Saturday Miscellany—8/13/22

It’s Left Hander’s Day and I should have a list of characters to mention here, but I can only think of Kvothe and Arya Stark when it comes to fiction. Anyone out there know of any notable sinistral characters? There has to be a bunch of them…

I don’t have a long list today, apparently I wasn’t the only one not feeling incredibly creative this week. (or with time on our hands). More time for our Weekend Reads, right?

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:
Where Are Mass Market Paperbacks Headed?
The Fine Art of Naming Characters in Crime Fiction
Anne Rice and the making of a modern vampire
The Five Great Novels of Dashiell Hammett—for years I’ve told myself I need to read Hammett…this might have pushed me over the edge.
NetGalley’s blog, We Are Bookish, had a couple of handy posts this week:
NetGalley’s Guide to Who to Tag in Book Reviews
Tips for Battling Reviewer Writer’s Block
The Books that Made Me – The Once and Future King by T.H. White—Inexplicably, I’ve never been able to finish this book, I need to give it another shot.
Different Ways To Categorise Fantasy—another helpful post from Peat Long
Reading & Book Collecting
10 Years, 10 Favorite Books—Great idea for a post, but I have no idea how Caitlin was able to limit it to just one book for each year without at least one tie. (then again, I do, what 5 or 6 best of lists each year, I clearly have trouble limiting myself)
How Reviewing Changed the Way I Read?

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Thriller Zone Episode 83: Eli Cranor, author of Don’t Know Tough—Cranor sounds and talks just like you’d expect, this was a great chat.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Bark to the Future by Spencer Quinn—Chet and Bernie are back for novel #13, and it’s a doozy. Bernie tries to help an old high school teammate and gets into a lot of trouble. I blogged about it couple of weeks ago
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu—What do you do when the prophecy about the Chosen One who will save the country is wrong? Taishi, the greatest war artist of her generation, decides to mold the object of the prophecy into who the kingdom needs him to be.
The Deal Goes Down by Larry Beinhart—a retired PI is hired as a hitman and ends up working to save women from abusive marriages—and make money at the same time. (that’s a lousy job of summarizing the description, but without reading the book, it’s as good as I’m going to get…click the link)

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to tinareadsallthebooks who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.