Saturday Miscellany — 7/13/19

A small (but interesting!) list of odds and ends, a killer bunch of new releases, a nice podcast interview and some new friends. Short intro, good week. Enjoy the post!

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:

• You Should Own Your Favorite Books in Hard Copy — yup
• The State of the Thriller: A Roundtable Discussion: Thriller authors weigh in on the genre’s most pressing issues — the 2018 version of this was great, haven’t had a change to read this year’s, but assume it’s worth the time.
• If Crime Novels Were Food — An odd little post, but fun.
• And the above reminded me of this: Sandwich Ratings — another odd, but fun post from Friend of the Blog, Bookstooge.
• 5 Reasons To Start Reading #UrbanFantasy — A nice lil’ post, I read plenty of UF (not as much as I used to, like most everyone, judging by sales), and have only heard of one of the authors mentioned here.
• Five Ways to Support an Author — yes. Do these.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episodesyou might want to give a listen to:
• Episode 674 | Abbi Waxman Returns — Hank Garner talks to one of my new favorite authors, Abbi Waxman about her new book.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon is probably the strongest list in months:
• The Chain by Adrian McKinty — The hype for this is huge. And seems desereved. For the 2.7% of you that haven’t heard about this, here’s the synopsis: “You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim’s parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don’t kidnap a child, or if the next parents don’t kidnap a child, your child will be murdered. You are now part of The Chain.” This is either gonna be fantastic or a waste of time. My money’s on the former.
• The Shameless by Ace Atkins — how can this be the ninth Quinn Colson novel already? The stakes have never been higher than they are in this book, sure to be a winner.
• And for an entry with no guns, kidnapping or killings, here’s: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman — a charming tribute to books and readers — I gushed over this one last week.
• Null Set by SL Huang — the second installment in this series isn’t quite as good as the first, but it develops a lot of what was hinted at while setting up bigger things for the future. I dig this character and even “not quite as good” is still a good book, my fuller thoughts are here.
• Ash Kickers by Sean Grigsby — I was blown away by last year’s Smoke Eaters‘ tale of firefighters vs. dragons. And now you add in a Pheonix for the sequel? Come on. . . how do you say no?

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Shana Gorian, Caroline Vincent, Tales of alenshy and The Unseen Library for following the blog this week.