Book News: Twitter Vs. Congress, The Help Lawsuit, & Vampire Books to Video Game

With budget cuts of all sorts in the works all over the country, nothing makes me happier than the American Librarian Association taking political action to Twitter. The focus was a bill being pushed by U.S. Representative Scott Garrett (Rep. -- New Jersey) to eliminate federal funding for libraries. Garrett backed down, proving both the ALA and Twitter as forces to be reckoned with in the world of politics. Other funding being targeted for cuts is money that supports radio stations and public television stations.

One author in particular is having legal issues, although her "funding" is not being cut -- not yet anyway. Kathryn Stockett, author of the bestselling southern novel The Help, is being sued by her brother's family's maid. Ablene Cooper, who has worked for the Stockett family for more than a decade, claims that one of the main characters in the novel -- Aibileen Clark, an African-American maid -- "is an unauthorized appropriation of her name and image," according to the NY Times ArtsBeat blog. She is asking for $75,000 in damages.

Books are going high-tech this week with two new literary video games. Well -- I say high-tech a bit tongue-in-cheeky because the first is not very high-tech at all. Both literary classic The Great Gatsby and Charlaine Harris's True Blood-inspiring series have been made into video games.  

Illustration from Galleycat

The Great Gatsby game is, like the book itself, a bit dated. It was created for (those under 18 will have no idea what this even is) the Nintendo. As in the original Nintendo. Not the Wii, DS, or even the Gameboy. You can play online by clicking here. I went to try it and ended up playing for 20 minutes straight. It's actually pretty fun! The True Blood (or, to readers, the Southern Vampire series) game is for the PC and doesn't actually feature TB characters. Rather, it stars a vampire primarily mentioned in Harris's short stories. It's called Dying for Daylight and is available for download now.

Have a fabulous weekend, and happy reading!

I will be continuing my newfound love for all things YA, with both the Hunger Games trilogy book Mockingjay and the Pretty Little Liars series novel Wicked.