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:
bullet What Do Booksellers Make Of “The End Of Reading”?—Defector’s piece is a good counter-point to all the doomsaying about the state of reading.
bullet In Praise of “Wordy, Old Prose.” (Or, F*ck Your AI Reading Buddy)—from LitHub
bullet Is There a Wrong Way To Chase Your Dreams? Some Thoughts Post WorldCon.—Micaiah Johnson has some things to say, this is written for up-and-coming authors, but I think it applies to a lot of spaces.
bullet How to Be the Most Annoying Person at Worldcon, 2026 Edition—John Scalzi has some similar ideas
bullet https://peterhartog.com/2026/09/05/where-the-deuce-have-you-been/—Peter Hartog/Peter David gives an update about his writing, and shares an incredibly relatable tale of heartbreak along the way.
bullet The Indie Author Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror New Release List: September 2026—A.J. Calvin’s latest list of new Indie titles

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
bullet The Granite Moth by Erica Wright
bullet Timothy Other: The Boy Who Climbed Marzipan Mountain by L. Sydney Abel
bullet The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by David Rosenfelt—I didn’t realize that Rosenfelt had been doing Christmas novels this long!
bullet Outfoxed by David Rosenfelt
bullet Empire Falls by Richard Russo
bullet And I mentioned the releases of: The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe; Curioddity by Paul Jenkins; and The Key to the Coward’s Spell by Alex Bledsoe

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Unbearable by A. Lee Martinez—It’s been too long since Martinez put out a new book, I really didn’t care what it was about, it was going on my list. But then I read: “Ortiz is a man without grand ambition or talent. He survives by being mildly useful and eminently disposable, destined to end up in a shallow grave. But on the day he’s digging that grave, he discovers a magic sword. Not just any magic sword, but the magic sword: A weapon that keeps away the apocalypse in the form of an all-devouring dragon.” Now I care about what it’s about.

The words 'Reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. - Wislawa Szymorska' superimposed on an image of shelves of books
image source: @Reading_Addicts on Twitter