Category: Blog Series Page 140 of 230

Saturday Miscellany—7/10/21

I’ve been out of town for most of the week and had limited internet time–so I didn’t have much of an opportunity for surfing. I was able to find a few things for this week’s post, but it’s a little small.

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 Andy Serkis to Narrate All 3 The Lord of the Rings Audiobooks—I’ve had The Hobbit narrated by Serkis in my libro.fm shopping cart for months, but couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on it. But if he’s doing these, too? Think it’s time.
bullet The Making of ‘Soul Taken’ A Mercy Thompson cover—this is fascinating (even if you have no interest in Mercy Thompson)
bullet 13 books perfectly summed up with one-liners from Gilmore Girls.
bullet 10 Reasons Why I Love Reading—Reading Ladies Book Club had a good entry for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt.
bullet How Book Lovers Spend Their Time . . . And . . . We Don’t Have a Problem!

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Tender is the Bite by Spencer Quinn—Chet and Bernie hunt for a client who didn’t get around to hiring them I tried to convey my enthusiasm a few days ago.
bullet Dog Eat Dog by David Rosenfelt—Andy Carpenter heads to Maine to defend his latest client I opined about it recently

The Friday 56 for 7/9/21: In Plain Sight by Dan Willis

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from Page 56 of:
In Plain Sight

In Plain Sight by Dan Willis

“My point is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with, and until we do, I suggest we limit possible exposure.”

“My boys have been in here for almost an hour,” Callahan said.

“And they’re probably fine, but let’s move everyone out of this room until I can run some tests.”

“All right,” Callahan agreed, then he shouted for everyone to stop what they were doing and go. “Don’t be too long, Doc,” he said once his men were gone. “I’m sure the Chief has heard about this by now and he’s going to want a report…soon.”

“We’ll be as fast as we can,” Iggy said and Callahan withdrew.

“You said you didn’t think it’s contagious,” Alex said once Callahan was out of earshot.

“I just wanted him and his men away from this room,” Iggy said. “It’s going to be hard enough to figure out what happened here without the police stomping all over everything.”

WWW Wednesday, July 7, 2021

I’m writing from a refreshingly chilly hotel 607 miles south(ish) from home, in Cedar City, UT. The trip is making things a little strange on the reading front (and non-existent on the audiobook front)–but I still think I have enough fodder for July’s first WWW Wednesday!

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading Know Your Rites by Andy Redsmith (a book I meant to read two years ago) and the audiobook A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones, Lorelei King (Narrator) is providing our road trip entertainment.

Know Your RitesBlank SpaceA Bad Day for Sunshine

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Liam Perrin’s Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights and last week I wrapped up Blood Trade by Faith Hunter, Khristine Hvam (Narrator) on audio.

Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued KnightsBlank SpaceBlood Trade

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be The Good Byline by Jill Orr (another book I meant to read two years ago) and if we have time on the return trip, we’ll listen to An Accidental Death by Peter Grainger, Gildart Jackson (Narrator), because my wife should meet DC Smith–otherwise, I have no idea what I’m doing next.

The Good BylineBlank SpaceAn Accidental Death

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

Saturday Miscellany—7/3/21

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 The Don Winslow Book Club was announced this week, will be giving its first picks on the 5th. I’m not sure how this is going to be different from Winslow’s hard push behind books/authors he likes on social media. But am betting he’s about to do some real damage to my Book Budget.
bullet The Impossible Question at the Heart of Every Book Tour: Jason Mott on Attempting to Answer “What’s Your Book About?”
bullet The Crime Books Top Authors Read Twice Because They’re Just That Good —Not only is this a good list of really good books, but I love some of the comments about them.
bullet When In Doubt, Look Around—Matthew Norman talks about finding inspiration for his new novel, All Together Now.
bullet Immortalizing Jack Reacher: Authors of long-running series face a difficult question: how should their characters age?—this is an interesting question authors need to wrestle with (and readers need to decide what they think of that choice), it has some special appeal to me as it compares the approaches of Parker/Atkins to Spenser and Child/Child to Reacher.
bullet Have I Outgrown YA?
bullet How to Get People to Read Your Bookish Blog and Keep Coming Back For More!—some decent advice and/or reminders
bullet How to comment more on non-interactive book blog posts?—I keep trying this, good prompt to keep at it.
bullet The 57 Best YA Books About Food that Will Make You Hungry Immediately—the fact that someone could find 57 YA books about food is pretty astounding. (personally, I’d have pushed this post back a few months until it could be 60, that 7 would drive me crazy)

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Keepers by Jeffrey B. Burton—Mace Reid and his cadaver dogs are back and neck deep in Chicago City Corruption. I had some pretty enthusiastic things to say about it recently
bullet Pug Actually by Matt Dunn—Doug, a rescued Pug, decides he needs to help his person fix her love life. I’m eager to see how Dunn approaches this.
bullet I’ll Pray When I’m Daying by Stephen J. Golds—”The Story of a Bad Man Becoming Worse.” A corrupt Boston Detective’s life falls apart. Looks gripping. Hearing a lot of good things about it. Be worth buying just for the cover…

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Amanda @ Bookish Brews, Joseph D. Newcomer, and Hit-Man Slade who followed the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

The Friday 56 for 7/2/21: The Watchman by Rob Parker

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from 56% of:
The Watchman

The Watchman by Rob Parker

But thankfully, the coast appears to be clear—yet, as soon as my idiot brain thinks that, I know it’s not and stop.

