Saturday Miscellany—5/11/24

I’m alive and recovering (and not reading as much as I’d expected). I’ll have more to say about that soon-ish. I’ve got some fantastic guest posts lined up for next week–be sure to come back for them. Thanks for all the well-wishes over the last week. I’ll try to personally reply soon.

There seems to be a mood, or a tone, to a lot of these links this week–I want to stress that I wasn’t trying to doomscroll. I mean, we’ve all been in a place where that is what we’ve been looking for. But that’s not where I was this week–but you can’t tell that from what I marked for this post.

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:
Inside libraries’ battle for better e-book access
Speaking of libraries, this is worth watching (if only for the running joke about a certain series of picture books) Libraries: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Against the objectification of books (or, some thoughts on The Discourse).—worth chewing on
Not Lost in a Book: Why the “decline by 9” in kids pleasure reading is getting more pronounced, year after year.—chilling
Bad Nostalgia: The book publishing industry is in crisis, so why is it so hard to talk about the labour that goes into making books?
Thriftbooks has some interesting lists of Books by State® 2023: Non-Fiction/Fiction and corresponding lists from 2013. The only one for Idaho that didn’t put a puzzled look on my face was the 2013 Non-Fiction pick. Do you have any thoughts on your state’s representatives?
Are You A Good Enough Friend To Hide a Dead Body?—Forget Enneagram types, political stances, Birth Signs, Hogwarts’ House, and so on–this is the ultimate personality test, right? (actually, not really the point of the piece, just my reaction to the title)
What Are the Rules for Lending Your Books to Friends?—Electric Literature talked to librarians for this piece. Who better?
10 Words Every Book Lover Should Know—I actually shared this back on 5/10/14, but still need to work these words into my everyday vocabulary. (and am a little shocked that the link from back then is still live)
To Write or Not to Write (In Your Books)
When Books Were Illustrious: Once upon a time, illustrations in books—all books—was standard practice.
Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons You DNF’d a Book—I don’t know how many posts about DNFing I’ve linked to over the years, but I’m pretty sure this format is a first.
Flowers or Books? Is the Special Woman in Your Life a Reader? 10 Book Recs for #MothersDay—This is a good list. And one I can actually see me using for next Mother’s Day (had already picked this year’s books when Carol posted this.) If any of my kids are looking for an idea, there’s a couple of things I can see working for their mom, incidentally.
20 Books of Summer is back—it can’t already be time to start compiling a list for this, is it??
Being a reader is so hard!—Luke Harkness speaks for many of us here.

A Book-ish Related Podcast-type thing episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Cocktails with Cav Show Ep. 32 Hollywood Grocery Clerks & a Hot Case! Great interview with Crime Fiction Author Andrew Miller!—I haven’t finished it yet, but what I have is pretty good.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh—there’s no way that I’d write about this book in 5 paragraphs today (or if I did, I’d feel guilty about it). I also think that giving this 3.5 stars says something about how my ratings have become more inflated in the last few years. Still, it was fun to look back on this one.
I also mentioned the publication of Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins —Atkins’ third Spenser novel.