Today is the birthday of one of the world’s best-loved writers, Haruki Murakami, whose most recent novel, 1Q84, has just been released in English to much acclaim (in case you, um, haven’t heard). The cover art gracing American editions of his books is some of the most colorful and iconic in contemporary book-cover design, and it’s no wonder — they’re (at least for all relatively recent editions) designed by two of our all-time favorites: the hardcovers by Chip Kidd, the complementary paperbacks by John Gall. And true to form, 1Q84 has gotten quite a lot of attention for its amazing design as well. But since our experience with Murakami is so connected with the visual experience of his novels and collections (there’s a certain scene we flash on every time we see that Chip Kidd bird eye, without fail), we wondered how the rest of the world might see him, so we’ve put together this collection of wonderful Murakami book covers from other parts of the world — some beautiful, some strange, some inexpressible. Click through to check them out, all arranged by book for comparative viewing, and let us know your favorites in the comments.

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It’s a really exciting day for book worms: The eight annual TMN 2012 Tournament of Books has officially gone live! Click through to see which 16 “of the most cherished, hyped, ignored, and/or enthusiastically praised books of the year” will be battling it out in a NCAA-style bracket beginning March 7th, and let us know in the comments if you agree with the their picks. But be kind. TMN realizes that not everyone will be happy with their list. “Some books were dismissed for petty reasons,” they explain. “Some books were no doubt included for arbitrarily aesthetic ones. And there’s no getting around any of that, as far as we can tell.” Amen. We’re also curious: Are there any voracious Flavorwire readers out there who have already tackled all 16 books?

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We don’t know about you, but after we finish a dazzling piece of fiction, we want nothing more than to continue it in some way, to bring it to life in the physical realm. If our painting skills were anywhere as good as our reading skills, we would probably do just that, but alas, they are not. However, we can content ourselves with the knowledge that there are lots of wonderful works of visual, aural, and mixed-media art out there that are based on or inspired by books. Of course, many books are illustrated, and the illustrations are meant to reflect the story, but this is not exactly what we mean by “works of art inspired by works of literature” — otherwise this list would be full of artists like Ralph Steadman and Walter Crane, whose iconic illustrations knock our socks off. Instead, we tried to choose freestanding works that depicted or took influence from literature, whether directly or obliquely. Now, we are completely aware that the list of artworks influenced by literature is endless — especially if you consider the Bible literature — so here we’ve chosen a number of our favorite examples, trying to include both contemporary and classic works of art ranging from sketches to book-length collections of paintings to full-scale musical productions from artists both famous and largely unknown. Click through to see our list of great works of art inspired by great works of literature, and let us know your own favorites in the comments.

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We’ve talked about book cover designs — both new and old — quite a lot this year, and it’s no surprise. Being completely obsessed with pop culture as we are, we’re more than a little bit fascinated by covers, since they manage to combine two of our favorite things: literature and design. We’ve been tracking our favorite covers all year, but to get an expert opinion on the topic, we asked illustrator and graphic designer Andrew Henderson, who runs one of our favorite Tumblrs, Lovely Book Covers (tagline: yes, you should judge a book by its cover), to curate this list of the best book covers of 2011. Since he’s based in Scotland, several of Henderson’s choices are from UK or other foreign editions, which we think makes the list all the more interesting. Click through to see his picks for the most evocative, beautiful, and well-designed book covers of the year, and let us know if you agree with his assessments in the comments! Read More »

It’s the end of the year, which means every media outlet and talkative friend has been regaling you with a fascinating list of their own personal favorite books of 2011. Now, we love lists as much as the next guy, but we also like to think a little bit about what these highly subjective choices might say about the listmaker. After all, you wouldn’t take reading advice from just anybody, now would you? Or even if you would, you should at least know what essential qualities their picks point to. Click through to read our (decidedly tongue-in-cheek) breakdown of what your favorite book of the year says about you, and in case you were wondering, our pick is on here too, and hey, we can cop to it. Read More »

