Saturday Miscellany—9/7/24 (corrected and revised)

On Tuesday, i say to myself, “No need to jot down a note about the release of my buddy Joe’s new book, I’ll remember that on Saturday.”

Saturday, almost 4 hours after posting my Saturday Miscellany, a friend (after pointing out an embarrassing typo, sadly not both of them), says: “What? No mention of Eyes of Empire being released? (which is even more mortifying). Sorry, JCM!!

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:
Can fairytales and fantasy compete with Fortnite? How to get kids reading at any age—Spoiler: Yes.
Can a Book Save Your Life?: The mega-bestselling author Matt Haig and the limits of the therapy novel.
NaNoWriMo gets AI sponsor, says not writing your novel with AI is ‘classist and ableist’—there just aren’t enough SMH emojis, Picard holding his head in his hands/Fillion grasping for words gifs in the world…
The seven kinds of friendships you find in literature: a taxonomy.
In Praise of Reference Books: Reference volumes should be valued as least as much as fiction and other nonfiction books—Yes!
Why Thrillers Matter
Three Helpful SF-Related Rules of Thumb, According to Me
Quiz: Can You Identify These Crime Novels From Their Library of Congress Subject Categories?—I could’ve done better
Top Ten Tuesday: serve and enjoy—I rather enjoyed this TTT
Fantasy and Feminism #1: Elden Ring—Before We Go Blog brings the first in a series “that provides analysis of strong female characters and their role in stories that tend toward the grim as well as dark.”
Blind Listening: When Aphantasia Meets Audiobooks—I was sure I shared this before…oops. Thanks for the reminder, Celeste!
Tough Questions with Marie Sinadjan—how does our favorite UK-Based Filipino speculative fiction author and book reviewer handle Witty & Sarcastic’s gauntlet?

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths by Harry Connolly—I should revisit this collection sometime
Free Fall by Robert Crais
And my TBR was overburdened by the releases of: Hidden by Benedict Jacka; The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire; Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs; Maplecroft by Cherie Priest; Personal by Lee Child; The Drop by Dennis Lehane; and What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Eyes of Empire by JCM Berne—Rohan has his hands more than full it seems in the Fifth Turn in the Hybrid Helix. Going to be fun watching him try to deal with it all.m
Safe Enough and Other Stories by Lee Child—non-Reacher short fiction. Color me curious.
Roverpowered by Drew Hayes—a new wizard and her familiar launch a new series.
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness—I’ve read one fantastic and one pretty good book by Ness, this MG read looks fun enough to try.

Credit @thejenkinscomic (Hat Tip: @Cool_Comic)