Undead Austen, celebrating Darwin and more

First, I kid you not, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies It features "... the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action."

If you think Bruce Springsteen is awesome (as any music lover should), check out his bookshelves. (The titles are taken from a shot in the current issue of Rolling Stone.)

Sir David Attenborough has a few thoughts for creationists who send him hate mail as he celebrates Darwin's multiple anniversaries this month:

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

You can read more about Darwin online in the current issue of Smithsonian and in two articles in National Geographic. (And in my February column which will go online next week at Bookslut.) (And one of the more interesting sounding new books out on this subject that I haven't had a chance to read is Darwin's Garden by Michael Boulter. It's one to keep an eye out for.)

Finally, steampunk fans need to keep their eyes peeled for The Affinity Bridge by George Man. From a recent Tor post: "The book follows the adventures of Maurice Newbury, detective for the Crown, and his assistant, Ms. Veronica Hobbes, a team who sit somewhere between a classic Sherlock Holmes and Watson pairing and that of Doctor Who’s Doctor and one of his more capable companions. They inhabit a wonderfully-realized steampunk London, replete with clockwork butlers, airships in the skies, and zombies in Whitechapel."

It's due from Tor in July.