A little bit of catch-up from last week, a little bit of stuff I found this week, and just a touch of things I will have found next week.
(two out of three ain’t bad).
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:
Dispatch From the Ghosts of Bookstores Past
We Don’t Talk About Harry Potter: The perils of publishing a diverse magic school series in the shadow of a juggernaut
Bros Are Coming for BookTok. These TikTokers Aren’t Having It
The Man Who Invented Fantasy: All those wizards, ogres, and barely-clad elf queens in the bookstore? You have Lester del Rey to thank.
How to Exclaim!—varied thoughts on !
Agony Editor: Judging your own book’s cover design – and what to do about it
What Makes Some Long Books Feel Too Long?—Templeton again asks the important questions
How Far Afield Can Sci-Fi and Fantasy “Fake Swearing” Get Before You Feel Uncomfortable?—honestly, I enjoy the fake swears. But, whatever…fun post anyway.
Bookish Jobs I Would Do For Free—yup
Worlds Unlike Our Own and The Strawberry Post both recently celebrated their 5th Anniversaries. Each in an interesting fashion.
Why Shakespeare still matters—odd that this needs to be said, but…
10 Books That You Must Read Once in Your Life—yeah, maybe. I wonder if I put off reading a couple of these for a few more decades, do I get to live longer? How authoritative is that “must”?
The Five 2013 Reads I Remember Best—I enjoy Finn’s premises almost as much as his posts
The SciFiMonth Challenge—it’s right around the corner, are you participating?
On Writers, Reviewers, and a Pointless Tangle—tempted to just post this link on social media every so often for the next decade
A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Lone Wolfe – Steve Hockensmith – Episode 32—a fun chat with the author of the Holmes on the Range series about fiction, Nero Wolfe, his own material and more. Couldn’t agree more with everything he said about The Big Sleep, incidentally.
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Up on the Woof Top by Spencer Quinn—a new Chet and Bernie book? Sign me up. Based on the last “Christmas” novel for these two, the holiday will be part of the setting, but it could be read without regard to the season.
Peat
Huh, for some reason it isn’t showing when you link to me now. Odd and annoying. Anyway, many thanks for the shout, looking forwards to going through the other links
HCNewton
As always, you’re very welcome!
Cat Strawberry
Thank you so much for including my post. I wasn’t able to click on the link of fellow blogger celebrating their anniversary though, it reverted me back to a lost page on your site 😮
HCNewton
Eeep! I’ll try to fix thst ASAP.
HCNewton
that was…just bad on my part. Should be working now. Thanks for the heads-up!!
Raji
Thanks for including my post!