Saturday Miscellany — 1/19/19

Remember when this was posted at about the same time every week? Yeah, me neither. On the other hand, I slept well last night. Even if that started well before I was ready/aware of it.

Oh, btw, the whole “Block Editor” thing that WordPress is trying to get me to use — I don’t see the point and man, there’d better be a whole lotta very accessible help files ready to go when they impose this on us w/o the option to go back to the Classic Editor.

With no further ado or delay, here are the 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:

• 7 Reasons Why Reading as a Kid Was the Best: Adult-free reading nooks, never-ending series, school book fairs. What could be better? — this made me think of a comment I saw on a recent post where someone said that as a kid they’d read “all the books in X series” several times as a kid. I couldn’t help thinking — that series started in the 50’s, was still being published in the 80’s (when I “grew out of” them). Yeah, you may have read several — but not the whole series. Kinda miss those kind of series (he says, until he whines about Stephanie Plum again . . . )
• Book Sales Are Soaring—And Not Just the Digital Kind
• The Villainous Bitch Has Become the Most Boring Trend in Literature — I think this has a lot of good things to say, but I don’t quite buy it. What do you think?
• Do you trust bloggers who don’t post negative reviews? — the topic that never dies
• Staying Quirky With Quirk Books — a nice profile of the niche-y publisher
• The Edgar Awards Revisited: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (Best Novel; 1955) — I’ve mentioned Criminal Element’s new series recently — this is a great example of the value of the series (even if this particular author wasn’t quite as enamored of the book as he “should” have been).
• Michael Connelly’s Five Favorite Crime Novels of All Time — I honestly forgot that Connelly mentioned The Long Goodbye until this moment. A good list, regardless.
• Five Favourite Finished Fantasy Series — good grief — another post from The Tattooed Book Geek this week?
• Friday Favorite Five: Urban Fantasy Series
• 19 Kinds of Reading I’ve Done (that You’ve Done, Too) — blah

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Back Door To Hell by Paul Gadsby — a couple of amateurs try to steal from a crime lord to start their lives. Am thinking the title gives a hint about how that goes.
• Marked by S Andrew Swann– what a fantastic premise — click the link to read it. A detective, magic, time travel and extra-dimensional bad guys.
• Tear It Down by Nick Petrie — my goal of catching up on the Peter Ash series this year just got 384 pages harder.
• Night School: A Reader for Grownups by Zsófia Bán — Click the link to read the description, I can’t do it justice. I’ve only heard good things about this and can easily see it living up to the hype.

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