Saturday Miscellany—1/10/26

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:
The Lost Art of Reading an Actual Book: What happens when people stop reading books? We’re starting to see what a postliterate society looks like—and it’s very lame.—worth the read just for the metaphor about eating your kids’ Halloween candy.
9 Classic Crime Stories That Have Just Entered the Public Domain in 2026—CrimeReads talks about some BIG titles that are now Public Domain.
Mort Walker, Beetle Bailey, and the decline and fall of newspaper comics
100 Years of ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’: Adrian McKinty celebrates the centenary of Agatha Christie’s groundbreaking detective novel.
Is Fantasy Still Not Taken “Seriously” in Some Circles?—this week’s Fantasy with Friends had a lot of good input, (as I predicted). Go read the participants.
Let’s talk about “grimdark”—some good musings on Grimdark (which is being applied to broadly lately)
Letting Stories Linger—yes.
From Service to Storytelling: Local Vet Publishes Fantasy Novels—a nice little story about a local writer that I hope to make the acquaintance of soon. (at least in print)
26 Short Classics to Meet Your Goal of Reading More Classics in 2026—This could be a handy list
It’s all Your Fault: Book Reviewers who Influence My Reading—The gloves come off, and Jodie calls out book reviewers who deliberately destroy TBR pile progress. Vile folks that you should check out.
Speaking of destroying TBR progress, these Best of ’25 lists should set yours back a bit:
Sifa Elisabeth’s Best Books of 2025
Ganesh’s (Pippin Took) top reads of 2025 (his reasoning behind The Kaiju Preservation Society is very sound)
Jo Linsdell’sBest Reads of 2025
Celeste’s Favorite Books Published in 2025 and Favorite Backlist Books of 2025 show some great taste and burden me with some new titles
My Top 5: Books Read In 2025—For Books Sake pulls of the Herculean task of limiting it to 5!
TCL’s Best of the Best List for 2013-2025!—this is something I could never do…and props to Davida for pulling it off. And the madness is spreading, as Carol takes a stab at it: Best of the Best: 2015 to 2025

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week :
“The Governor was obviously the kind of person who received as much spiritual contentment from berating others as a cold man does from a bowl of soup.”—She Who Became the Sun by SHelley Parker-Chan (so, so much is said in that one sentence)

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
Somehow, these posts didn’t make the transfer to the new domain, so they look a little strange.
The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison
The Absconded Ambassador by Michael R. Underwood
And I mentioned the releases of: The Last Dream Keeper by Amber Benson and Steal the Sky by Megan E. O’Keefe

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire—Nancy returns to Eleanor West’s school on a mission–the world behind her Door is in peril, and her friends may be their last hope. Like just about every book in this series, this one blew me away, as I noted recently.
Fairest Hunter by M.K. Felix—a retelling of Snow White and Robin Hood. Should be a fun mashup.
The Charmed Library by Jennifer Moorman—”A cozy, Hallmark-esque rom-com, The Charmed Library invites readers to escape to a world where words come alive and book boyfriends leap off the page.” Go read what the Witty & Sarcastic Book Club had to say about it.
Ms. Marvel: Remnants of the Past by Saadia Faruqi—Kamala Khan is off to Pakistan on a hunt for a magical artifact. ‘Nuff said.