anderson’s speech): http://www.hbook.com/bghb/video09.asp (via ReadRoger blog) #hornbook #mtanderson #neilgaiman #video

(as seen on bookshelves of doom) #AMC #MadMen #sesamestreet #video

…book machine that is! Check out http://www.harvard.com/bookmachine/ for more info. They’re also having a machine naming contest so email your ideas to them by Sept. 24th. As previously posted, here is a video of the machine in action: #contest #espresso #harvardbookstore #video

(via bookshelves of doom) PS I’m going on vacay for a week or so. I’ll be responding to emails, but won’t be posting to the blog. See you when I get back! #funny #mashup #video

this e-reader (called the Readius) looks really cool to me, but I guess they’ve been having trouble finding investors. I wish I could get a closer look at it. I wonder how durable the flexible screen is, but then, I’m sure my Kindle isn’t as durable as Amazon claims (and I’m not willing to test it out). #amazon #ereader #kindle #video

I’ve been hearing about this automatic book machine for a while now but this is the first time I’ve actually seen a video of the machine in action. Pretty neat. #espresso #video

(As blogged by bookshelves of doom) I’m pretty sure Sherlock wasn’t like this in the stories I read but it might still be entertaining: #video

An interview with one of my favorite authors: A Conversation With Jeffrey Eugenides – Video Library – The New York Times #links #video

So this morning, my husband showed me this XKCD comic making fun of Neal Stephenson’s new book Anathem (Disclaimer: I have not actually read this book): Then, later today, I read (okay skimmed) an interview with Neal Stephenson on Goodreads.com where he points out that even Harry Potter has loads of made up words. How fun would it have been if J.K. Rowling had called “quidditch” the “flying hockey-like game” instead? Or if Tolkein had called hobbits the “little furry-footed g

I recently discovered this lecture online and wish I could have gone to it. The speakers were Gregory Maguire, Susan Cooper, and Roger Sutton and they discussed writing fantasy novels. It’s about 1.5 hours long, so get comfortable! #fantasy #susancooper #video

Peta had this on her journal and I really enjoyed it. It is a lecture by Amy Tan on creativity from Ted.com #amytan #video