Saturday Miscellany – 10/20/18

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:

• ‘Up-lit’ gives hope to publishers at Frankfurt book fair — I’m not sure I think all of the work mentioned is “feelgood” reading, but the trend should be interesting.
• Sharing the Love: Book Blogger Appreciation — after the recent Twitter misstep by a certain publisher, there’s been a lot of Book Blogger reassurance and love — The Tattooed Book Geek may have posted the definitive response to it all.
• Cross-Pollination: The Future Is Genre-Blending — Paul Goat Allen’s piece is more directed toward the production/sales end of books, but it says a lot about the industry that we readers spend our dollars, cents, euros and whatevers on.
• Over at Lit Hub, Emily Temple is posting a series of pieces on “A Century of Reading: 10 Books That Defined” the 20th century, decade by decade. She’s up to the 1940s so far — good stuff.
• Bruce DeLaney: Rediscovered Books — one of the owner’s of my favorite book store talks about Boise’s little gem.
• Ghosts, ghouls and graveyards: Margaret Atwood on the magic of Neil Gaiman, with a special focus on The Graveyard Book.
• The Writing Life of: Duncan MacMaster — Probably my favorite installment of the Book Tour I was part of last week for Video Killed the Radio Star, a great interview.
• Exclusive: Hear the Title Track from Duo Naked Blue and Author Lee Child’s Jack Reacher Collaboration Album — the title track to the Jack Reacher-inspired album, Just the Clothes on My Back, is up for a listen.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin — Yeah, if I stick to schedule, it’ll be April before I get to this, but book 22 in John Rebus series is out.
• Deck the Hounds by David Rosenfelt — the second Christmas adventure for Andy Carpenter is almost as strong as the first — and better than most of the recent non-holiday reads. Here’s my post about it.
• The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi — I thought the first volume of this series was a lot of fun for a book about an apocalypse in progress — this should be good.
• Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda — I’m not the Hamilton-phile that the rest of the Free World seems to be, but there’s something about Miranda that I really like. Should prove to be a fun read.

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