Ruth Madoff and Andrew Madoff, the wife and son of the infamous swindler Bernie Madoff, appeared on 60 Minutes last night to explain their side of the story. According to their interviews, the family had no idea that Bernie was embezzling billions of dollars and running a Ponzi scheme.

“I trusted him,” said Ruth in the interview. “Why would it ever occur to me that it wasn’t legal? The business was, his reputation was almost legendary. Why would I ever think that there was something sinister going on?”

The interview comes as two new books have emerged about the Madoffs. Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family by Laurie Sandell includes interviews with the family members. It came out today from the Hachette Book Group.

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Aurora Anaya-Cerda wants to bring her online bookstore La Casa Azul to the real world with a store in Harlem. Anaya-Cerda is using Indiegogo.com, a site that helps creative projects raise funds, to raise $40,000 in 40 days.

Follow this link if you want to donate.  La Casa Azul specializes in Latino literature, and the idea behind the physical store is to create a hub for this community. UPDATE: The campaign closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Here’s more about the project: “Using the concept of placemaking, La Casa Azul Bookstore aims to create a business that is much more than your average retail store by offering book clubs, author signings, story time for children and a community meeting space. La Casa Azul Bookstore will sell new & used books, coffee, pastries, art, clothing and locally-made cards and gifts. A fresh stock of books by local and Latino writers will help solidify our niche as a purveyor of authors of local and regional interest.”

HarperCollins Publishers revealed today that they have sealed a “definitive agreement” to buy Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Terms of the deal were not revealed, and will be finalized by the end of the year.

Follow this link to read the complete release. Thomas Nelson publishes many inspirational titles, including books by authors like Billy Graham, Max Lucado and Dave Ramsey. In 1988, HarperCollins acquired the Christian publisher, Zondervan.

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray had this comment in the release: “Founded in 1798 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Thomas Nelson shares a long and rich heritage with both New York’s Harper Brothers and Scotland’s William Collins & Sons. It is thus with great pleasure that I look forward to welcoming Thomas Nelson to the HarperCollins family.”

The Man Asian Literary Prize longlist was announced today. For your reading pleasure, we’ve collected links to free samples of the books on the prestigious list.

The shortlist will be revealed in January and the winner will be announced in March.

Here’s more: “The Man Asian Literary Prize was founded in 2007. It is an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year … The winning author is awarded USD 30,000 and the translator (if any) USD 5,000. Submissions are invited through publishers based in any country.”

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While Wizard of Oz-themed costumes are popular every Halloween, author Gregory Maguire will be “hanging up his broomstick” with Out of Oz, the fourth and final title in the Wicked series. The book will be released tomorrow.

We caught up with Maguire (pictured, via Andy Newman) to talk about the lengthy writing process that went into this work and his thoughts on creating fantasy fiction. The highlights follow below…

Q: Describe your writing and research process for the concluding title in the Wicked series, Out of Oz.
A: It’s very interesting for Out of Oz, the fourth in a series of four books. It’s 500 pages long and the three books, lined up together, that precede it are 1000 pages. So in order to research for that, I had first to read all three books over again. While I did that, I took notes of what happened. So, I have about a 32-page synopsis of those three books in which every single scene; what happens and what’s important to the scenes is written in the first person. Even within a scene, if there’s a line break showing a different time or a different place in the world I make note of that with everyone so I know where every character is at every point.

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Looking for something spooky to read this Halloween? At eBookNewser we’ve put together a list of 10 Free eBooks for Halloween, all which are sure to give you a scare.

The free selection includes haunting classics such as Edgar Allen Poe’s Fall Of The House of Usher, Shunned House by H.P. Lovecraft and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

We put up free eBooks a few days a week to help you build your digital library without having to max out your credit cards. We try to vary the devices, so there is a little something for everybody. For more free eBook exploration, check out our list of 10 Websites To Download Free eBooks.

As fangirls prepare to dress up in their Katniss Everdeen costumes for Halloween, a Hunger Games spoof will be published on November 15th.  The video embedded above features the book trailer for The Hunger But Mainly Death Games–what do you think?

Curious readers can access the first chapter on Scribd. Here’s more about the book: “[This is] the only book brave enough to suggest that The Hunger Games was way more about death than food. Or at least this is what Bratniss Everclean discovers, when she shortsightedly volunteers for a teenage death tournament. But she soon realizes there are fates worse than death…like having to kiss her fellow competitor and lifelong stalker, Pita Malarkey.”

On Amazon, “Bratniss Everclean” is listed as the author, but the cover image lists Aaron Geary and John Bailey Owen as the authors.  According to Amazon, Harvard Lampoon will publish another spoof  in 2012, The Hunger Pains.

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RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire could close by the end of the year if the owner can’t secure new funding and a new location by the end of the year.

Bookstores around the country are struggling as both adult paperback and hardcover sales have declined 18 percent this year-to-date. In the meantime, the owner has shortened hours to 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the week.

Owner Tom Holbrook explained online: “for RiverRun to survive we must not only find a new location, but we also need to re-capitalize the store.  Much of our trouble started in 2007 when I took a large loan to buy out my business partners, so I am now more than willing to take on new partners, if there is anyone out there foolish enough to be interested. So I am looking for new space and for new investors.  Without those two things, it is very possible that RiverRun will close at the end of December.  Inquiries and ideas can be emailed to me in confidence at riverrunevents [at] gmail [dot] com.” (Via Shelf Awareness)

In a spooktacular, ghoulicious episode of “5 Things You Need to Know This Week,” we count down our five favorite Halloween costumes. With special appearances by Beyoncé, Blake Lively, Brian Williams, and Brian Williams.

For more videos, check out Mediabistro.tv, and be sure to follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Driving home with her GPS last week, author Jennifer Weiner was inspired to write her first ghost story, Recalculating. She published the story today as digital Halloween treat.

It took Weiner five hours to draft the 35 page story about a haunted GPS device. In a matter of two days, the team at Atria Books edited the book and designed a cover. You can find the digital short for 99-cents on Amazon, on B&N and on iTunes.

What do you think? Here’s more about the book: “I was thinking of a darker, more dangerous kind of GPS. And then, I started asking the writer’s big question: why? Why would a GPS want to do a bad, bad thing? Just like that, I had a story. An abused wife. A dead husband who doesn’t want to stay dead. A gift-wrapped box in the attic…and a GPS that starts telling its new owner to make some seriously wrong turns.”