My week in books (#3)

My week in books is a feature where I share things I've found interesting from the past week that concern books, literature and all things book blogging.

I have so many things to share this week, I'm not quite sure where to start.

I guess with something everyone's been talking about - the cover reveal for Cress by Marissa Meyer, which you can see here. This is a beautiful cover, and definitely my favourite from The Lunar Chronicles so far.

The Atlantic did an interesting article on why children's books matter about the New York Public Library's exhibition on children's books (here). I've always been a firm believer that you shouldn't discriminate against literature because of who it's aimed at, so it was lovely to see this piece, the introduction of which should be a manifesto of sorts for children's books:

"A good children's book is a young person's earliest exposure to art and design, a conduit for parental bonding, a means to teach individual and social lessons, and these days, possibly the last vestige of printed matter for the next digital generation as it weans itself from ink on paper to pixels on screens."

I can't tell you how much I agree with the above statement.

I saw lots of lists this week that I loved:

• Marie Claire did 15 classic books you have to read at least once, which you can find here.
• The Guardian looked here at six self-publishing surprises, and discovered some really unusual books.
• Buzzfeed had some fun here and came up with six perfect ice-cream flavours for book lovers. Let me know in the comments if you come up with any.
• I found lots of lists on Stylist, from 100 best opening lines from children's books, to 100 best closing lines from books, to the 50 most romantic lines in literature. They've got lots more, and you can create your own lists on the site as well.

There was lots of great advice being offered to bloggers and authors this week, from all sources. Some of the best include:

• Trish at Between the Lines is doing a great series on marketing for bloggers, which is full of sage advice. You can find the first post here.
• The Guardian did a piece here on why authors need to join the PR circus.
• Asti at A Broken Heart shared her tips on having a breakout blog, and similarly Chris Hill over at songofaseagod gave advice on how to get more views.

This week I also followed some great publisher Twitter accounts, my favourite of which was @HodderFiction, who spent the week running great competitions (disclaimer: I won a book from them!).

And finally, it's not quite about a book, but the British government is trying to stop a ring belonging to Jane Austen leaving the country, as it was won at auction by Kelly Clarkson. What do you think? The Guardian debates here.

Did you spot anything this week you wanted to share? Let me know in the comments.