Last weekend, I considered putting up a post saying that I was going to take the week off—we worked long shifts all week and had some family stuff going on, and I just knew it was going to be hard getting anything done. But I decided I’d power through and get some stuff accomplished. And ended up basically taking the week off—although the only thing I made a conscious decision not to do was last the Fridays with the Foundling post. All I have to show for my efforts this week are several mostly completed and utterly lifeless posts that I’ll have to do a major re-write on next week.
I did get some reading in, though—including my favorite book of the year so far. So, there’s that. Hope you enjoy this week’s collection:
that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
Why You Should Support Your Local Bookstore—In case you need the reminder
A Kansas Bookshop’s Fight with Amazon Is About More Than the Price of Books—worth the minor hassle of dealing with The New Yorker’s not-a-paywall hoops
I didn’t set out to go on an anti-Amazon rant, but, here we are: Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.—this one troubles me greatly.
Pre-ordering: show authors some love!—Yeah, this is focused on this particular press, but it applies to all the others. And you don’t even have to shop at That River Website to do it! I’m frequently (still, somehow) surprised how much this helps an author when I see them talk about this.
5 Reasons to Listen to Classics on Audio—There are some really good points here…I should do this. The accompanying playlist Classic Books to Try on Audio looks like a decent place to start. I think the narrator is key, for example—Ian McKellen reading The Odyssey or George Guidall reading Les Misérables? Sign me up.
Why So Many Novelists Write About Writers—This isn’t a definitive answer to the question I’ve asked a million times (I’m sure most readers have), but it’s a good one.
Why Are We Obsessed With Psychopaths?—some good stuff here, too.
When Is A Book Blogger Not A Book Blogger?—I’m not sure this rant was necessary (I don’t think the blogger is, either), but…yeah, I tend to agree.
The Importance of Knowing Your Own Taste: Ways to Avoid the HYPE and HATE Train—you’d like to think this is unneccesarry and self-evident. However, we’ve all been victim to this folly and need good reminders like this from The Orangutan Librarian.
That post was followed a couple of days later by some great examples of taking her own advice: Books I Read Thanks to Negative Reviews and Ended Up Loving (as an aside, I love the cover for My Lady Jane used there—does a better job of capturing the book than the one I saw when I read it)
To What Extent Should We Compare Books?—good discussion from Stephen Writes
How I Have Maintained A 300+ Day Post Streak!—Nope. Not jealous at all. Especially this week. Going to take some of this advice.
Typically, I’m not a fan of “you’re not a real fan/geek/X, if you don’t…” things, but you’d have a hard time convincing me that @BooksNest is wrong here.
That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Drop the Mikes by Duncan MacMaster—The Kirby Baxter series is about the most reliably entertaining series I’ve read in the last few years, and I can’t imagine this is going to be the exception. Kirby ends up vacationing next to a Fyre Festival-type thing and stumbles on to a murder (of course).
Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs—Anna and Charles investigate the disappearnce of a small community. I’m around 60% through with this, it’s Briggs’s best in years (so far, anyway)
What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch—Peter’s cousin Abigail gets the spotlight in this fun novella. I talked about it a bit here recently.
Firefly: Life Signs by James Lovegrove—hey, look, another in this Firefly series for me to have on my TBR Shelf and not get around to reading for months (I did read the first one…). Thankfully, the hardcovers look nice sitting there.
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