Saturday Miscellany — 9/13/2014

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:

• 3 Reasons Why Kids (and Adults) Need to Read More Now — not that I — or probably you — need convincing, some interesting statistics.
• Millennials read more books than their elders, Pew study finds
• Brash Books: What Sets Us Apart From Other Publishers — a nice introductory video to this new crime imprint (mentioned last week), if you check the right column, there’s some more videos about them. Am looking forward to handing them some of my money soon.
• Speaking of crime novels, Why today’s most exciting crime novelists are women — I’m not sure I buy all of Laura Miller’s take on the state of the genre, but there’s some good stuff about the new crop of female writers
• A nice Michael Connelly quotation from The Writers’ Police Academy
• The best place to hide a body? Just ask writer Tod Goldberg — Nice interview about Goldberg and his new book and The Rumpus has another one.
• When I Think “Fearless,” I Think of Flannery O’Connor — a nice piece on one of my favorites.
• The Epic POV — Kameron Hurley has an interesting piece on the multiple-POV style of so much contemporary fantasy. I’d quibble with some of this, but on the whole, it’s a good read. For not the first time (but maybe the first time on the blog), I note I’d rather read Hurley on fiction, than Hurley‘s fiction.
• How Rainbow Rowell Went From Newspaper Reporter to Superstar Novelist — One day, I’ll stop reflexively posting articles about Rowell. Today’s ot that day.
• Brimstone and Leather: A Eulogy for Kim Harrison’s Hollows Saga — Paul Goat Allen pays tribute to the series that ended this week. Nice piece, even if (as I’ve noted before), Allen clearly likes this series far more than I do.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot by Reed Farrel Coleman — Coleman takes over Jesse Stone and saves the franchise. Content-wise, anyway. Hopefully sales are enough to justify more than the few he’s signed up for. Loved this, I’ll add, in case my 5-star review was too subtle.
• The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison — I’m tempted to get this one now, after such a good experience with the penultimate novel recently. But, I’ve got 12 of these in paperback, I’m not breaking up the set. I’ll get to it in April.
• City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett — I’m hearing nothing but praise for this new fantasy.
• Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg — in case you couldn’t tell by the above two links, I’m pretty intrigued by this one. I’ve read a little of Tod Goldberg’s stuff before, and I’ve liked it, but this looks like it’ll be a stronger, more compelling work from him.
• Yesterday’s Hero by Jonathan Wood — Think I forgot to mention a couple of months ago, that Wood’s No Hero was being republished, so I’m making sure I talk about this republication. These two books rocked, and I was so disappointed that no one seemed to notice them a couple years ago when they were first published. Cannot wait for the overdue third in this series next year.