Saturday Miscellany—11/2/24

Whoo-hoo! Tonight’s the night where we get a bonus hour of reading!! (which makes up for the one in the spring where they steal one). At least that’s the case for us in the U.S. of A., the rest of you already got that bonus, right?

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:
How To Find Comfort in Your Bookish Community in Stressful Times—Stressful times? What stressful times? Oh…right. Now. Silly me. (feel free to substitute the name of your local Indie Bookstore for “Rediscovered Books”)
Have you purchased a weirdly low-quality paperback book lately? This may be why.—that’d explain it
The Longest Long Words List: Don’t read this if you have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words).—try to work some of these into conversation this week.
If You Like…by Olivia Blacke, author of A New Lease on Death—The TV shows that inspired the new book
Grief Is the Thing Worth Feeling: On Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story
Putting the Fangs into Fantasy: Why I Wrote my Book—Ed Crocker describes why he put Vampires and Werewolves into his Epid Fantasy…and probably convinced me to add it to Mt. TBR
The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century—from Reactor Mag
I’m Not Sure I Miss All the Bookish Hype
Using Someone Else’s Tools: The Ethics of Playing in Another Creative’s Playground—Peat Long takes both sides in an argument and convinces me with each
The Magic-Wielding Characters Bracket Challenge Hub Page—If, like me, you’re trying to catch up on these posts, here’s a handy-dandy list.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu
And the release of: The Peripheral by William Gibson; The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss; and Drawn Blades by Kelly McCullough

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke—dark comedy, a ghost, a twentysomething fish-out-of-water, and amatuer detectvies stumbling through a murder mystery. What’s not to like? I rather enjoyed it.
The Late Lord Thorpe by Peter Grainger, read by Gildart Jackson—The PI, DC Smith, looks into a death and finds more than anyone expects (or so I guess)
What If… Marc Spector Was A Host To Venom? by Mike Chen—I’ve never really gotten into Venom the way that everyone else has seemed to, and Moon Knight isn’t my favorite either. Combining the two sounds like it could be interesting, and if anyone can convince me to jump on the train, it’s Mike Chen
The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn—is probably worth a look for the magic system alone, but the story, character, and setting make this look even better
Grave Talk by Nick Spalding—this is a novel about grieving with the help of an unlikely friend, bound by coincidence and geography
Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture–And the Magic That Makes It Work by Jesse David Fox—out now in paperback. Which is great, because I hadn’t heard of it in hardcover. It “tackles everything you need to know about comedy, an art form that has been under-considered throughout its history, even as it has ascended as a cultural force.”