Saturday Miscellany—8/17/2019

I just had to mark 3 comments as Spam today, I’d like to thank those kind people looking for ways to make me money from the bottom of my heart (for reminding me why I moderate comments). How do people with real traffic on their blog handle it?

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:

• Independent booksellers and the future of Western thought—there’s some dross here, but some good ways to think, too.
• These Classic Books Are Surprisingly Fresh—and They’re Free—Started this week talking classics, might as well wrap it up that way.
• Continuing that thought: The Classic Novel That Is Most Often Abandoned By Readers—(although there’s a lot of contemporary stuff in the piece)
• Too busy? Distracted by your phone? How to love reading again
• Awkwafina to Star in Adaptation of ‘The Last Adventure of Constance Verity’—She wouldn’t have been my first choice (not that I can think of a credible choice, come to think of it). But I’m just happy that the criminally under-noticed A. Lee Martinez is seeing some success.
• A guide to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series
• Lawyers in Fiction: It’s Time to Question the Archetype—I’m not in agreement with this too much, but I enjoyed the piece (maybe if I read more legal thrillers I’d have more to say).
• Meet the Author: Noelle Holten—A nice little interview with Noelle Holten, Crime Fiction blogger, writer of one of 2019’s best, and unofficial Irresponsible Reader publicist.
• The Top Ten “Buts” Of Fantasy And Science Fiction—one of those “why didn’t I think of this?” kind of posts
• Jenia’s Ultimate Guide For Getting Your Girlfriend Into Fantasy—works for spouses, friends, and strangers, too.
• 38 Americanisms the British Can’t Bloody Stand: To Some of Us, Grammar Feels Personal—This is more of a Word-Nerd post than a Book/Reading post, but I figure there’s a decent amount of overlap. (as an American, I agree with a lot of this, and think Brandreth is insane the rest of the time)
• A thread about Book Bloggers from Books, Bones & Buffy (@tammy_sparks).
• What I’ve learned from ten(ish) years of reading
• 10 Fictional Schools Even Worse Than Ones We Went To—my youngest two return to school Monday (already?!?!?!), thankfully, to something better than these (most days)
• Collective Nouns For Book Genres—there are some fantastic ideas on this thread started by Waterstones Swansea (a galaxy of Science Fiction, a Pretension of Literary Fiction, Reader’s dozen – 14 books, and a floppiness of paperbacks were a couple of my faves)
• Top 10 Rules of Etiquette for Drinking while Reading—there’s some real wisdom here
• Bookish parties I’d love to attend—parties aren’t my thing 96.4% of the time, but I might make an exception for these

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:

• Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh—the U. S. release of Eddie Flynn dealing with a Serial Killer on the jury of his latest case. I raved about this a couple of weeks ago. You don’t have to know the previous novels in the series to appreciate this one, I should stress.
• Hacked by Duncan MacMaster—MacMaster is one of the best at combining fun and great mysteries at work today. As I assume this sequel to Hack will demonstrate.
• The Swallows by Lisa Lutz—A dark past comes back to haunt the woman running from it (one of Lutz’s specialties) as she accidentally kicks off a gender war at a New England Prep School. Last Saturday, I discovered I won a copy of this when it arrived on my doorstep. It’s been sitting on my desk since, calling my name…

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Kitty Marie’s Book Reviews Blog, rashidul.huda, Lashaan Balasingam @ Bookidote, Naba Kumar Garai, Psychotherapist ,Counsellor, Film Screenwriter,Playwright,Producer – LONDON.UK and Sonam Sangpo Lama for following the blog this week. (WHERE did you all come from!?)