Festivus 2021: For the Rest of Us

Shunning the commercialization of Christmas*/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Santaween/Chrismukkah, we’re again celebrating Festivus (for the rest of us) here at The Irresponsible Reader.

Let’s begin our observance!

Here I am with my Festivus pole. I really appreciate the very high strength to weight ratio, it’s a mighty fine pole.

Note the lack of distracting tinsel. It’s very important.

And now, let the Airing of Grievances begin.

Yes, some of these are only slightly revised from previous Festivus posts. Which is to be expected, it’s not like the entire universe fixed itself after I posted one lil’ post. It’s going to take at least three, right?

I’m seriously disappointed that Ace Atkins is leaving the Spenser series. Sure, it’s best for him and his career to go off and work on his own projects, which will undoubtedly be great. But speaking selfishly (which is the point of grievances, right?), I don’t want him to go!

Publishers are starting to use AI readers instead of humans for audiobooks! This is madness—we don’t need to make things easier for our new computer overlords by letting them lull us into letting our defenses down by reading our stories to us. Also, they don’t do a good job of it.

I have a grievance with the book publishing/selling/marketing industry. It’s 2021, why are we still placing stickers on books? If we have to do that, why hasn’t Science come up with a sticker that doesn’t leave a gummy residue behind? C’mon, Science, if you can’t give us a cure for cancer, a pill so people with Celiac disease can eat bread, or an Oreo that will help me lose weight—at least you can give us stickers that don’t leave gunk on our books! Especially, especially when it covers the ISBN number for those of us trying to scan them.

What’s worse than stickers are those things that look like stickers, but aren’t. Just stupid, garish circles that have been printed on the cover and really only serve to obscure the image.

I have a grievance with Movie/TV covers on books. C’mon people, this is stupid. Sure, it maybe helps sell more copies of the books—but has any book been improved by one of these covers? No! Knock it off! And especially, stop it with sticking pictures of actors on books in a series that haven’t been adapted, just because some have (yeah, I’m looking at you, Longmire).

Similarly, what’s up with publishers changing the look of series covers? I like when they match and I resent having to go buy second copies of the old ones to have a nice matching set. (which I generally avoid, but I think about doing it a lot).

It’s another year without the next installment from Rothfuss/Martin. No, my grievance isn’t with them, it’s with the entitled “fan” of the work, whinging at every conceivable moment about how long it’s taking them. Because there’s nothing else around to read? Let ’em get it right and use that energy to support someone whose books could use it.

(still—Martin, Rothfuss, Lynch…c’mon…)

Whether it’s from a mainstream publisher, indie press, or a self-pubbed book, we have the technology and (theoretically??) the education so there’s no reason for there to be missing/extra punctuation or misspelled words in books.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to book blog posts. No one paid for these.

I have a grievance with the Book Blogging Community. There are way too many good book bloggers out there to keep up with. Some of you need to write less often! Also, you make the rest of us look bad.

I’ve got a grievance with running out of places to put books and bookshelves that aren’t like a bag of holding or TARDIS and can’t take an increasing number of books. So…physics, I guess. Yeah, that’s right, Laws of the Physics, I’m calling you out. Get your act together!

I’ve got a grievance with myself for putting off planning this post so long. I’m having a hard time coming up with Feats of Strength. I really need to start brainstorming earlier in the year…

And what’s more…I lost my train of thought. Still, I managed to get a little off my chest, that felt good.

And now, the Feats of Strength…

In 2019, for my Feat of Strength, I held my TBR above my head, which I thought was pretty impressive. Then last year, I did something even harder—I signed out of Netgalley without requesting a single book. This year…

Yes, that’s me lifting an entire bookshop. If that’s not a Feat of Strength, I don’t know what is. Okay, sure, it may be miniature, but it’s really hard to hold that steady without any of those teeny-tiny books falling off the shelf…

Let’s see how the rest of you do with your feats.

* I’ve gotten a little feedback about this—it’s pretty clear I’m a Christian. So why do I do a Festivus post instead of something about Christmas? While I do think that believers have the liberty to celebrate the Nativity if they desire to, I’m ambivalent toward the day, and hesitant to make a big deal out of it. So, I don’t. If you’re curious, I thought this episode of The Heidelcast did a decent job of articulating many of the issues (without getting nasty about it).

On the other hand, Festivus is just silly fun. Hope you don’t mind…