Okay, I didn’t produce as much this week as I’d intended—I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, but re-establishing patterns is difficult. I did write every night this week, just didn’t finish a whole lot. More importantly, I read a decent amount (700+ pages), which makes me feel better about life.
Not a lot to post here this week (holidays tend to do that), but I hope you’ll find something worth your while:
that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
Obviously, the big thing this week is: Bertelsmann to Buy S&S for $2.2 Billion—The parent company of Penguin Random House said it had reached an agreement to buy Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS, yay, capitalism and all that, but…how often to monopolies work out for the best? I’m so glad for Indie Presses right now and hope that they can survive this increasingly bad year for them.
Book Business Reacts to Simon & Schuster Sale
The Monster Publishing Merger Is About Amazon—Penguin Random House purchasing Simon & Schuster is not the gravest danger to the publishing business. The deal is transpiring in a larger context—and that context is Amazon.
What the Penguin-Random House Merger Means to You, Average Reader—The Atlantic piece above linked to this one from back when Penguin and Random House Merged.
Cozy Mysteries and Legal Thrillers: The Intersection of Two Crime Genres: Disparate as they may seem, the cozy and the legal thriller derive from the same mysteries and influences.—One of those things that I can’t help but think I should have noticed before
Book I read thanks to blogging (that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise)
The Tropening: Book Tropes that I love (or hate)—the most important line in this fun post is this: “That being said, there are exceptions to all of these for me. As long as the trope is well written, I’m flexible.” It’s precisely why I’ve abandoned efforts to do posts like this one myself…I can always think of well-written exceptions to my objects of derision. Still, I like reading other bloggers’ approaches to the topic.
That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
A Very Fahrenheity Christmas—Fahrenheit Press did exactly what you expect from a publisher of gritty, twisted, noir. They put out a feel-good Christmas collection. 2020 demanded it.
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline—I know nothing about this other than it’s sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to start (maybe by Tuesday).
Forged by Benedict Jacka—the penultimate Alex Verus book hit the streets this week. I expect many, many things to go wrong for ol’ Verus.
Last Stand in Lychford by Paul Cornell—this series comes to a satisfying close. There’s also an edition out now with all 5 novellas in one. Either is recommended by me (longer post to come)
wittysarcasticbookclub
Thank you for including me! And thank you for sharing my quote about how a trope isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it’s written well. I think there’s a reason some of them are so ubiquitous.