Saturday Miscellany—6/7/25

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:
Defending Adverbs Exuberantly if Conditionally: In which I argue for the usefulness of the most hated part of speech
“..I Want the Reader to Feel as if They’re There.”: An Interview with Return to Sender’s Craig Johnson
Speaking of Mr. Johnson, Longmire author wins Western literature’s highest honor
What Do Americans Really Want to Read? We (Might) Have the Answer
The Theater Kids at the End of the World or, All the Page’s a Stage and We Are Not Merely Readers—I admit that in paragraph 4, when Templeton started talking about a novel I’ll start in a week or so, I started skimming just to be safe. But the gist I got made this worth linking to.
To DNF or not to DNF – That is the question!
Row, Row, Row Your Boat- Books Set In or Around Water (that I actually like)
My Top 39 Fantasy Series/Books—Pete’s thought more about Fantasy Fiction than I’ve thought about almost anything…so it’s worth consulting this list.
Books We Loved As Children—LibraryThing’s List of the Month is just the thing if you’re needing a splash of nostalgia (hard to argue against most/all of the top 15)

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Crime Time FM THOMAS TRANG In Person With Paul
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend Ron Chernow—the focus is on Chernow’s new Mark Twain bio, but they touch on some of his other work, too.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
Soulless by Gail Carriger
What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs by Cat Warren
I mentioned the releases of 2 books, one was absolutely worth the time. The other, not so much: The Fold by Peter Clines and Stay by Victor Gischler

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
This Dog Will Change Your Life by Elias Weiss Friedman with Ben Greenman—”A uniquely insightful, uplifting, emotional, and informative book that shows us how dogs make our lives better by making us better people”
Realms of the Round Table by John Matthews—”Rare and previously unpublished tales of one of the most famous legends in literature is brought to life for a new generation by one of the world’s leading Arthurian experts and illustrated by an acclaimed Tolkien artist.”
Not that Kind of Good Guy by John Ringo—I’m not going to try to fit a description of this take on superheroes into a sentence, go read the link.

Image credit: Grammarly