Smarter (Or At Least More Informed?) Saturday

In order for you to have an informational Saturday, I have compiled a list of links to articles that I've found interesting over the week and to news you might have missed:

On Cracked, which is like my favorite site on the whole of the internet (I can spend an entire day just reading their articles and never get bored.), they--in their signature sarcastic and snarky style--listed 5 best-sellers and their funny reasons for being rejected by publishers.

"5 Hilarious Reasons Publishers Rejected Classic Best-Sellers"

For the fans of the Downton Abbey and Pride & Prejudice (two of my favorite things!), Matthew Miller compared the series with our favorite of Ms. Austen's books and told us why one is superior. 

"Downton Abbey as a Jane Austen style Tragedy"

On PublishersWeekly.com, Kevin Smokler, author of Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven't Touched Since High School, talked about 10 classics and why we should reread them.

"10 Classic Books You Read in High School You Should Reread"

The Justice Department okayed the proposed merger of Penguin and Random House this week and company officials expect to receive the rest of the approvals during the second half of the year. (This is one of those things I can't decide if I'm excited about or not... Anyone with me?)

Lots of YA movie adaptation news in the past couple of weeks, including:

• Shailene Woodley is apparently in talks to star as Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars
• A brand new trailer for The Host was released (and it looks AWESOME!)
• A script for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 has been finished and the screenwriter, Danny Strong, has been given the go-ahead to begin the second part
• The Book Thief movie has cast Sophie Nelisse, Emily Watson, and Geoffrey Rush
• Emma Roberts has been cast as Lena in the television adaptation of Lauren Oliver's Delirium
• Oscar nominated director Scott Hicks is in final negotiations to direct the adaptation of Lauren Kate's Fallen
• Universal has already picked up rights to Julie Kagawa's new series--which is set to be released by HarlequinTEEN as a 5 book series starting in 2015
• The Maze Runner movie is set to be released February 14, 2014

So there you have it; it's not much but I hope you're informed and entertained! :) I'd love to know what you think about any of this, especially some of that movie news (Shailene Woodley, enough with the YA movies! We're bound to get tired of you.) Happy Saturday!