As told by Amazon:

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek’s throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren’t technically enemies.

Amazon currently has the hardback listed for $11.75. Now that’s a deal.

For more information about the series, check out Scott Westerfeld’s official site.

It’s that time. Only six years have passed since the last in the Song of Ice and Fire series was released, so the most of us have been waiting to see what the scoop is with the characters we like and not the crumb-bums of Feast for Crows. This is going to be a short post because I need to get to reading, but look at these few pictures of A Dance with Dragons! Oh man!

If you have been keen to the internet in the last month or so, you might have seen news about a new children’s book that aims to get them to go to sleep as easily as possible: by just telling them exactly what mommy and daddy truly are thinking. “Please, my darling, just go the f*** to sleep.” Now you don’t even have to read these words aloud, you can let Nick Fury do it!

Taking time off from yelling at other things, Samuel L. Jackson lends his voice to the audio version of Adam Mansbach’s Go the F**k to Sleep, and for a limited time, the audio version is totally free.

Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s profane, affectionate, and radically honest verses perfectly capture the familiar – and unspoken – tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, he opens up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations and laugh at their absurdity.

Audible.com has the book up for download right now for a limited time. Jump on it while you still can, and let you kid hear the truth.

American Gods

Here are the dates and cities:

New York City, NY – Tuesday, June 21 at 8:00pm
92nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall, Lexington Ave @ 92nd Street

Portsmouth, NH – Wednesday, June 22 at 7:30pm
The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, NH 03801

Washington, DC – Thursday, June 23 at 6:30pm (This one is already sold out. Sorry DCers.)
National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW Washington, DC 20045

Minneapolis, MN – Friday, June 24 at 8:00pm
Fitzgerald Theatre, 10 E. Exchange St.; St. Paul MN

Seattle, WA – Sunday, June 26 at 7:00pm
Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave. Seattle WA 98101

San Francisco, CA – Monday, June 27 at 7:30pm
First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA

Los Angeles, CA – Tuesday, June 28 at 8:00pm
Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211

For more ticketing information, head over to Neil’s post for links to the venues.

Additionally, if you haven’t read American Gods, you should probably do yourself a favor and get to it, you won’t be disappointed. And if you are, you probably didn’t read it right. For our take, you can check out Episode 70.

In doing some personal assessment of my reading habits, I have noticed that I really only end up reading in bed right before I go to sleep. Even though I may have plenty of time to read, all of my other toys end up getting in the way, forcing themselves into the limelight and making the thirty minutes to an hour before bed the only real time I have. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (I usually have pretty cool dreams as a result), simply laying down makes my reading time shorter because I will fall asleep in no time. Only in rare cases where the book is so incredibly engaging will I not fall asleep after a few pages. (As an aside: if you are having trouble falling asleep, start reading. This may not work for everyone, but it certainly works for me.)

As a result, I have been getting far less reading done this year than I have in previous years. Right now I am about on my sixth book starting the sixth month of the year whereas last year I would have been on my eighth. And somehow in college I read 20 novels in a year while still studying. But I digress; I implore to you, dear reader, to share with us all the best places you like to read. What’s the best place for you to focus? Throw something in the comments or email us at pnbfans@gmail.com and we might even discuss it on show!

Well, he did it. Ol’ Jimmy “slick jacket” Fallon shot up to the top of the charts over at Amazon with his fancy tricks. I, for one, congratulate him on this. The ever better news is that that ESPN book has dropped to number 3*.

If you would like to see what the book is all about, you can check it out right here.

*I am sure that that book is great.

It’s finally happened. After just four years in the mainstream market, it looks like these little electronic, non-tangible books we like to read on our Kindles have finally surpassed that of smelly, old, paper ones, at least, according to Amazon.

SEATTLE, May 19, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — (NASDAQ:AMZN)–Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Twelve years later in November 2007, Amazon introduced the revolutionary Kindle and began selling Kindle books. By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books – hardcover and paperback – combined.

