Saturday Miscellany—9/14/19

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:

• Why It Matters That Amazon Shipped Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments” a Week Early—I am honestly indifferent to Atwood’s success and inherently suspicous about the novel (for reasons I’ll leave to myself and I know I’m in the minority about); nevertheless this move by Amazon, and what this indie bookseller says about it, truly disturbs me.
• Almost Everything About Goodreads Is Broken: Despite Amazon’s innovation elsewhere, Goodreads has stagnated for 12 years, and its problems are endless—this is somewhat overblown, and I’ve seen a lot of pushback about it. But, it’s worth a read. What do ya’ll think?
• We asked for your favorite crime-fiction authors. Boy, did you respond.—from The Seattle Times. “Boy, did you respond” made me smile—there’s not a lot to chew on here, but I liked the piece and it pairs nicely with:
• Is crime fiction the new working-class novel?: Perhaps genre books are so popular because they speak to the people who buy them—from The Irish Times
• The Crime Hub—launched this week and I predict I’ll use it frequently
• Eating waffles in San Antonio – with a real-life fictional character—Andy Martin, who has turned writing about Lee Child in to a cottage industry^*, sits down and talks to someone who won one of those charity auctions to get your name in a book.
• The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Defies Easy Genre Categorization—Yes. I know nothing/next-to-nothing about the works discussed here, but yes.
• Strong Women Are Taking Over the Thriller: 7 Badass Female Protagonists Helping to Redefine Modern Thrillers—A piece from last year that popped up on a social media feed this week, not sure how I missed it last year. Anyway, some decent TBR fodder and one great point about the plethora of “psychological thrillers featuring unreliable female protagonists”
• It’s not recreation, it’s research!—Even if you’re not a fan of Nero Wolfe (I pity you), am sure most people reading this can enjoy the piece and maybe even feel envious.
• How I Fell In Love With Reading || Ft. Bedtime Tales and A Magical Storybook
• Eight Reading Habits to Increase Your Reading Speed Plus Some Bonus Tips to Tackle your TBR!—A fun piece including some decent tips, a couple I’m not sure of and then: “Don’t Purchase Any More Books Until You Are Done With Your Current Ones” because the writer is some kind of monster.
• What Reading Has Taught Me, and Why it’s Still Important Today
• Five things that can make you dislike a good book—#1 is a big one for me.
• Ten Problems Only Booksharks Have—1. I like the term “bookshark,” it may quickly replace “bookwyrm/bookdragon” as my go-to. 2. I’m not sure these are problems, aren’t they just a thumbnail sketch of my personality?
• A Protest Sign I’d Carry/T-shirt logo I’d wear/Bumpersticker my Car Needs

^* Which I heartily endorse and enjoy.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen to:
• Drinks with Tony: Robert Crais – #49—On Facebook, Crais said: ” This is one of my favorite podcast interviews, gang. I think you’ll agree.” I do agree—not just regarding interviews with Crais, either.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Bitterst Pill by Reed Farrel Coleman—Coleman’s (sniff)last (sniff)Jesse Stone (sniff)novel (not the last in the series, I should stress). Opiods in Paradise—a strong one to go out on. Now I live in fear about the state of the series. Here’s what I said about the book.
• An Orc on the Wild Side by Tom Holt—I need to make room for this on my schedule. In the meantime, here’s what Paul’s Picks had to say.