Readers

Writer and artist Brian Joseph Davis has launched The Composites, a Tumblr site with an ingenious premise: he posts computer-generated sketches of book characters.

Check it out: “Images created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters. All interesting suggestions considered.”

Above, we’ve embedded a computer-generated sketch of Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. (Via Maud Newton)

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Want to help give away one million books? On April 23rd, UK and US readers will join the second annual World Book Night–sharing one million free books with other people.

Follow this link to participate as a book giver. Booksellers and librarians can also join the evening of literary activism.

Check it out: World Book Night 2012 will be held on April 23 – in the US and the UK – and we’re looking for 50,000 volunteer book givers to hand out 20 copies each – for a total of 1 million free special World Book Night paperbacks! In order to be a book giver you must be: Aged 16 or over and a resident of the United States. Able to pick up 20 copies of your book from your local bookshop or library. Committed to giving your books away on World Book Night to non or light readers.” (Via Edward Champion)

Over at Reddit, one user asked an excellent Friday question: What’s the best book you’ve read in a single day? Add your favorite one day book in the comments section or share it on Twitter with the #1DayBook hashtag.

So far, the question has generated hundreds of responses. Below, we’ve collected some of our favorites. This GalleyCat editor will never forget reading South of the Border, West of the Sun in one heady day in college.

Check it out: “What’s the best/most unusual/longest/most enthralling book you’ve read in a day? DON’T SAY HARRY POTTER; we’ve all done that. Mine? The Third Policeman. I read it in a trance in the Dublin airport when a blizzard was keeping me from getting home. It’s a surrealist horror story.”

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The Sydney Morning Herald recently invited its readers to help write a “crowdsourced” novel, The Necklace.

As the story was unveiled online, readers could submit the next chapter of the book. The newspaper editors chose chapters to include in the book. Follow this link to read The Necklace in its entirety.

The final book contained nine chapters written by ten different authors.  The first section came out in December. Follow this link to watch a video with more details about the book.

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How many books will read this year?

Over at Goodreads, you can monitor your reading goals at the 2012 Reading Challenge. So far, more than 76,500 readers have pledged to read nearly five million books this year–recording their progress at Goodreads.

Follow this link to join the free 2012 Reading Challenge. Simply log in and answer the question: “I will read ____ books this year.”

Happy holidays! GalleyCat readers around the world have been building Book Christmas Trees all month.

After we shared a photo of a Book Christmas Tree, many of our readers started building their own. We’ve collected 21 trees in our holiday slideshow (embedded above)–a virtual Book Christmas Tree Farm.

Building a tree of books is a simple but powerful way to show your support for print books and bookstores in this digital age. If you build your own, be sure to email GalleyCat a photograph.

As the holiday season nears, one Reddit user posted this inspiring picture of a Book Christmas Tree. UPDATE: Explore our growing Book Christmas Tree Farm for inspiring photographs of other holiday book trees.

The Book Christmas Tree has already earned thousands of views. It is a simple but powerful way to show your support for print books and bookstores in this digital age. If you build your own, be sure to email GalleyCat a photograph.

We only have one question: What book will you put on top of your Book Christmas Tree?

Have you ever dreamed of having a secret room concealed behind your bookshelves?

Over at WikiHow, one crafty reader published elaborate plans for how they built a secret door behind a bookcase. It involves a lot of construction, but we can all dream, can’t we?

Check it out: “It not only indulges your inner mystery-lover, but it also makes extra use of an otherwise unusable and perhaps not aesthetically pleasing space. What follows is the general process for building a hidden door bookshelf that, if you have basic welding and carpentry skills, you can customize to your specifications.” (Image juhansonin)

Last year novelist Neil Gaiman launched an international Halloween tradition of giving scary books to the people you love. The All Hallows Read site has lots of book recommendations.

In 2010, Gaiman wrote: “I propose that, on Hallowe’en or during the week of Hallowe’en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they’ll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they’ll enjoy. I propose that stories by authors like John Bellairs and Stephen King and Arthur Machen and Ramsey Campbell and M R James and Lisa Tuttle and Peter Straub and Daphne Du Maurier and Clive Barker and a hundred hundred others change hands — new books or old or second-hand, beloved books or unknown. Give someone a scary book for Hallowe’en. Make their flesh creep … Give a scary book.”

What scary book will you give to a loved one? This GalleyCat editor will share a copy of Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones with a friend–it’s a postmodern horror novel that will break your mind into little pieces. Share your recommendations in the comments section and help other readers find scary books to give as gifts.

The Moth StorySLAM Storytelling Series has expanded to Louisville, Pittsburgh and Ann Arbor.

See all the October events here. Although the series already regularly hosts events in Chicago, the organizers will also double the series’ presence in that city. The storytelling slam already runs in New York City, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

Here’s more from the release: “Kicking off on September 27th, the monthly Louisville StorySLAM will take place at Headliners Music Hall on the last Tuesday of every month. Pittsburgh’s StorySLAMs will commence on October 11th and will be held on the second Tuesday of each month at Club Café. Ann Arbor’s StorySLAM series will be held on the third Tuesday of each month at Circus. Chicago’s existing StorySLAM series will be expanded with a new installment every third Monday of the month at the Haymaker Pub & Brewery.”