These words come from a recent press release by the thieves of money themselves. It goes on to say that soon they will own your soul, as well. THEN it goes on to clarify: “Since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books.” Fine, Amazon, we get it, you make money. Now just tell me the next time you have a $20 coupon for pre-ordering a video game because I CANNOT STOP BUYING THOSE.

I would like to hear if Barnes & Noble is experiencing a similar growth pattern with their digital books. Although the NOOK is popular, it surely isn’t Kindle popular, and having actual stores to shop in probably still skews the numbers in favor of print.

Regardless of all of the above, I will still be buying A Dance with Dragons in hardback. Suck on that, NOOK and Kindle!

The book in question is Thank You Notes, an amalgamation of all the titular “Thank You Notes” from a segment he does every Friday on his show. The notes written thank various things throughout the week for what they contribute (or don’t) to society.

Jimmy “Luckypants” Fallon is has asked his followers to hold off on purchasing copies of Thank You Notes until tomorrow, Thursday the 26th at 3PM EST in at attempt to make it #1. I, for one, am eager to see how this plays out. It will be fun to see social media make a push like this (although assuredly he’ll announce this on his show, too, so it won’t be all Twitter).

So god-speed, Jim, let’s hope this book about ESPN off of the current top spot, because really, who cares about that book*?

*enough people to push it to #1

Earlier this morning, B&N held a short and sweet conference discussing this new device that supports a touch screen interface and a two month battery life. Two months?! That’s almost as long as the infinite battery life of actual books.

As a result of the whole thing being finger friendly, gone is the lower touchscreen display of the original NOOK. The device shown today came in a matte black finish and might be a little square for my tastes, but its super tiny form factor is perfect for reading and hating anything by Charles Dickens.

From the NOOK Color comes “NOOK Friends,” a way to keep up with your buddies on what they are reading and make recommendations like: “Hey, I noticed you are reading Twilight. I’m sorry, but I can’t speak to you anymore.” You apparently can also use the Tweeter and Bookface to inform your friends that you are boycotting Dan Brown because The Da Vinci Code is sacrilege and you don’t understand how fiction works. With a more responsive and less “laggy” screen, inputting text will hopefully make all of this much easier than before.

The device should be available to pre-order today for $139 and is supposed to ship around June 10th, right after you are trying to digest all of the awesome things that just happened at E3.

PRESS RELEASE AHOY:

Barnes & Noble Introduces The All-New NOOK™, The Simple Touch Reader™

Best Battery Life Ever – Up to an Incredible Two Months on a Single Charge

Ultra-Light and Compact for Optimal Portability, Lighter than a Paperback

Full Touchscreen with E Ink® Pearl Display Technology for Reading Anywhere

Optimized Display Performance Offers 80 Percent Less Flashing
than Any Other eReader for the Most Immersive Reading Experience

The Most Intuitive, Easy-to-Use eReader for Everyone

Barnes & Noble Expert Recommendations,

Plus the Most Social Reading Experience with NOOK Friends™

Pre-Order for $139 in Time for Father’s Day and Summer Reading

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today expanded its bestselling digital reading offering with the All-New NOOK, The Simple Touch Reader. With a full touchscreen, NOOK™ features record-setting, extra-long battery life on the easiest-to-use, ultra-light, portable 6-inch eReader with the most-advanced E Ink Pearl display, and the world’s largest bookstore available by Wi-Fi®. Now available for pre-order at www.nook.com and at Barnes & Noble stores for just $139, NOOK will begin shipping on or about June 10. Barnes & Noble adds the All-New NOOK, a significant leap forward in the dedicated eReader category, to a product line that includes the bestselling NOOK Color™, the only Reader’s Tablet™. Based on the success of the NOOK product line, combined with focus on the absolute best reading experience, Barnes & Noble now claims more than 25 percent of the digital book market – just 18 months after launching NOOK 1st Edition™.

