Saturday Miscellany—12/30/23

When going through the posts, etc. I had collected for this week, it felt like this was going to be nothing but a list of lists. Which would’ve been fine, but strange, you know? I did eventually get mostly past the lists to some other things. But I’ll warn you now, if you are looking to keep your TBR from exploding, there are several things I linked to today that you’ll want to avoid.

On the other hand, if you’re wanting it to explode with goodness…

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:
If Not For Libraries: Authors on the Importance of Public Libraries—The New York Public Library put this together earlier this year, and I’m not sure how I missed it until this week.
Five years and 2m copies later, self-published author lands UK book deal—Granted, the overwhelming majority of self-pubbed authors won’t see this kind of success. But doesn’t it make your heart warm to see that some do?
A.I. : In the Age of the Absence of the Author
Why Readers Love Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire Series —this is a good overview of the series/good intro for those who’ve thought about dipping their toe in.
Before We Go Blog is always a reliable source of good material, but three of the posts the team put up this week caught my eye.
Top Urban Fantasy Series To Get You Hooked on the Genre—I enjoyed (the?) previous version(s?) of this, but this updated one makes me feel positively un-read in the genre.
Top Ten Fantasy Characters That Probably Listen to Taylor Swift—Kudos to them for even coming up with this idea. I’m not a Swiftie (at least not after her second album), but I enjoyed the post
Seven Favorite Cinnamon Rolls in SFF Novels—Is Cinnamon Roll a term I should already be familiar with? Either way, I’m adding it to my vocabulary.
Top 20 Most Recommended Audiobooks of All Time—according to Libro.fm
Another batch of Best of 2023 lists:
Top Five Most Dramatic Twists I Read In 2023—Steven Writes comes up with another good category
10 of My Favorite Reads in 2023—from Pages Unbound’s Krysta
Adam Holcombe provided “A handful of great books, given to you in the form of specialized awards”
FanFiAddict’s A.J. Calvin’s Top 10 Reads of 2023
Favorite Books in 2023—from A Literary Escape
Out of This World SFF’s My Top 10 Reads of 2023!!!
Most Memorable Reads of 2023—from Reading Ladies Book Club
Top 5 Books of 2023—Top 5? As I’m going to demonstrate next week there’s no way I could get things down to 5. My hat’s off to Books are 42 for pulling it off.
Tales from Absurdia’s The Best Books I Read in 2023
Esmay Rosalyne’s Best Surprises of 2023
What Makes a Story Comforting?—another good one from Molly Templeton. I’m also tempted to (somewhat reluctantly) rewatch Grimm.
How to Plan for Your 2024 Reading Challenge —some good advice from NetGalley’s We Are Bookish blog
Backlist Bingo 2024—it’s been a minute since Armed With a Book did a Bingo, this looks fun
Read What You Got—a month-long push to clear up your unread books
The 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge—the last two of these from Runalong the Shelves have proved helpful to me. I’m back for a third go-round.
The Project Backlist Reading Challenge—another good-looking challenge
Bookish Travel: Visiting The 50 US States 2023—what a great idea…
2024 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—a great tool for Bloggers and super-organized readers (or those wanting to be)
Quotables: Words that Stuck with me in 2023—I love this annual post (which inspired my monthly posts…that I will get back to!)

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Sundry Notes of Music: An Almost Memoir by Ian Shane—some of the bigger moments of Shane’s life are described through the filter of important (to him) songs. Humor, love, loss, and a lot of music. I talk a little more indepth about it here.

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