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 Laurent de Brunhoff, author of Babar children’s books, dies at 98—”Babar author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture-book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global multimedia franchise, has died at the age of 98.
bullet For Book Recommendations, People Are Always Better Than Algorithms: Maris Kreizman Reveals Some Tricks of the Trade for the Semi-Professional Book Recommender—good post, and some great recommendations, too.
bullet With Melville in Pittsfield—an interesting piece about a reader, Melville, and somehow Frank Castle/The Punisher is involved, too.
bullet How Comic Book Fans Mistakenly Claimed the Term ‘Trade Paperback’ as Theirs: Unfamiliarity with book terms led comic book fans to adopt a standard book term, “trade paperback,” as a comic book term—huh. Kinda always wondered about this.
bullet On Letting Go of the Idea of “Keeping Up”: “So, what have you read lately?” It sounds like an innocent question, but it came with a pile of expectations.—Molly Templeton’s being her regular thought-provoking self, and ends up sounding pretty healthy
bullet Behold The Music—among the many, many good things I read on Tolkien Reading Day (which I once again forgot about until the day), was this guest post from Pages Unbound
bullet How much does it cost to start a book blog in 2024? || 3 months of blogging—Laure’s looking at what she’s learned in 3 months of book blogging and asks some questions I should probably think about myself.
bullet Why I Love Buying Books!—I think we all can relate
bullet My Problem with “The Problem with Classics”
bullet Tanis Half-Elven was a deeper character than I thought (warning: SA, CA discussion)—excellent points. (although I’m a bit biased, always thought Tanis deserved more fan attention)
bullet Thinking About Stories: Appreciation Bottlenecks—Pete’s being insightful again…and I’m stealing/appropriating the term “Appreciation Bottleneck”
bullet Nerd Church – Should We Judge Older Books By Modern Standards? —good stuff
bullet March 2024 Book Blog Wrap-Up—Celeste’s monthly recap of the best posts you’ve missed
bullet The Best Books I Have Read Published in Each Year of My Life—Fantastic idea.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet The Conversation with Nadine Matheson 2.60 Neil Lancaster: True Detective and New Chapters
bullet Libro.fm Podcast EP 27 Interview with S.A. Cosby (Author of All the Sinners Bleed & Razorblade Tears)—another good Cosby interview

Things I learned from reading this week (that I can’t imagine finding a use for):
bullet Grated cheese predates The Republic—Plato talks about it—and it apparently was used to treat injuries? (an idea Plato did not endorse, I hasten to add). I don’t know why I assumed grating it was only a few hundred years old, but it seems I did. Source: Great Minds on Small Things by Matthew Qvortrup
bullet Speaking of Plato, I think I’d encountered the fact that he’d been a wrestler in his youth (a successful competitor in the Isthmian Games), but I didn’t know that his actual name was Aristocles—and that Plato might be a nickname from the Greek for “the broad-shouldered one.” Sure, Macho Man or The Rock are catchier, but that’s a pretty good (and on the nose) wrestling name. Source: Great Minds on Small Things by Matthew Qvortrup

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Rhythm and Clues by Olivia Blacke—the third, and best to date (as I recently opined), Record Shop Mystery. Junie doesn’t find the body this time, but she’s looking for the killer, for sure.
bullet The Devil You Know by Neil Lancaster—the 5th Max Craigie book finds the team working with Davie Hardie of all people to close a cold case. This is also a reminder that I should write about book 4.
bullet Poetry Comics by Grant Snider—”These poems explore everything you never thought to write a poem about, and they’re so fun to read you’ll want to write one yourself. Not to worry, there’s a poem for that, too!”
bullet You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace—this is a black comedy about a part-time serial killer dealing with the grief over her father’s death and a blackmailer.
bullet How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin—”about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate…. Now it’s up to her great-niece to catch the killer.”
bullet One in the Chamber by Robin Peguero—a political satire/thriller about Senate aids working with/against each other during the confirmation hearings for the first Black chief justice.
bullet Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny by Mark Cecil—a dark re-imagining of the folk heroes.

Woman sitting atop a ladder in front of a full bookshelf while reading with the text 'Too much of anything is bad, but too many books is barely enough.'