“We set out to design the easiest-to-use, most optimized, dedicated reading device ever created and accomplished it with the All-New NOOK”

Barnes & Noble has always recognized the simplicity and ease that the element of touch brings to its NOOK product line, and the All-New NOOK is no exception. With a simple tap to the 6-inch touchscreen, it’s intuitive and easy to navigate, shop and read. Customers can look up words, highlight passages, adjust the font size and style or search by typing on the responsive on-screen keyboard that appears only when a customer needs it. The paper-like E Ink display features crisp, clear text that’s great for reading anywhere, even in bright sunlight. The no-glare display offers 50 percent more contrast than NOOK 1st Edition.

At only 7.48 ounces (212 grams), the artfully designed All-New NOOK is lightweight and thin – 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than NOOK Wi-Fi 1st Edition™. Lighter than a paperback, NOOK’s sleek but durable, compact design (6.5 inches high by 5 inches wide by 0.47 inches deep) makes it easy to fit in a jacket, pocket, purse or backpack, holding up to 1,000 digital books and more personal content using the expandable memory slot. Its ergonomic, contoured design with a soft-touch back makes it easy and comfortable to read, even with just one hand, and for extended periods of time. And thanks to best-in-class battery life, read for up to 2 months on a single charge with Wi-Fi off – that’s twice as long as the other leading eReader available.

Barnes & Noble’s use of the latest-generation E Ink screen and proprietary technology offers unmatched performance on the All-New NOOK, delivering a seamless and immersive reading experience. NOOK offers 80 percent less flashing than other eReaders – whether turning pages, browsing for books or scrolling through your library. Page turns are lightning fast, using the touchscreen or well-placed side buttons, and with the new Fast Page™ feature, just press and hold a side button to quickly scan through content and skip right to the desired section.

“We set out to design the easiest-to-use, most optimized, dedicated reading device ever created and accomplished it with the All-New NOOK,” said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “Touch makes it simple to use, and the beautifully compact design makes it the most portable eReader in its class. Add to that an unmatched battery life, the most advanced paper-like touch display on the market and wireless access to the world’s largest digital bookstore, and we believe that for readers of all ages, the All-New NOOK is the best eReader on the market, and a great value at $139.”

The World’s Largest Bookstore in Your Pocket

With the All-New NOOK, customers can enjoy a wide variety of digital content, all at their fingertips. Shop for everything from new releases and current bestsellers to classics and more, all in a single search. The NOOK Bookstore™ offers one of the most expansive digital catalogs of more than two million books, magazines and newspapers. Enjoy helpful recommendations from Barnes & Noble’s experts, personalized based on customers’ favored authors and genres, to decide what to read next. Have more than 80 popular national and local market newspapers and magazines from the NOOK Newsstand™ automatically delivered to NOOK the moment they’re released, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA TODAY, as well as Forbes, Reader’s Digest, Discover, Fast Company and New York magazine. All periodicals are available for subscription with a 14-day free trial or via single copies.

Most NOOK Books™ are $9.99 or less, including most of The New York Times Bestsellers, plus there’s over a million free classics. Enjoy more than 100,000 titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors using Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!™ digital publishing platform. Young readers will find more than 12,000 NOOK Kids™ chapter books in Barnes & Noble’s world’s largest collection of digital children’s content. Sample NOOK Book titles for free and download all content wirelessly over a Wi-Fi connection in just seconds.

When customers visit Barnes & Noble stores with their All-New NOOK, the shopping and reading experience gets even better. Connect to free and fast Wi-Fi and browse complete NOOK Books for free through the company’s innovative Read In Store™ program and get exclusive content and special promotions through the More In Store™ program. NOOK customers receive access at more than 24,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots, as well as other personal and public hotspots to browse, buy and download new content wirelessly.

