Saturday Miscellany—6/15/24

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:
Book Banners Ban a Book About Book Banning: Would you believe a school library system would go so far as to ban a book about book banning just because it mentions banned books?—I listened to this audiobook a couple of years back, it boggles my mind that this is controversial.
Thoughts on the 25th Anniversary of ‘Hannibal’—Nick Kolakowski looks back on the book that broke my burgeoning Thomas Harris addiction
Apostrophe’s Dream—Just what do those special characters get up to in a Moveable type drawer?
The Worst Dads in All of Literature: An Incomplete List —skip the Abraham entry, the rest of the post is pretty fun.
Ink & Imagination: Celebrating Ballpoint Pens With Words and Wonder—fountain pens get all the attention, but give me a good ballpoint any day.
These gifts are the way to a book-lovers heart
The Chocolate Lady asks: Do you ever want to go back and review books you read before you started blogging?
Fiction & Mythology—How Many Types of Vampires are There?—Over on Summon Fantasy, Anca Antoci surveys vampires
It’s okay to like grimdark or “I am a Nineties Edgelord”
Lev Parikian has the kind of book buying discipline that I can only aspire to.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Tea, Tonic, and Toxin Episode 58: Archie Goodwin is Awesome—(a great episode title), Part 2 of the conversation with Ira Matestky, focused on The League of Frightened Men.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Hot Lead, Cold Iron by Ari Marmell—I’m still annoyed with myself that I didn’t stick with this series
Marked Man by William Lashner—a pretty good legal thriller, IIRC
The Intern’s Handbook by Shane Kuhn—I enjoyed this book so much, I really wish Kuhn had found his audience.
I mentioned the publication of two books I rather enjoyed and one I completely forgot about (probably because I didn’t get around to reading it): Shield and Crocus by Michael R. Underwood, California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout, and The Rise & Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart—an assassin who got out is being pulled back in. I had a blast with it, as I tried to convey
Moonbound by Robin Sloan—Sloan gets strange in this Fantasy novel pretending to be Sci Fi (or is it the other way around)? I liked it, but didn’t totally get it
Dad Camp by Evan S. Porter—”A heartwarming novel about a loving dad who drags his eleven-year-old daughter to ‘father-daughter week’ at a remote summer camp—their last chance to bond before he loses her to teenage girlhood entirely.”