Saturday Miscellany – 12/5/15

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:

• 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards Winners — I’ve never claimed to have the most mainstream taste, but I’m very underwhelmed by this year’s winners (I only voted for one winner).
• When Popular Fiction Isn’t Popular: Genre, Literary, and the Myths of Popularity — Because it’s been, what, a week? since I posted something on the genre-wars, Lincoln Michel on Electric Lit calls for more facts and stats and numbers to be used in the discussion. I’m not sure it’ll help, but it’s interesting.
• Baby Boomers Still the Spine of Independent Book Selling
• How Social Media Changed The Way We Read Books — I bet we see this kind of thing talked about more and more.
• What? I Can’t Hear You Over My Nerd-Rage! — Inspired by a recent episode of The Once and Future Podcast, Melanie R. Meadors puts (virtual) pen to paper to talk about Nerd-Rage. Pretty good stuff here, worth the read if only for Delilah S. Dawson’s perfect last line.
• Two interviews with authors of books I read and blogged about this week: The Most Revealing Thing I Can Say: An Interview With Mary-Louise Parker, Author of Dear Mr. You and Ethan Hawke: By the Book
• It’s that time of year, some Best of 2015 Lists:
  • The New York Times’ The 10 Best Books of 2015 — I’ve heard of a couple of these.
  • The Guardian’s The best fiction of 2015 — I did better with these lists, especially SF/F and Crime & Mystery.
  • BuzzFeed Books’ The 24 Best Fiction Books Of 2015
• The 17 Funniest Tweets About “Harry Potter” In 2015 — should give you a grin or two

Only one New Releases this week that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Revolution was Televised by Alan Sepinwall — an updated/revised version of one of my favorite books of recent years — written after the finale’s of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. If you like good TV drama, you’ll find something in this book that’ll resonate with you. Sepinwall’s reviews are lurking in the background of what I post here (not that anyone but me can tell), can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on this.