Saturday Miscellany—6/27/26

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:
‘Erasing histories and voices’—Oh good, another export from the U.S. (that’s hyperbole, but that kept running in the back of my head as I read)
Louis Pope Gratacap, A Curator in Lost Worlds—The total tonnage of what I don’t know about Lost Worlds fiction could stun a team of oxen in its tracks, yet I somehow think I have a decent understanding of it. This fascinating review shows I don’t.
My breakup with Amazon—a good essay in drawing.
Future folklores: how new traditions can root us in hope
Late Night Mars: Josephine Baker, flying Lamborghinis, and film criticism—Like I wasn’t hyped enough for Trang’s upcoming book
The 61 Greatest Indie Books of All Time—No news to anyone, but the problem with Indie Books is that almost all of them fly under the radar. I think I’ve heard of 2 of these. Maybe. Several of these look like I want to hear more about them.
The Way to Read More Is to Read More: This isn’t a “just do it” pep talk, I promise.—Molly Templeton’s latest
Is There a Magic Number of Books to Read Per Year That Makes You a “Reader?”—The amount of time that I spent trying to come up with a witty comment for this post…it’s not an easy question to answer, but Briana’s headed in the right direction (maybe arrived there, too)
Bookmark This: What I Use as Bookmarks (First Edition, Maybe)—A fun listicle from Witty & Sarcastic Book Club. As was this reply
Mad Mabel: Captivating Characters of June 2026 —I haven’t finished my post for this month yet, but wanted to take a minute to point again to this fun link-up.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Writer’s Dossier Podcast Rob Hart—THREE HITMEN AND A BABY—I had to wait to finish my post about the book before I’d let myself listen to this.

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week:
“…I kept working on the article, answering emails, Alt-Tabbing to social media in case someone had uploaded a video of a guy putting a lemon up his nose. Normal writer stuff, in other words.”—The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams
We’re All Damaged by Matthew Norman
Yes, Please by Amy Poehler
Hexed (Audiobook) by Kevin Hearne, Luke Daniels
I mentioned the releases of: The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg ; Play Nice by Michael Guillebeau; Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen; New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey. Only one of which I read. Alas.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It’s Too Late by Cory Doctorow—Didn’t go scortched-earth on AI as I’d expected. I had to re-think a lot of what I’ve been thinking about AI (but not everything!! Especially regarding illustrations/writing/etc.). Typical good stuff from Doctorow.
Foundling Fathers by Meg Ellison—”The Antediluvian Society—a shadowy cabal of right-wing billionaires—is fed up with a country they cannot fully control or understand. So they have done what any reasonable American patriots would do: Clone the Founding Fathers and raise them in secrecy. The plan, unbeknownst to the boys, is for them to restore America to its “original glory.” And then one of the clones finds an iPhone. Whoops.
The Tinder Box by M.R. Carey—a dark fairy tale about a former soldier, a witch, and a magic box that can grant wishes.

Image source: @artlovergirl.bsky.social