My week in books (#5)

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.

First up, I posted last week about getting Chris Colfer's The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns (which I reviewed here) and there was lots of love for the gorgeous cover and the spine. Well, the guy who illustrated the cover, and did the drawings inside, was the wonderful Brandon Dorman. You can see more of his lovely illustrations on his official website here.

Some lists (because you know I love lists):

• Buzzfeed did 15 books banned for the most absurd reasons. There's some unexpected ones in there, and my jaw dropped at the reasons giving for banning these novels at various times. 
• Also on Buzzfeed, a contributed post by Harper Collins on 16 bookstores you have to see before you die. My goodness, some of these book shops are amazing. If you know of any that aren't in the list, let me know in the comments.
• Talking of bookshops, The Guardian has an interactive directory here of independent book shops across Britain, and you can add any that are missing. 
• The Guardian is also liveblogging from the Edingburgh international book festival, so if you can't get there yourself you can keep up with what's going on here.
• Ginger over at GReads! did a list of sweet summertime back to school reads which you can find here. 

It can be difficult to buy presents for book loving friends, since they may already own too many (is there such a thing?) books, but I saw something else that is perfect for bookworms. The Literary Gift Company is selling this gorgeous literary map of Britain, which is just stunning.

Pan Macmillan this week featured a piece by one of their authors, David Jackson, on the ups and downs of being a crime writer. It's amusing and honest, and you can find it here.

I'm currently reading All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill and can already tell I'm going to have a book hangover after I've finished, a concept that's defined in lovely fashion here.

And finally, although not strictly a book thing but it does involve characters from literature as well as other mediums, Sophia McDougall wrote a great piece for the New Statesman here about why she hates Strong Female Characters. It's not what you think, note the caps.

Let me know if you've come across anything you want to share.