Saturday Miscellany—12/31/22

So here we are at the end of 2022. Before my neighbors start blowing things up and terrifying one of my dogs (I’m so glad the other has lost most of her hearing), why don’t I bring you this week’s Miscellany? Things take a dark turn early on (death and decline), but we get celebratory soon enough, never fear.

Thanks for reading this (and whatever else you’ve read here lately)! Hope you enjoy your New Year’s Eve (or whatever you call today wherever you are). See you in 2023.

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:
Public Domain Day: 9 Noteworthy Titles To Look Out For—A quick look at some of the bigger titles entering Public Domain tomorrow.
Louise Penny sets the record straight on the ‘cozy mysteries’ myth
An Interview with Jordan Harper, Dark Poet of SoCal—If there’s a polar opposite of Penny, it might be Harper. I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with him soon.
The best reading skill no one ever taught you—take this with whatever size grain of salt you want, but I thought it was interesting enough to pass along
Death of the Author: Reading, Respect, and Reverence—this didn’t go the way I thought it would based on the title. I like his thinking.
Death, Rites, Lore, & More: How do various fantasy books look at these things?—one of those things you read and wonder why you never considered it before…(someone needs to do a sequel or five with other authors/books)
Thoughts on Long Career Authors and Decline—Ignoring the fighting words about Butcher, I liked chewing on this from ol’ Peat
How Do You Decide What to Read Next
Book Quotes to Love in 2022—There are some really good lines here
Harlan Coben got a thread of one-star reviews going on Twitter this week. There are some great ones here. Something for me to aspire to.
We’ve got some more great Best of ’22 lists to embiggen your TBR Stacks (I could pretty much fill the first six months of ’23 with what I’ve picked up from these lists lately):
Ramona Mead’s The Best Books I Read in 2022
The Orangutan Librarian gave us Just Some of the Great Books I Read This Year and My Top Ten Books of 2022!
Books of the Year, 2022!—from
Chicks,Rogues and Scandals
Top 22 Reads of 2022—from Fi’s Bibliofiles
My ’10’ Favourite Books of 2022 & My Book of the Year—from Beneath A Thousand Skies
TCL’s Top Ten Favorite Books of 2022
The Belgian Reviewer’s My top 10 favourite books of 2022
Best Books of 2022!—from Jennie Reads (I did just take a quick break to go order one off this list)
One other atypical category from Steven Writes The Best Settings I Read In 2022—seriously, his lists this year make me feel dull and uncreative while I plan mine.
Okay, maybe we should start looking at 2023 now, eh? (we’ll get back to 2022 next week I assume) with the 2023 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—a few years ago, I gave up my spreadsheets for this fantastic tool. I don’t use it fully, but I like what I do use.
Now, what to fill that spreadsheet with? Here’s a couple of great list of Reading Challenges, if you’re thinking of trying 1 or 20:
65+ Fun Reading Challenges for Adults 2023
The 2023 Master List of Reading Challenges
I’ll share the Challenges I’m doing next week (probably), but I wanted to highlight a couple I found on these lists that I particularly liked. Great creativity went into these:
2023 We Didn’t Start the Fire Reading Challenge
Read Your Bookshelf Challenge—(I might give this one a try, just for the novelty of the approach)

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke—A nice little cozy set in a family record store, the series has promise. I talked about it a bit earlier in the month.