Saturday Miscellany – 9/8/18

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:

• Is social media influencing book cover design? — huh.
• A Letter to Burt Reynolds: Why you meant the world to a young kid growing up in the South — TBH, I’ve never been the biggest Reynolds fan, I think mostly it was age and what my parents allowed me access to when it would’ve been easier for me to see his work (not arguing with that, for the record). Reading this, by Ace Atkins (in case you were wondering why I was linking to it) makes me wish I’d watched more of his films.
• How to Talk About Policing In Crime Fiction: Good Cops, Bad Apples, and Finding the Nuance in Between
• Murder Book Podcast — Michael Connelly gets back to his roots in this upcoming podcast.
• Craig Johnson on Westerns, Decency, and Longmire Days — a great interview that shouldn’t be read by anyone who isn’t up to date with at least The Western Star — unless you’re still needing convinced that you should read Johnson. Then you won’t care about the spoilers and may find a reason to pick up one of his books.
• Night and Silence: 3 reasons this may be the best October Daye book yet — I’m about halfway through, and I agree with everything said here.
• The Big Idea: Greg Van Eekhout — this particular Big Idea post is probably the most effective that I’ve read in this series.
• So, this past Thursday was National Read a Book day, which I didn’t realize until it was 8 pm or so. I mean, I still read, but I’d have liked to mark the day somehow. Here are a pair of lists that will help track those kinds of dates: A Calendar of Book Holidays To Celebrate Reading All Year Long, from Book Riot and Flavorwire’s Ultimate Literary Calendar: A Bookish Event for Every Day of the Year — blah

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire — my favorite ongoing UF series (until Butcher starts publishing regularly again) gets a new installment, it’s intense, it’s good. I’ll probably be a wreck when I finish it.
• Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson — I’ve been waiting on the edge of my seat since about 30 seconds after reading the last page of The Western Star. This is gonna be huge. Johnson’s doing a reading in town at the end of the month, and a book comes with the ticket, so I have to wait a little longer before I dive in. On the plus side, I didn’t have to choose between this and Night and Silence (that’s a choice that could turn me into Chidi Anagonye)
• The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos
• The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette — a UFO lands and does nothing for 3 years?
• Voyage of the Dogs by Greg van Eekhout — Homeward Bound in space? Whatever, read that Big Idea article linked above and you’ll see why I feel like I have to read this.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Ola G for following the blog this week.