Get Social with NOOK Friends

Another way NOOK customers can learn more about great books is through NOOK Friends, an exciting social experience previously available only to NOOK Color customers. From the home page, customers can see book recommendations from friends. See what your friends have posted about their current read, swap recommendations, share reading status, favorite quotes, and much more. Through Twitter® and Facebook® integrations, right from their current book, customers can tweet the title they’re reading, post on their Facebook wall and see what their NOOK Friends “like” on Facebook. With Barnes & Noble’s exclusive LendMe® technology, you can also lend eligible books to your friends at no cost for 14 days, and see and request to borrow friends’ LendMe books.

And coming in the next few weeks, Barnes & Noble will offer a new custom website, mynook.com, where customers can get recommendations from Barnes & Noble expert booksellers and NOOK Friends, access their NOOK Library™, and manage their device.

Read Your Way

Customers can customize their All-New NOOK and reading experience to their liking. Choose from 7 font sizes and 6 font styles. NOOK owners can personalize their device with one of Barnes & Noble’s screen savers or transfer personal photos (JPG, PNG, BMP and GIF) to make NOOK their own, and choose from a complete line of exclusive, new NOOK accessories (www.nook.com/accessories) to show their style wherever they go. They can also create personalized My Shelves to organize their NOOK Library and group reading content similar to their bookcase.

Read Everywhere

A customer’s entire NOOK Library follows them wherever they go. They can also easily transfer personal EPUB and PDF files to their All-New NOOK device to read documents on the go using the 2GB internal memory or a microSD™ card. Since the All-New NOOK is built on Android™ Operating System 2.1 and uses Adobe technology, device owners can also borrow digital books from their local library, a feature Barnes & Noble has always offered to NOOK device customers. Customers can also read seamlessly, accessing their NOOK Library and sync the last page read across their NOOK devices and their favorite mobile and computing devices using Barnes & Noble’s free line of eReading software (www.bn.com/freenookapps).

Availability

The All-New NOOK can be pre-ordered for $139 today and is expected to begin shipping on or about June 10, making it the perfect gift for dads and grads, and a great addition for every book lover’s summer reading wish list. Experience the All-New NOOK at www.nook.com or at the NOOK Boutiques™ and displays in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores. With The Barnes & Noble Promise™, the company offers unmatched customer support in neighborhood Barnes & Noble bookstores, as more than 40,000 booksellers across the country are ready to assist customers with setting up their NOOKs or choosing their next great read. The company also continues to provide award-winning customer service support via phone and email. The All-New NOOK will also be available beginning next month at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million, along with NOOK Color.

About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like™ with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Bookstore™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. The award-winning NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet™, the best-value on the tablet market ($249), features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. The All-New NOOK ($139), the Simple Touch Reader™, is the easiest-to-use 6-inch touch reader, with the longest battery life of any eReader. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOK Books™ for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe® technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million.

In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at www.bn.com/freenookapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™ smartphones and tablets BlackBerry®, PC and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study™ (www.nookstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids™ (www.nookkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en español™ (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.

For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday™ NOOK Books and more, follow us on www.twitter.com/ebooksbn and www.facebook.com/nookbn.

ABOUT BARNES & NOBLE, INC.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 705 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 636 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than two million titles in its NOOK Bookstore™ (www.bn.com/ebooks). Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook Readers, devices from partner companies, and hundreds of the most popular mobile and computing devices using free NOOK software.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

Yes, I know. You’ve all seen publication dates before: dates in 2007, 2008, 2009. None of those were ever hard dates, however. Most of them… well, call it wishful thinking, boundless optimism, cockeyed dreams, honest mistakes, whatever you like.

This date is different. This date is real.

OH MAN! And just because I can, I will be a total jerk and make you click-through to find the actual date!

*Drum roll* And the release date for this epic tome will be July 12, 2011!

I, for one, cannot be more excited. Well, I could be more excited, but my pants might verily explode. Martin says that he’s not totally finished, but the date is set and so it will be. Head over to George’s post for more info and cover designs.

You can also pre-order from Amazon already. I suggest you do so:
A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire)