The film adaptation of Katheryn Stockett‘s The Help took three awards at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards last night, including Best Ensemble Cast.

Follow this link for the full list of winners. Lead actress Viola Davis and supporting actress Octavia Spencer (both pictured, via) also won SAG Awards for their roles as Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson. Spencer recently received the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.

Both Davis and Spencer have been nominated for Academy Awards. The Envelope had this quote from Spencer: “I love taking men home. I would be lying if I didn’t say to you I would love to win an Oscar. But we have a group of brilliantly talented actresses, and it’s not a foregone conclusion that because I’ve won these [awards] then I’ll win [the Oscar].” (Via The L.A. Times)

Martin Scorsese‘s award winning adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick has lead the Academy Award nominations this year, earning 11 Oscar nominations.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–what did you think of the film? Earlier this year, we wrote about Selznick’s personalized tours of the American Museum of Natural History.

The Best Picture nominees included a host of adapted novels. Below, we’ve linked to free samples of books adapted into Best Picture-nominated films.

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Do negative reviews stop people from reading your books? Over at her blog, novelist Shiloh Walker disputed that claim in a passionate essay.

Check it out: “That negative review isn’t going to kill your career. Will it stop a few people from buying your book? Possibly–because that book may not be right for them. And FYI, one of the rants lately was that negative reviews discouraged people from reading … readers aren’t discouraged by ‘bad’ reviews. And guess what–that negative review may be the very thing that entices another reader to buy your book.”

We were so inspired by her post that we checked negative reviews of ten authors at Amazon–follow the links below to the many one-star reviews received by bestselling authors. Twilight topped the list with 669 one-star reviews. Read this list before you complain about your next bad review.

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George R.R. Martin has sold one million Kindle books. He joins the growing “Kindle Million Club” list with Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly, John Locke, Janet Evanovich and Kathryn Stockett.

Kindle Content VP Russ Grandinetti pointed to the author’s most appealing eBook feature: “Martin’s series is simply epic … And an elaborate series like this is great on Kindle because you can turn the last page of book three at 10:30 at night, then buy book four and be on its first page at 10:31.”

Is selling a million Kindle books still a dramatic feat? On Twitter, journalist Sarah Weinman wondered: “at some point it will no longer be news that an author has made it to the Kindle Million Club. That time might even be now.”

Hinds County Circuit judge Tomie Green has dismissed a lawsuit filed against novelist Kathryn Stockett by her brother’s maid. According to the judge, the statute of limitations had expired on the case before the lawsuit was filed.

60-year-old Ablene Cooper sued Stockett earlier this year, alleging that the author used “an unauthorized appropriation of her name and image” in the bestselling novel, The Help.

According to The New York Times, the lawsuit centered around a character named Aibileen Clark–an African American maid working in Jackson, Mississippi. Cooper has worked as a maid for Stockett’s brother and sister-in-law for years, and her lawsuit sought $75,000 in damages.

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Authors Janet Evanovich and Kathryn Stockett have each sold more than a million Kindle books, joining what Amazon has termed the “Kindle Million Club.”

The authors join the likes of Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly and John Locke, who have also passed the million mark in sales of their eBooks in the Kindle Store. According to the release, Stockett is the first debut novelist to reach this milestone.

Evanovich’s latest novel Smokin’ Seventeen has spent more than 100 days on the Kindle Best Seller list. Stockett’s novel, The Help, has been No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was just adapted into a film.

For your weekend reading pleasure, we’ve collected the ten most popular publishing stories of the week–ranging from the official trailer for an upcoming adaptation of Kathryn Stockett‘s The Help (embedded above) to a bookstore that only sells one book.

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1. Jon Krakauer Publishes Greg Mortenson Expose
2. Greg Mortenson Responds To Jon Krakauer & 60 Minutes
3. Author Opens ‘Monobookist Bookstore’
4. Scott Adams Caught Defending Himself Anonymously on MetaFilter
5. Jennifer Egan Wins Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
6. ‘Game of Thrones’ Reviewer Sparks Fantasy Controversy
7. General Electric Sponsors Free eBook
8. Time 100 List Includes Six Writers
9. How Advances Worked in 1984
10. The Help Trailer Released

Algonquin Books has launched the ‘Ask an Editor’ video series on their blog. Executive editor Chuck Adams stars in the video embedded above and answers the question: “How did you acquire Water for Elephants?”

Marketing director Michael Taeckens explained how it will work: “For this series, readers who have any questions about the publishing process can submit them on our blog or on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every two weeks a different Algonquin editor will select and answer one of the questions submitted.”

The next Algonquin Books Club will feature a conversation between Gruen and The Help author Kathryn Stockett on April 26th. Those interested can check out the website for a reader’s guide, essays by Gruen, and her recipe for oyster brie soup.

Algonquin Books has launched the Algonquin Books Club. The publisher has chosen twenty-five paperback titles from its list, building a readers guide for each book.

Here’s more from the site: “We’ll be featuring four Algonquin Book Club selections a year for dynamic literary events held around the country and simultaneously webcast on our site. For each event, an Algonquin author will be interviewed by a notable writer.”

The first event (March 21st) will be held in Miami at Books & Books. Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I’m Dying, will interview Julia Alvarez on her masterpiece, In the Time of the Butterflies. Below we’ve listed the rest of Algonquin Book Club’s 2011 event offerings.

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On her newly reluanched site, novelist Kathryn Stockett is building a Google Map with the names and locations of her readers around the country.

It’s an intriguing use of Google Maps–we imagine that many novelists (and readers) would love to actually see each other on a map. The Help is an especially interesting case study, tracking the physical spread of a popular book club book across the country. What do you think?

Here’s more from the author: “It has been an incredible ride since I started writing The Help in September 2001. After more than sixty rejections from agents, I am still surprised to see The Help on a shelf in a bookstore. And when readers share with me their personal connection to The Help, I am proud and humbled by their stories. Often, I am asked how I learned about the civil rights era and conducted my research. I always smile and shrug and say, I’m still learning from readers, every day.”