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:
bullet “Free People Read Freely.” Read Librarian Tracie D. Hall’s Full TIME100 Speech
bullet Author T.J. Newman’s Open Letter To Dreamers Who Read Deadline—I don’t know if you know the story of Newman’s path to publication, but if you don’t here’s your chance. Even if you don’t care about her, this is a good call to keep dreaming. (I’ve yet to read Newman, because from what I can tell about her writing, she’s just going to make some of my phobias worse, and I like them in their current almost-debilitating status)
bullet Similarly, there’s To All the Novels I Never Published from Bryan VanDyke
bullet Do Great Actors Make Great Novelists?—prompted by the new novel byTom Hanks
bullet The folks over at Digitaltrends have assembled The Best Books Of All Time, Ranked—based on Goodreads ratings. So…you know…you’ll want to take this with a few boulder-sized grains of salt. I still found both the Fiction and Non-Fiction lists intriguing to read.
bullet Welcome to Wyrd and Wonder—the kick-off post for the month-long Fantasy Fest. There’s just so much good content being produced by book bloggers for this that I can’t even try to keep up with it—but what I’ve seen here and there makes me want to try.
bullet The Culture of the Fantasy Genre

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend: Steven Wright—Normally, I’ll take any excuse to share something about Steven Wright, but I do try to keep this post to book-ish content—thankfully, this appearance was prompted by Wright’s upcoming novel, so I can justify it. Also, Steven Wright wrote a novel?!?!? I’m so there. (if you just want the part about his novel, here’s a video excerpt)
bullet Page Break with Brian McClellan Ep 68 – Travis Baldree – Author and Narrator—a great conversation about both Baldree’s writing and the recording of audiobooks.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Fixit by Joe Ide—IQ/Isaiah Quintabe is back, baby! (I truly wondered if the series had concluded…the previous book would’ve worked as one) This time he’s facing off with a hitman out for revenge and a homicide detective wanting to put IQ in his place.
bullet The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence—”Two strangers find themselves connected by a vast and mysterious library containing many wonders and still more secrets.” Is very vague, but I think that quotation is about as good as I can do without reading it. I’ve seen a lot of talk this week about this book (most very positive). Lawrence has been someone I’ve meant to read for ages, and this just might push me to it.


(I don’t have a source for this, so I can’t provide a link to it…)