Saturday Miscellany – 12/29/18

Sure, local/state governments had problems, small businesses were hurt, 911 centers weren’t able to operate, but the real victim of the CenturyLink outage was my blogging plans for the week. Well, okay, maybe not. But it sure seemed terribly inconvenient at the time. While it was a slow posting week, I did get a lot of reading done — I should wrap up work on my last reading challenge for 2018 today (knocked off another one yesterday), and nailed down a lot of plans for the next few weeks (I somehow have found myself committed to 8 books in January. Which isn’t that many, really, but it seems daunting). Hope your [insert preferred holiday name] week was good in whatever way you spent it.

Here’s the smattering of 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:

• Instagram is helping save the indie bookstore
• Best Reads of 2018: Speculative Fiction — the third (and final, I think) installment of Paul’s Picks Best of 2018 — added one from this to my TBR pile (maybe will come back for more).
• Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018 — The Rap Sheet’s produced (and tracked) a few lists — I think I’ve link one of these, but I’m not sure. Here’s a link to them all for your browsing pleasure.
• 14 Books for Grammar Nerds — I started one of these (and wish I hadn’t run out of time to finish) and have another on my shelves. Those numbers should rise by the end of 2019.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to february87 and Ontheminds for following the blog this week.