Saturday Miscellany – 1/4/14

This is the biggest of my weekly collections of odds and ends (especially years’ ends) that caught my eye. Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Reading a novel exercises ‘muscles’ in the brain, researchers find — This is just fascinating — and one more reason to read novels. Another take on the story.
• Making Excuses for Science Fiction — Kameron Hurley’s piece is a must read
• “A Barkeeper Entering the Kingdom of Heaven”: Did Mark Twain Really Hate Jane Austen? — Emily Auerbach’s article on Twain’s detesting Austen is great.

There were a lotta good reads in 2013, here are a few readers’ takes on the best of the year. I was hoping to have my list ready, but it’ll take another day or two:

• Only the Best Sci Fi’s Top Ten New Releases of 2013
• SciFiChick’s Best of 2013 (I hadn’t heard of a lot of these)
• Fantasy-Faction’s Best Fantasy Books of 2013
• io9’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2013
• Cory Doctorow’s favorite fiction debuts of 2013
• Sarah Weinman’s Favorite Crime Fiction of 2013
• Oline H. Cogdill’s The best mysteries of 2013 and his Dozen Authors to Watch and Read
• Ivory Owl Reviews Best Books of 2013
• The Well-Readheads’ Year in Review

And a couple of glimpses into 2014:

• The 14 Greatest Science Fiction Books Of The Year — from Buzzfeed
• 10 New Series/Standalones to Look For in 2014 — from Tenacious Reader
• title — blah

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Twenty Palaces by Harry Connolly is now in hardcopy! Should probably pick up a copy to go with the rest of the series.
• Gryphon Precinct by Keith R.A. DeCandido — I enjoyed the first of these, need to get my hands on the rest
• That’s it for this week, but next week has a few that look good, 2014’s going to be off to a great start