Saturday Miscellany—9/12/20

Running a little late today, my ISP is down, and I waited to see if it’d clear up without me having to burn a bunch of data using my phone. Oh, well. It’s a short list this week, which helps with the whole data thing.

Today’s the anniversary of the day one of my favorite literary couples, Archie Goodwin and Lily Rowan, met—a truly momentous day.

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 Why Goodreads is bad for books: After years of complaints from users, Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end. —am sure this won’t stir up any controversy at all.ce
bullet How Nightly Reading Helped Cure My Insomnia
bullet The Improbably Journey of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes—Parker just can’t be boring, even after death. (Hat tip: Jo Perry, who can always be counted on for links to good articles about the dead)
bullet Blogging: Why Are Reviews So Unpopular?—Bookidote’s Lashaan asks a good question
bullet My Thoughts on the Block Editor.—Last week I shared Bookstooge’s rant about Block Editor, this week, The Tattooed Book Geek sounds off. Anyone have anything positive to say about the thing? Anyone think that WordPress cares?
bullet How I Take Reading Notes—I could never be this organized…

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet Two Crime Writers And A Microphone Episode One Hundred and Six – Bad People Doing Bad Things – with Steve Cavanagh—Cavanagh becomes a guest and answers questions about his career and new novel. Just his description of what happened to his Eddie Flynn series between books 3 & 4 makes this worth a listen…unbelievable.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Robert B. Parker’s Fool’s Paradise by Mike Lupica—Lupica takes the reins of the Jesse Stone series in this novel about the past coming back to haunt us. I had a few things to say about it earlier this week
bullet Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs—”The modern solution to our problems is to surround ourselves only with what we know and what brings us instant comfort. Jacobs’s answer is the opposite: to be in conversation with, and challenged by, those from the past who can tell us what we never thought we needed to know.”

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5 Comments

  1. I don’t know of ANY blogger that likes the new block editor. But as for WordPress caring? I suspect Goodreads cares more about its members than WP does, and that is saying a lot…

    As for that “End of GR as we know it” article? Bunch of wishful thinking. Sounded more like an advertisement for the woman trying to launch her own site. Book blogging is good enough in my opinion…

    • HCNewton

      Wishful thinking sums it up well. I do think the Story Graph is off to a good start, but it’s missing something…

      and yeah, I can’t imagine that WP is listening to any of the complaints.

      • For WP, it’s all about the money. The paid users want the block editor (I guess?) so we plebes have to put up with the choices of our betters /sarcasm

        Personally, I hope storygraph succeeds, but that is more because I want devilreads to get a stick in the eye than because I actually want storygraph to succeed. Pretty poor thinking on my part I admit.

  2. Thanks for the shout-out! I appreciate it a lot. 🙂

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