Saturday Miscellany—7/27/24

Wow, I’m running behind today.
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:
Why you should buy physical copies of your favorite books—Odd territory (if you ask me) for Popular Science, but hey…
Florida’s Commissioner of Education thinks Jane Austen was an American.—one of those stories that short circuits the brain as you read it. To be fair, we all make mistakes like this from time to time, and it feels mean to draw attention to it. But when I do something like this, I don’t have a staff checking over my material or posting it. Surely, someone could’ve caught this.
At My High School, the Library Is for Everything but Books: The administration has rebranded our library as a communal space for doing almost everything except reading.
Why don’t straight men read novels?—beyond the headline which threatened to tell me things about myself that were news to me, there’s some good stuff in this piece.
Defining Grimdark Fantasy and SF: Moving to an Inclusive Future
Free George R. R. Martin from The Winds of Winter—there’s something to this, a lot to it, really.
Maximize Your Reading Budget: 5 Tips for Free Reading—none of these include piracy, which is nice
Speak your damn mind – or why you should write opinionated book reviews
Self-Published Authors Appreciation Week 2024 wraps up today (frequent visitors to this site may not have realized it was going on this week, oops). If you, like me, are really behind on the posts—what better time to catch up?
“Toss a Coin To Your Bard” by Bjørn Larssen—One of my favorite pieces from the week was this guest post on Sue’s Musings.
Tough Questions Featuring Joel C. Flanagan-Grannemann—Joel C. Flanagan-Grannemann felt the pressure in the latest of Witty & Sarcastic Book Clubs’ series
After Narnia: Books That Will Remind You of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles (your results may vary)
Blogiversary #7—Reading Ladies Book Club turned the big 0-7 yesterday!
The Problem of the Unpunished Protagonist—as you read this post, you’re going to start compling your own list of this type of protagonist

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta—a fantastic stand-alone thriller by Koryta
The Rise & Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman—”a lovely little book I can’t really talk about without over explaining”
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith—Cormoron Strike’s second outing
And I mentioned the release of two installments in favorite series: Hounded by David Rosenfeldt and The Forsaken by Ace Atkins

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Wrong Hands by Mark Billingham—Detective Miller is back, and might have just been given the leverage he needs over his wife’s suspected killer. But of course, it’s not that easy, especially once you “Sprinkle in a Midsomer Murders-obsessed hitman, a psychotic welder, and a woman driven over the edge by a wayward Crème Egg.”
Domestication by Shannon Knight—anything I say about this book without reading it will be wrong. But for a creepy-looking time, this will fit the bill.
The Recruiter by Gregg Podolski—”When bad guys need good help, they call Rick Carter.” After spending a decade helping Europe’s worst criminals get things done, Carter has to play the hero to save his family.
The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu—The author of Moxie makes her adult fiction debut with a look behind the scenes at a Texas High School.