Saturday Miscellany—7/4/20

I did come across some fun things to read this week, bu I’ve got no podcasts (a couple of videos, though), no new releases to talk about, this is going to be quick. Which I guess is good, because I don’t see a lot of my US readers all that interested in spending time today in reading this post (…eh, maybe given the peculiarities of this year…).

Happy Independence Day to you in the U. S., and happy Saturday to the rest of you.

Odds n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
bullet How to Fit Reading into Your Stay-at-Home Life
bullet Flipping hell: book designers lament Waterstones’ back-to-front displays—Waterstones made (IMHO) a pretty smart move when it comes to book displays right now, but…yeah, I can see where designers would be miffed.
bullet This tweet from Kevin Hearne did two things: 1. Taught me the term “ink drinker” (buveur d’encre) for bookworm (although one of the comments to his tweet contests that), and 2. led me to finding this list: Names for people who #read a lot—I like the Welsh (and one of the Swedish) name a lot, too.
bullet 7 Ways You’re De-Valuing Your Books
bullet Me and my detective by Lee Child, Attica Locke, Sara Paretsky, Jo Nesbø and more—authors on living with their creations for years
bullet The Stories Behind 15 of the Best Names Famous Writers Gave to Their Pets
bullet Mallory O’Meara (@malloryomeara)—tweeted the best idea I’ve heard this year.
bullet The Doctor will see you now with Ian Patrick—a half-hour chat with the inimitable Ian Patrick about his new book (that i recently gushed over), his work with the police and…probably some other stuff (I haven’t had time to finish it yet)
bullet The Great Fantasy Debate: Is It Better to Have a Career in the Empire or the Rebellion in Star Wars? with authors Pierce Brown and Tochi Onyebuchi
bullet The Greatest Book Blogging Myths I’ve Encountered: Some Confessions And Thoughts On What We Think Blogging Is And What It Actually Is
bullet 22 Problems only true Audiobook Fans understand…
bullet Things I Look For In Reviews—Some good stuff here. Over the last year or so, I’ve wondered a bit about my propensity for “large bits of text” and people being “much less likely to read a review that’s just a bunch of paragraphs together in regular font with nothing to break it up,” since that’s what I tend to slip into. But adding in graphics or other headers? That’s another time investment, and I’m not sure how that’d affect my flow. (okay, this has stopped being about the post and all about me, which is not what this is for…still, readers, I’m open to comments/suggestions)
bullet Fantasy: My Genre Breakdown—The Book in Hand blog gets all taxonomic on Fantasy. Also, I should hire Sam to organize my Goodreads shelves.

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome toEd A. Murray who followed the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

Previous

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding: BOOK VIII., xi.-xv.

Next

The Curator by M. W. Craven: I do not have enough superlatives in my repertoire to do justice to this novel

4 Comments

  1. Who is doing ANYTHING today? Everything is cancelled. No parades, no fire works, parks are still limited. If this was new, I’d say everyone could be with family, but with months of lockdown behind us, I think that is the LAST thing people want.

    As for what people want in blogs. Personally, I write what I want (in both senses of the phrase). I do admit to, at certain times, skipping to the end of your review to see if you do a sum up paragraph 😉
    But you might notice that my reviews tend to be around the 600-800 word mark and that is with the big fat pre-prepared synopsis eating more than half of that.

    Headers might break things up, but with the move towards the block editor, it is simply one more step and will take more time. I am not a fan of taking MORE time to write, no matter if the cause is righteous or not. One question I’d have for you is, do you follow people who also write long posts on a regular basis?

    I will eat a consolation chili cheese dog in your honor for dinner tonight. Hope that makes you feel better 😀

    • A lot of the people I like reading tend to the wordy, but they’re better about adding graphics/.gifs/etc (which I almost always skip over). But I see more and more people writing shorter posts or have funky headings and whatnot. It’s not a major thing, just something niggling at the back of my mind that the post in question prompted me to talk about.

  2. Lee Child giving up the reins on Jack Reacher? Oh No! Not fond of this new practice of celebrated writers partnering with unknowns to enable the churning out of more books. (Does everyone need to be James Patterson?) Can’t imagine that a different author would be able to clone Child’s vision of Reacher, any more than any of the thousands of Pastiches based on Sherlock Holmes has really been able to capture Doyle’s unique vision.

    • Yeah, it won’t be Lee Child’s Reacher, but Andrew Grant (about to be Andrew Child) writes a solid thriller. I actually read him years before I got sucked into his brother’s Reacher books. Unlike with a lot of guys, they’ve been coordinating the hand-off, which should help. I’m guardedly optimistic about this.

Read Irresponsibly, but please Comment Responsibly

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

Discover more from The Irresponsible Reader

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue Reading