As holiday preparations begin to overwhelm even the most organized of us, let’s take a quick look back over the past seven days before this week’s news gets rolling.

At The New York Book Show, an annual competition held by the Bookbinders’ Guild of New York, Gail Carriger’s Soulless and Nicole Peeler’s Tempest Rising both won for best mass market paperback cover design.

Philip Palmer (Red Claw) had a not-to-be-missed blog entry on the Meaning of Life, and how he knows what it is; and A. Lee Martinez’s new entry on monsters (specifically, the universality of Godzilla) appeared even as io9.com was recommending his book, Monster.

Our Creative Director Lauren Panepinto allowed us to spy on a cover photoshoot for Jennifer Rardin’s forthcoming Bitten in Two; related that Nicole Peeler is considering getting a tattoo of a fabulous vampire heart that appeared in Tempest Rising, and suggests others who should be inked; and directed our attention to Orbit author Jeff Somers’ site and his fresh new video and presented as well the cover for his upcoming The Terminal State.

And last, but far from least, Devi Pillai alerts us to the publication of Pamela Freeman’s Full Circle.