For your weekend reading pleasure, here are our top stories of the week.

They included Amazon’s move to acquire Goodreads, books that made us cry, and Quentin Tarantino movies as paperback books (embedded above).

1. Quentin Tarantino Movies as Paperback Books

2. Books That Made Us Cry

3. Amazon to buy Goodreads

4. Jim Carrey to Self-Publish a Children’s Book

5. Free Sites to Promote Your Book

6. BookBub Counts More Than One Million Subscribers

7. Science Fiction Books That Inspired Elon Musk

8. Library Marriage Proposal

9. Ally Condie Lands Deal for Two New Novels

10. Successful Query Letters for Literary Agents

Here are some handpicked titles from our Coming Attractions page. Want to include your book? Just read our Share Your New Book with GalleyCat Readers post for all the details.

The Teacher’s Guide to Spying by Daniel Abbott: “My name’s Fox. Augustus Fox. Or Gus to my friends. English teacher, part time carer for an autistic brother, a really rather amateur poker player, and soon to be something of a reluctant spy. When a recently arrived Russian gangster asks me to privately tutor his son, MI5 come calling and I soon find myself caught up in a web of lies and deceit – and not even allowed to blog about it.” (February 2013)

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Ever since the news broke that Amazon will acquire Goodreads, readers, writers and publishing folk have been arguing about what it means.

Some readers already want to change social networks, and AppNewser has a list of non-Amazon alternatives to Goodreads. Amazon has an indirect stake in LibraryThing, a site where readers can share their book collections. Creator Tim Spalding wrote an evocative note about the acquisition:

Now that Goodreads is just Amazon, the time and money publishers spend on Goodreads is like everything else they do with Amazon–good in the short term, but suffocating them in the long-term. The same goes for many other players. With Amazon in the drivers’ seat, you can bet that B&N, Kobo and Indies are going to drop and be dropped by Goodreads like a hot potato. If any non-Amazon “buy” buttons remain, they’re going to be buried deep. And B&N is hardly going to encourage people to use Goodreads now that every item of data Goodreads get goes to build Amazon and the Kindle features Goodreads is promising. In short, we gained a lot of friends today.

(Via Jennifer Howard)

The Axis of Awesome has released a video (with NSFW language) for “Rage of Thrones,” a rock and roll argument about George R. R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones series.

The singer wails the band’s answer to the eternal question: can a ever movie be better than a book? The song has a simple message: “Hollywood cannot live up to the power of imagination” and makes a long list of movies to defend his point.

What do you think? If you agree, you might want a “The Book Was Better” t-shirt.

We spend a lot of time covering independent authors on GalleyCat, bringing news from the self-publishing world every week.

In an effort to consolidate our reporting, we will release a monthly Self-Publishing Intelligence Report that links to all of our resources for indie authors. Below, we’ve linked to our bestseller lists and the top news stories about this booming corner of the publishing industry.

If you are an author, check out our new online course – finish your book with the help of bestselling independent authors.

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The Authors Guild called Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads ”a truly devastating act of vertical integration” in an online dispatch. Guild president Scott Turow had this statement:

Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads is a textbook example of how modern Internet monopolies can be built … The key is to eliminate or absorb competitors before they pose a serious threat. With its 16 million subscribers, Goodreads could easily have become a competing on-line bookseller, or played a role in directing buyers to a site other than Amazon. Instead, Amazon has scuttled that potential and also squelched what was fast becoming the go-to venue for on-line reviews, attracting far more attention than Amazon for those seeking independent assessment and discussion of books. As those in advertising have long known, the key to driving sales is controlling information.

What do you think? The Guild cited Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson as an example. The book has 123 customer reviews at Amazon, but 469 reviews on Goodreads.

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A number of publishers announced new hires and promotions this week.

Ethan Nosowsky will return to Graywolf Press as editorial director. From 2007 until 2011, he held the title of editor-at-large at this house. He left the company to work at McSweeney’s.

In addition, three members of the Graywolf Press staff have received promotions. Jeffrey Shotts has been named executive editor. Leslie Koppenhaver has been appointed finance and business director. Steve Woodward moved up to associate editor.

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Adam Johnson has won The Morning News’ annual Tournament of Books with The Orphan Master’s Son.

The contest pits novels in a competitive bracket like basketball teams during the NCAA tournament. The two finalists this year were The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and The Orphan Master’s Son. Johnson had this statement:

I’ll admit I’m a ToB addict, so it’s a special honor to be included in the bracket and to survive some fascinating matchups. And to get bumped, only to Zombie back? My highest achievement. Really, I read it all—the reviews, the color commentary, the reader comments, the NOOK ads—and it always got my day going by thinking about books: why we write them, how we read them, how we speak to them, what they mean to us. I will now demand that my publisher place silver Rooster stickers on all the paperbacks.

Amazon will acquire Goodreads, the social network for readers.

The online retailer did not share the terms of the deal and expects to finalize the acquisition by the second quarter of 2013. The deal drew mixed reactions from online readers. In addition, AppNewser collected non-Amazon alternatives to Goodreads.

The founder of LibraryThing predicted in a post: ”Now that Goodreads is just Amazon, the time and money publishers spend on Goodreads is like everything else they do with Amazon–good in the short term, but suffocating them in the long-term.”

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Want to write a novel in April? You should take the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge next week.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place every November, but the organizers created the online camp to give writers an alternative time for the writing challenge. Here are some of the new features:

The Word-Count Archery Range: Maybe, for whatever reason, 50K just wasn’t the right fit for you. Thankfully, you can now adjust your targets and take aim at a word-count goal anywhere from 10K to 999,999. …Your Camp Cabin: Do you need silence to concentrate on writing your novel? Or do you find flashes of genius in the chatter of your fellow cabinmates? Choose your bunkmates based on age, shared genre, similar word-count goal, activity level, or by name! … The Arts and Crafts Tent: We’ve got some beautiful web badges ready for you to trumpet your participation at Camp.

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