Saturday Miscellany—1/21/23

Let’s start with a question that I’ve been meaning to ask for a bit–can any of you readers suggest US-based book bloggers who focus on (to some degree or another) on Crime Fiction? I was recently asked for some suggestions but both attrition and time have whittled down those that I follow to be almost entirely UK-based bloggers. (nothing wrong with that, but it skews things)

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:
American book reading statistics for 2022 and 2023 (complete USA survey data)—I was pretty surprised by some of these stats (and wonder about the truthfulness of some of the self-reporting, but I usually do). Big thanks to David Leonhardt for dropping by to share this with me.
I wish Amazon had been honest about why it’s sunsetting AmazonSmile—it’s not technically about reading, but…it’s close enough. I’m with this writer, when I got this email, I smelled something.
Mystery Writers of America Announces 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominations—I haven’t read nearly enough of these
Does Historical Accuracy Matter in Historical Fiction?: With fiction, the answers are never quite so simple.
TBRCon2023—the all-virtual sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention, streams live from Jan. 22-29, 2023. There’s some really appetizing programming coming up (and the early panel that went up Wednesday is one I definitely have to check out)
2023 Blogging Goals: The Year of Playing Catch Up—this is probably the smartest list of blogging/reading goals I’ve read for this year. I need to remember to steal this next year.
Speaking of smart things I need to steal, Peat Long continues to think and write well about genre. The most examples are this week’s On Sci-Fantasy and Approaching Genre and Horizontal and Vertical Genres: A Concept
Book Reviews vs. Beta Reading
Let’s Talk Bookish: Collecting Books
Five Year Blogging Anniversary – Top 10 Books—5 Years is a good milestone, but I’m more impressed by the fact that Stephen Writes was able to come up with a Top 10 over that timeframe.
I really appreciate this thread from John Palladino about liking things from “bad” people. I’ve tried to write something like this before, but ended up messing it up.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Killer Story by Matt Witten—Theoretically, a story about a journalist launching a podcast to solve the murder of an estranged friend (and save her journalistic career). But it ends up being more than that—including becoming one of the best Crime Fiction novels I read last year. Here’s my take on the book.
Lie to Her by Melinda Leigh—Sherriff Bree Taggart has to deal with more murder and shenanigans. This time involving an internet dating site.
Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart by Jen Sookfong Lee—a “memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman’s life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage.”