Author Mary Roach shared a funny and timely story on Twitter recently, forgiving a reformed book pirate in a post.

She wrote: “This is a first: Guy mailed a fan letter, a $10 bill, and apologies for having downloaded a pirated copy of Packing for Mars. Forgiven.”

The post spawned a wide ranging conversation about book piracy on Reddit as different readers confessed to piracy. One reader explained: “I’ve actually bought books and then downloaded pirated copies because I prefer to read them on my computer.” Another reader added: “I’d be far more happy directly sending the author the money as opposed to giving it to a publishing house.”

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced the seven guest editors for its Best American series. Shelf-Life offered the complete list:

The Best American Short Stories: Geraldine Brooks
The Best American Essays: Edwidge Danticat
The Best American Comics: Alison Bechdel
The Best American Nonrequired Reading: Dave Eggers (with an introduction by Guillermo del Toro)
The Best American Travel Writing: Sloane Crosley
The Best American Science and Nature Writing: Mary Roach
The Best American Sports Writing: Jane Leavy

The Sun Herald has more details about the guest editors’ backgrounds. In years past, the series has also published in the categories of mystery stories, recipes, and spiritual writing.

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How do you review a book trailer? For a special Friday afternoon edition of GalleyCat Reviews, we are comparing two book trailers that reenact scenes from their respective books.

Both trailers are embedded below for your weekend viewing pleasure, The first video (currently with 9,330 views on YouTube) is for Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. The second video (currently with 1,257 views on YouTube) is for The Four Fingers of Death by Rick Moody

How do you feel about book trailers that use actors, props, music, and digital effects to recreate moments from a book? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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BookExpo America (BEA) has today announced that Jon Stewart will make an encore BookExpo America performance–serving as master of ceremonies at the Author Breakfast on Thursday, May 27. In a crazy political pairing, the host of The Daily Show will introduce memoirist and politician Condoleezza Rice.

According to the Grand Central webpage, the host’s book The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book) will be published in September. Stewart first hosted the BEA breakfast in 2004. Among other big guests at the two-day fair are: Cory Doctorow, William Gibson, John Grisham, Sara Gruen, Christopher Hitchens, Patton Oswalt, and Mary Roach.

Event Director Steven Rosato had this statement: “We are incredibly fortunate to have these authors assembled at our show and I know that will be a great draw for BEA and will ensure that these events will sell out. Above all, I am thankful to the publishers who support us, and who bring their authors to BEA so that we might all enjoy meeting them, and hearing what they have to say. It’s a very unique and special opportunity for anyone who is part of the book industry and who attends BEA.”

The complete release is embedded below.

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Earlier this week, Forbes reporter David K. Randall scored a book deal for his new nonfiction book, Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange World of Sleep. The book will be edited by Jill Bialoskly at Norton.

Via email, the first-time author delivered a piece of simple, but powerful advice about finding an agent. “I found my agent, Larry Weissman (pictured, via), through perhaps the most boring way possible. I collected a bunch of books that I liked that had the same sensibility of the book I’m working on, and searched through the acknowledgments section to see who represented and edited them,” explained Randall.

He continued: “Larry’s name popped up in Michael Schaffer‘s One Nation Under Dog, Christopher McDougall‘s Born to Run and Sasha Issenberg‘s The Sushi Economy, so I knew that he was open to books that unpacked parts of our everyday lives–like running and owning pets. I could see a book on sleep fitting into that sequence, so I sent Larry an email. He wrote back a few hours later and asked for a full proposal, and we went from there.”

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Author Mary Roach entertained an adoring crowd at the Bodies Exhibition in downtown Manhattan this week. Her short lecture included bawdy tales of toothbrush abuses, ultrasound sex, and other strange frontiers of the science of sex.

GalleyCat caught up with Roach for an interview, discussing what it was like to write her own clinical sex scene and speculating about the future of digital books. This was Roach’s only New York City stop during the paperback tour for her latest book, “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.”