Google has created an interactive Google Doodle celebrating Douglas Adams‘ 61st birthday. The UK author is best known for his comedic science-fiction series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Check out this YouTube video which shows how internet users can interact with this animated doodle. Random House posted a screenshot of the art piece on Facebook and drew 266 “likes.”

Here’s more from ABC News: “Google’s doodle includes references to Adams’ work: a towel, which according to Adams’ book, is an essential item for space travel, a cup of tea, a staple of his oeuvre, and when users click the door in the doodle, Marvin, the beloved ‘paranoid android,’ from ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide‘ appears.”

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Today marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. You can download a free eBook edition or a free audiobook copy of the novel.

Here’s more from the BBC: “It has one of the most famous opening lines in literature, it turned Colin Firth into a heartthrob and it spawned a zombie spin-off. Now Pride & Prejudice  has reached the venerable age of 200…First published by Thomas Egerton in 1813, Pride & Prejudice  was Jane Austen’s second novel.”

According to the article, Austen dubbed this work her “own darling child.” UK readers purchase approximately 50,000 copies every year. In honor of this occasion, we’ve put together a list of three ideas on how fans can celebrate.

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Small Demons, the site that explores the people, places and things inside of books, has cut a content deal with Penguin.

Here’s more from the release:

Having already inked deals with Simon & Schuster, Random House, Harper Collins and Hachette, Small Demons now has content deals with five of the big six publishing houses. Many books within the Penguin collection, including bestselling genre fiction and the world’s leading classics brand Penguin Classics, will begin to appear on the site over the course of 2013, allowing readers to explore their favorite books and draw surprising connections between seemingly disparate literary worlds: from Jack Kerouac’s jazz legends to Jim Butcher’s Chicago wizards, from Jane Austen’s genteel England to Charlaine Harris’s tumultuous Bon Temps, Louisiana.

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Breaking Dawn Part 2, the last installment of The Twilight Saga film franchise, has been released this week.

We’ve collected links to five free digital books that inspired Stephenie Meyer while she wrote the novels behind the movies. In an interview, Meyer (pictured, via) talked about her favorite authors. She explained:

I’ve been reading books for adults my entire life. Growing up I was an avid reader—the thicker the book, the better.  Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, The Sword of Shannara, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, etc.  I’m a huge fan of Orson Scott Card, and Jane Austen– I can’t go through a year without re-reading her stuff again.

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What’s your favorite kind of book? We’ve created a giant flowchart to help you browse the top 50 free eBooks at Project Gutenberg.

Click the image above to see a larger version of the book map. Your choices range from Charles Dickens to Jane Austen, from Sherlock Holmes to needlework. Below, we’ve linked to all 50 free eBooks so you can start downloading right now. The books are available in all major eBook formats.

Follow this link to see an online version of the flowchart, complete with links to the the individual books.

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The Hunger Games trilogy now rules Amazon Kindle’s Most Highlighted Passages of All Time List. Out of the ten most popular quotes underlined by Kindle readers, eight passages were from the dystopian trilogy that spawned a blockbuster film.

The only non-Hunger Games book to crack the top ten most highlighted passages of all time list was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This quote has been underlined by more than 8,800 Kindle users: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Here is the most highlighted passage of all time on the Kindle, a quote from Catching Fire (the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy): “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” This quote has been underlined by 17,784 Kindle users.

Last month, writers around the world took the Month of Letters Challenge, a month-long letter writing marathon created by novelist Mary Robinette Kowal.

We interviewed Kowal on the Morning Media Menu podcast today, finding out how she wrote more than 300 letters in February. The author of Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass shared how a month of writing letters influenced work on her novels.

Kowal explained: “I said that people could write to Jane, the main character of my novels and I would answer using an actual quill. She’s been getting one or two letters a day. I’m glad she isn’t getting the volume I’ve been getting. It’s been a great exercise, people will ask me questions about the world that I haven’t thought about … it gives me an opportunity to let my character think of things that are outside the plot of my novel.”

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Crime novelist Lindsay Ashford‘s new novel, The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, explores the possibility that Pride & Prejudice author Jane Austen was murdered.

According to The Guardian, Ashford read about symptoms of arsenic poisoning while combing through old volumes of Austen’s letters. A scholar told her that Austen’s hair was once tested for arsenic. Austen said she suffered from rheumatism, a disease treated with arsenic in the 1800s.

In the article, Ashford explained: “Having delved into her family background, there was a lot going on that has never been revealed and there could have been a motive for murder. In the early 19th century a lot of people were getting away with murder with arsenic as a weapon, because it wasn’t until the Marsh test was developed in 1836 that human remains could be analysed for the presence of arsenic.”

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Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson has landed a deal with Penguin Young Readers Group to write The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit.

The book is slated for release in September 2012 to commemorate the 110th-year anniversary of Beatrix Potter‘s The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The book will be released simultaneously in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Here’s more from the release: “In The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter’s adventures take him beyond the boundaries of Mr. McGregor’s garden, all the way to Scotland, where he meets the gentle giant Finlay McBurney, a distant Scottish relative. Emma was inspired to set the tale in Scotland by her knowledge of Beatrix’s childhood holidays there.”

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While many know actor Ralph Fiennes for playing Harry Potter‘s nemesis Lord Voldemort, he has also started directing. One of his post-Harry Potter film projects includes directing an adaptation of The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin.

The nonfiction book tells the story of an affair between Great Expectations author Charles Dickens (pictured, via) and actress Nelly Ternan. According to The Guardian, Abi Morgan wrote the script. The release is set for late 2012, coinciding with Dickens’ 200th birthday.

Here’s more from the article: “Dickens was 45 when he met Ternan, then 18, in 1857. Their relationship remained secret from the public, even after Dickens’s separation from his wife the following year. Ternan travelled with the author for the rest of his life; after his death, she married a man 12 years her junior, having disguised her own age as 23, rather than 37.”

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