Saturday Miscellany—10/11/25

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:
Down & Out Books Announces their Closure—They were one of my favoite indie presses, it’s a real shame.
I appreciated Nick Kolakowski‘s thread about it, both good and the bad
How I Managed to Write a Book without Going (Too) Broke—”A grant, a small advance, a supportive spouse, and the $100 I found outside the library”
What Fictional Violence Teaches Us About the Real Thing (and Vice Versa)
My Latest BookBub Featured Deal—AJ Calvin gives a quick peak behind the curtain
There Comes a Time in Every Reader’s Life When You Have to Move the Books—Molly Templeton manages to have a thoughtful take on even the most dreaded part of moving—packing books!
Read Dangerously: Banned Books Week 2025—Jodie gets to the heart of this week
Self Published Fantasy Releases – October 2025—Rob J. Hayes has a ready-made shopping list for the month
Why do I love Horror?—I don’t know that I’d have tagged Cathy as a Horror-lover, but I’d clearly have been wrong. Glad there are people like her out there (to make up for horror-averse readers like me)
Spooktober Recommendations From the Blogger Community—Mehsi gathered some recommendations from bloggers for those who want to dabble (at least) in the spooky season
YA books with a male lead… That Boys Will Actually Enjoy!—so strange that this is a post that’s needed.
Rachel Skye makes a great case against reading challenges

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman
How to Write a Novel by Melanie Sumner—I should stress that this is a novel in case you’re looking for a how-to
Cursed Moon by Jaye Wells
Indexing: Reflections, Episode 5: Sleeping Beauty by Seanan McGuire
And I talked about the releases of: The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan; The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson; A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin; and Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong —only took me 9 years and 10 months to read it.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon (next week’s list will be much longer, start saving your pennies):
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow—”The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users—and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die…[Doctorow] shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and—most important—how they can be undone.”