Wow. Everyone really took advantage of the holiday week. I found practically nothing for this post. Oh, well—it gives me a chance to focus on other bloggers, not the pros. Thanks to The Write Reads where I got most of 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:
- Constable to publish Lee Child’s authorised biography—looking forward to getting The Reacher Guy next year.
- What I’ve learned as a book blogger—If she learned this much in the first 6 months, I wonder what Meredith Rankin’ll pick up after two years…
- To Track or Not To Track? – Progress While Reading—Anyone out there track progress? I really can’t be bothered most of the time (also, I tend to read too quickly to bother)
- Favourite Books Without 5 Stars—It always surprises me every year when I do my “Best Of” lists that I skip past some 5 Star books to complete them. It shouldn’t, as The Narratess helpfully points out
- A Book-ish Related Podcast you might want to give a listen to:
- I don’t have a particular episode to point to, but I listened to a few episodes of this new-ish podcast this week: Under a Pile of Books—It focuses on SF and Fantasy. Sometimes it’s just the host, sometimes he chats with a blogger or author. It’s pretty good and I can see it falling into my regular rotation, check it out.
- This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
- One Man: A City of Fallen Gods Novel by Harry Connolly—A Fantasy Thriller, is the best way I can encapsulate it. Connolly describes it as: “big, odd, ambitious book about crime and magic and a screwed-up guy who has one last chance to do something decent in this world.” It’s his first novel in four years, and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t get to it for at least a week and a half. If there was one Fantasy/UF author that I could convince the world to notice, it’d be Connolly, and this looks like his most ambitious novel to date.
- Evil Valley by Simon Hall—After One Man, I’m diving into this one. I was lamenting recently that FP had seemed to stop with these TV Detective books, I’m so glad I was wrong!
- The ABCs of Metallica by Metallica, Howie Abrams, Michael Kaves—An Alphabet Picture book that pays tribute to the Metal Band. I talked about it some yesterday.
- The Hero by Lee Child—Child explores the concept of hero and narrative from pre-history to his own work. I gobbled it up on Thanksgiving to talk about it.
Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to overtherainbowbookblog and simplyclaudianicole for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?
Bookstooge
I read slow enough that I enjoyed tracking my reading progress when I was on devilreads and Booklikes.
I’ve tried to do some trackers for blogs but they really don’t have the same feel and I quickly gave up on them. With the potential re-vamp of Librarything coming up in ’20 I’m hoping that something like that can make the grade. I really do like the idea.
HCNewton
I’ve noticed a lot of people doing them on Booklikes (and it seems to do a better job of making that easier than others).
There’s a potential re-vamp of Librarything in ’20? Sounds promising.
Bookstooge
Well, the re-vamp sounds promising, depending on who you listen to 😀
You get a lot of people wanting to make it devilreads 2.0 and others saying they want nothing to change, at all, period, over their dead bodies.
I’m in neither camp, as I don’t use it as more than a temporary holding place for what I’m currently reading. I had my usual “success” with groups as I have anywhere else, so I’m not very social there. Nor is it really a social site, it is a cataloging site and it shows.
Whatever happens, I know I’ll be having to relearn how to do probably everything 🙂
HCNewton
Yeah, I wouldn’t want another GR, but some tweaks would be nice