Earlier this week, The New York Times published their annual list of 100 Notable Books, just in time for the holidays. While we can’t deny that every book on the list is a great pick, 100 is a pretty big number, so in case you don’t have the time or eye-strength to plow through their monster list, we’ve distilled it to the essentials, at least according to us. After all, while you probably don’t have 100 people on your holiday gift list, you probably do have 10, and you’ll find a little something for everybody here. Click through to see our favorites from their list, and let us know which of these you’re psyched to read — or which of the 100 you’d have chosen instead. Read More »

1. Old Ideas, the lovely Leonard Cohen’s first studio album in seven years, isn’t due out until January, but you can already stream one of the tracks called “Show Me The Place” here.

2. Julie Delpy has signed on to direct The Right Profile, a biopic about Clash frontman Joe Strummer that will focus on his later years, which were spent largely outside of the spotlight. [via CinemaBlend]

3. Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, James Frey, and Chris Adrian are among the authors on the shortlist for the 19th annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which is organized by the Literary Review. The lucky winner will be announced at a ceremony on December 6. [via Telegraph]

4. According to a new study in the UK, more successful male artists have more sexual partners than less successful artists. Oddly, the researchers’ findings did not hold true for female artists. [via Guardian]

5. While discussing last weekend’s pepper spray incident at UC Davis with Bill O’Reilly, Fox News host Megyn Kelly felt the need to point out that it is “a food product, essentially.” Meanwhile O’Reilly says, “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police, particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” [via Gawker]

Bonus Buzz: Zoidberg Reimagined

Writers get a bad rap in the looks department: if you spend your time holed up and scribbling away, you must be a scrawny, pasty artist type, mustn’t you? Not so! There are a plethora of attractive and well-formed writers, both in history and today, that completely demolish such stereotypes, and whose likenesses we’ve collected here. Now don’t get us wrong — of course we believe that the stuff in their heads is much more important that the shape of their heads (or the shape of their bodies, for that matter) but that doesn’t mean we can’t applaud them for excelling in multiple areas. Plus, it’s well past time to make literature sexy again, and if writers can replace actors as pinups in our culture of ogling, we’ll be happy campers. We’ve tried to pick some contemporary authors as well as some more classic choices, and an equal number of men and women, just to be fair to everyone. Click through to see the authors we think have the best literary figures in history, and make sure to tell us your own picks in the comments.

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This week, we were surprised by the news that Emily Dickinson was a passionate baker, and it got us to thinking. Of course, some authors have exactly the hobbies you’d think they would — Hemingway was an avid hunter and fisherman, of course — but others are a bit more surprising. With so many cultural icons and celebrities, we tend to pigeonhole them like characters, fitting them into the roles they are most famous for instead of thinking of them as fully realized human beings — but famous authors have weird hobbies just like the rest of us, a few of which even make us think twice about that literary figure we thought we knew so well. Click through to see a few very surprising hobbies of famous authors, and let us know if you have the inside scoop on any more!

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Today at Flavorpill, we teared up a little over this story of an old married couple who died holding hands after spending 72 years together. We were shocked to discover that a Matthew Perry sitcom that’s more than 20 years old correctly predicted Qaddafi’s death in 2011. We wanted to eat this QReo – a scannable QR code made out of Oreo cookies. We found it hard to believe that Snoop Dogg turns 40 years old today. We loved listening to these kids back in the early ’80s explain what a computer was. We couldn’t decide whether or not we preferred this hilarious alternate ending to Back to the Future to the original. We were truly frightened to see what drinking, smoking, and eating too much will do to your face. We were thrilled to hear that the Wachowskis will be returning to their sci-fi roots with Jupiter Ascending — that is, after they wrap up work on Cloud Atlas. We enjoyed The Hairpin’s guide to eating your feelings. We listened to the legendary Chip Kidd describe how he came up with the cover design for Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. And finally, we took a trip down to New York City’s Lower East Side circa 1983, thanks to this trippy video by French filmmaker Marie Martine.