Saturday Miscellany—3/25/23

This has been a week…I spent it all fighting a stupid cold that ended up taking a lot more out of me than I’d thought possible. For example: Wednesday, I started a new thriller—read one chapter, that was basically a conversation between two characters, and had to put the book down. I couldn’t follow it—I kept looking back to see who was who again. It felt like I was reading Tolstoy. Thankfully, I’d just bought an MG novel and could fall back on it (but even it took a little more work than I expected).

That seems to be behind me now—I’m looking forward to trying that book again on Monday and it being so crystal clear I spend the day laughing at myself. I just realized I’m veering back to the Food Blogger Syndrome I was talking about in the last WWW, better get on with the Miscellany.

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:
Today is Tolkien Reading Day 2023—I never remember this is a thing until the day before. Whoops. Celebrate the destruction of the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom by reading in the theme of Travel and Adventure this year (or join me in celebrating my daughter’s 21st, which will involve less reading and perhaps more adventure).
Conservatives Are Trying to Ban Books in Your Town. Librarians Are Fighting Back.—I’d quibble with the headline, but the content of the story is good.
Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading
Why adults should read children’s books—The datestamp on this comes from this week, but I’d swear I’d linked to this a couple of years ago. Oh well, I like this enough (or the piece it eeriliy reminds me of) to link to it often.
Brandon Sanderson Is Your God: He’s the biggest fantasy writer in the world. He’s also very Mormon. These things are profoundly related.—In case you haven’t read the hit-piece disguised as a profile and still want to, here’s the link. Far more worth your time is Sanderson’s response. Now, I’m not his biggest fan to be sure—nor am I a detractor—I’m Sanderson-agnostic. But Wired almost inspired me to buy every book set in Cosmere out of spite.
In Praise of The Cross Genre Novel: ‘More and more fiction crosses the boundaries of so called “genre”‘
What Does a Dragon Look Like?
Do Not Go Quietly Into That Goodnight – The Fight To Save Access to Books—Beth Tabler sounds off
Tolkien Reading Event 2023: Introduction and Schedule—Not satisfied with one day, Pages Unbound are kicking off 2 weeks of Tolkien celebration.
Reading goals can be fun!—from the Orangutan Librarians
Why I Don’t Read the Grimdark Genre—I get and agree with most of this. I’ve never bothered to try to put my vague sense about Grimdark into words. I probably should at some point.
Second Blogiversary: Questions and Answers—to commemorate 2 years (only 2?) of the blog, A Literary Escape did a Q&A with their readers.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Two Crime Writers and a Microphone Season One – Episode One – In Conversation with Mark Billingham—TCWaaM is back with a new format—I’m so glad to see the podcast back, and this convo is a great way to kick this off.

Things I learned from reading this week (that I can’t imagine finding a use for):
Thymoglobulin® (Antithymocyte globulin [rabbit])—I got this more from Real Life than reading this week, but still, it’s something I’ve gotta share. The fact that this works is amazing (and a tad disconcerting). But I have so many questions: how did someone come up with the idea for this? What animals were considered instead of rabbits?

A Little Help for Our Friend
Just want to remind you about Kickstarter: Mrs. Covington’s: A Cozy Fantasy Novel—It’s past the 50% mark, but still needs some support. If you haven’t yet, here’s your chance!

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Please Return to the Lands of Luxury by Jon Tilton—an almost-cozy MG story in a dystopian world
The Raven Thief by Gigi Pandian—I thought I’d been actively looking for the sequel to last year’s Under Lock & Skeleton Key, but didn’t even see that this was coming until four days after it was published! Anyway, this is probably the Book 2 I’ve been most looking forward to this year. Can’t wait to get it.

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