Saturday Miscellany—2/28/26

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:
Libro.fm has a neat deal–donate $15 to a library, and get a free audiobook—this campaign ends today, but there’s still time! Also, apparently today is the end of National Library Week, which is totally a thing I knew about before now.
New book collects the weirdest forgotten stories of printing history—Okay, this article is just a thinly-disguised advertisement for a Kickstarter, but it’s still a fun read
My New Take on Whether We Should Remove “Old” Books from School Classrooms
Monthly Manga Mania Featuring Firsty Duelist Blue Exorcist by Kazue Kato—It’s the time of the month for Firsty Duelist to educate people like me about Manga
It’s also time for the Captivating Characters of the Month Linkup
A couple of month-end link wrap-ups to check out are: 10 Interesting Posts from the Book Blogosphere You May Have Missed in Feb. 2026 from Pages Unbound and February 2026 Book Blog Wrap-Up from A Literary Escape

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Crime Time FM‘s NADINE MATHESON In Person With Paul—was a lot of fun to listen to

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week:
“The questions we have for the dead haunt us like unfinished dreams.”
—Head Fake by Scott Gordon

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
The Story of Lucius Cane: Book One by Vanya Ferreira—(I’d completely forgotten about the existence of this book)
Steal the Sky by Megan E. O’Keefe
Freedom’s Child by Jax Miller—that was 10 years ago??
I mentioned the releases of: The Absconded Ambassador by Michael R. Underwood; Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce; The Drowned Detective by Neil Jordan; The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury; Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon (and one I forgot last week):
Prey of Angels by JCM Berne—the latest in The Hybrid Helix looks great!
The Book of Spores—the ebook for this anthology is available now, “Collecting fungal tales from across countless universes, this FanFiAddict anthology spotlights the best of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.”
After the Fall by Edward Ashton—”Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire, After The Fall… asks an important question: would humans really make great pets?”
Amari and the Metalwork Menace by B. B. Alston—huh. I thought this was a trilogy, but the publication of the fourth book reminds me to not assume so often.

(full credit to @jasonroygaston)