Saturday Miscellany—2/10/24

I struggled to find time for pretty much everything this week that wasn’t work, so this list ended up on the shorter side, but I still think you’ll find something you like.

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:
Children’s Publishers on the Role of BookTok
The Case for Paper: Books vs. E-Readers —Psychology Today weighs in on the side of paper.
Fantasy reimagined: Arab and Asian authors are rising globally by embracing their cultures
Literary Awards – What are they and why should you care? – Part 1—Rediscovered Books has started a series on their blog about those foil stickers on books.
Why Are Books Featuring Old Protagonists Trendy Right Now?—Good question, and Corson offers some good answers.
Nick Petrie on the Best Boundary Pushing Novels in Beloved Mystery Series—Petrie talks about some of the novels where authors broke/pushed the rules governing their series (and mentions a couple of unbreakable rules)
The American Cancer Society is running a fundraiser this month, and I figured I’d jump in: I’m Reading Every Day for American Cancer Society – Please Donate!—(I sort of wish I did this under the blog name, instead of my personal profile, oh well)
Shortly after starting that challenge, I saw that Hair Past a Freckle is doing something similar for Sarcoma UK, if you’re in the donating mood.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
SFF Addicts Ep. 90 Robert Jackson Bennett talks The Tainted Cup, Murder Mysteries & Moretitle—This is a great conversation. And although I wish he’d gotten Rex Stout’s name correct when talking about the inspiration for his detective characters, I love the image of Dr. Doolittle/Henry Higgins writing Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones – 1899-1981 by Iain H. Murray
Hell Hole by Chris Grabenstein—the mid-point in a series I so wish was ongoing
The Humans by Matt Haig
Mandarin Plaid by S. J. Rozan—I can’t imagine I could write something so pithy today (especially about a Rozan book!)
The Bat by Joe Nesbø
I mentioned the release of The Martian by Andy Weir…I wonder what happened with that one…

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett—This murder mystery/fantasy hybrid my first 5-star read of the year as I described a couple of weeks ago. I can’t imagine I won’t be mentioning this a few more times this year, so I’ll just leave it there for now.
Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out by Shannon Reed—”A hilarious and incisive exploration of the joys of reading from a teacher, bibliophile, and Thurber Prize Semifinalist.” Looks fun…and what bibliophile doesn’t enjoy reading about others afflicted with the same addiction?
Fourteen Days by many people—”Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice–from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham.” I don’t know when/if I’ll get around to reading this, but I’m fascinated by the idea.
I’ll Just Be Five More Minutes: And Other Tales from My ADHD Brain by Emily Farris—”A hilariously-honest, heartwarming essay collection about life, love, and discovering you have ADHD at age 35.”
The Price You Pay by Nick Petrie—Peter Ash comes to Lewis’ aid in his latest adventure. This looks great. If only I didn’t have to three books to read to catch up on the series.

(you’re welcome for the earworm)