Saturday Miscellany—8/2/25

Much peopleing was done today (at least by my standards), so I’m running behind. Hope no one tries to set your watch by when this thing posts (it’s erratic enough that no one likely does, but you never know)

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:
Twenty Literary Would-You-Rathers by Julianne Neely—There are some tough calls to make in this new McSweeney’s piece
Why New Generations of Readers Are Still Discovering & Reading Agatha Christie—And one day, I’ll be one of them
Florida Man Writes Novel: Joe Pan on Philosopher-Bikers, Poetry, and Korean Horror Films—how do you pass up a combo like that?
Marketing Experiments and Learning What Works—AJ Calvin talks about various marketing strategies that she’s tried
Jordan Harper on the Bittersweetness of Adapting His Own Novel into a Hollywood Film—Nick Kolakowski talks about that, and more about the writing of the novel She Rides Shotgun (one of the best novels I’ve read, and I’m so nervous about the adaptation. Both for what this article says and because of an irrational dislike for Egerton).
While we’re on the subject, it’s worth taking a glance at Films that influenced Jordan Harper’s ‘She Rides Shotgun’
Instagram’s andr3wsky has some hard truths for people who only read and don’t listen to audiobooks.

A Book-ish Related Podcast/Video episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to/watch:
Libro.fm Podcast Episode 51: Cory Doctorow on Divesting from Amazon’s Audible and the Fight for Digital Rights—great stuff.
SFF Addicts Ep. 165: Self-Publishing as a Career with Tao Wong, Shami Stovall & Michael Michel—a great episode, and touches on a lot of things I want to explore in the future myself
Why The Silver Chair Is the Most Underrated Narnia Book | A Deep Dive Review—okay, I haven’t watched this yet. But suspect that Fantasy is for the Ages is onto something here. If only because I certainly rate it pretty low–always have (I’ve even skipped it a few times in my youth).

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
Scents and Sensibility by Spencer Quinn
Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
I mentioned the releases of Crooked by Austin Grossman and Half a War by Joe Abercrombie

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
There’s a voice in the back of my head that tells me I’m forgetting something major here. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ You may see an amendment next week when I remember the blantantly obvious.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks: Dealing with Dragons by Jaleigh Johnson—This is apparently a sequel, so I have two books to get now. This paragraph from the blurb is enough for me: “When the day is threatened by tyrannical foes or monstrous fiends, the people of Faerûn place their trust in the realm’s mighty heroes. When the mighty heroes don’t show up, they get the Fallbacks.”
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park—In these short stories, “characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. Spanning a quarter century, these sixteen stories tell the absurd truth about our lives. They capture the moment when the present becomes the past.”