From the recess of the front door emerges one of the Secret Service guys, gun up. He’s fixed on Grosvenor. ‘Freeze, old man,’ he instructs.

This is the best look I’ve had at any of them so far. All black, attack vest and jet combats. Tactical sunglasses that don’t do anything apart from make you look a proper twat, and for all his supposed ocular advantage, he hasn’t seen me

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Watchman by Rob Parker

I’m so excited to be part of this last day of the Love Books Tour for The Watchman by Rob Parker. I’ve read this whole series in the last couple of months and doing this is a great way to cap off this project. In a little while here, I’ll be giving my take on the novel. But before that, let’s take a minute and learn a little about the book, okay?

The Watchman Tour Poster

Book Details:

Book Title: The Watchman by Rob Parker
Publisher: Lume Books
Release date: June 24, 2021
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Length: 259 pages

The Watchman

Book Blurb:

One last mission for an old friend. What could go wrong?

It’s sold as an in-and-out jaunt to The Big Apple, to pick up a harmless envelope. But when Ben Bracken is offered the assignment, he’s a little hesitant. He’s a family man now, with a duty to stay alive for his loved ones.

But, with the request coming from fellow former military man and trusted friend William Grosvenor, not to mention the eye-watering payout, one last job can’t hurt, can it?

So begins his American road trip, one that takes him from the city that never sleeps to the misty swamps of Florida. All in pursuit of one highly coveted envelope. Because it turns out, this job isn’t the walk in Central Park it was promised to be.

As he’s pursued by New York’s most dangerous mobsters, factions of federal law enforcement, and American Intelligence, Ben’s hunch is that their joint quarry must hold something of international significance.

He’s not wrong. The contents that’s slipping through these influential fingers contains evidence of the world’s biggest cover-up. Evidence that will rewrite history books and incriminate one of the most powerful men on the planet.

It’s probably best it winds up in the right hands.

The Watchman
is packed with action, underpinned with believable conspirative intrigue, world-class writing and twists you just won’t see coming.

About the Author:

Rob Parker is a married father of three, who lives in a village near Manchester, UK. Author of the Ben Bracken series A Wanted Man, Morte Point, The Penny Black and Till Morning is Nigh, The Watchman, and the standalone post-Brexit country-noir Crook’s Hollow, he enjoys a rural life on an old pig farm (now minus pigs), writing horrible things between school runs. He writes full time, as well as organizing and attending various author events across the UK, while boxing regularly for charity. Passionate about inspiring a love of the written word in young people, Rob spends a lot of time in schools across the North West, encouraging literacy, story-telling, creative writing, and how good old-fashioned hard work tends to help good things happen.

Social Media:

Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Website


My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this Tour and the materials they provided.

Love Books Group

WWW Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Time for the last WWW Wednesday of June and I (like so many in the West and Northeast of the country) am melting. If I’d been clever I’d have arranged to read a bunch of things set in the Winter or the poles. Instead, I’ve got these books (that are almost as good to escape into).

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading the fifth Ben Bracken novel, The Watchman by Rob Parker, and am continuing my march through the Jane Yellowrock series by listening to Blood Trade by Faith Hunter, Khristine Hvam (Narrator) on audiobook.

The WatchmanBlank SpaceBlood Trade

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Spencer Quinn’s Tender is the Bite (my post about that should have gone up a couple of hours ago) and OCDaniel by Wesley King, Ramon De Ocampo (Narrator) on audio—a great YA read.

Tender is the BiteBlank SpaceOCDaniel

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be In Plain Sight by Dan Willis—the start of a promising-looking series. Yes, I’ve said that before, but I shouldn’t get distracted this time. I have no idea what my next audiobook is going to be—I’m on a road trip with Mrs. Irresponsible Reader next week, we’ll probably listen to something, but it’s TBD.

In Plain SightBlank SpaceQuestion Mark

Hope you have some cool reads (and/or cool temps)

Saturday Miscellany—6/26/21

Record high temps and an AC system that’s not holding its own sum up most of the week for me. Thankfully, I read a few books that were good enough I could ignore how much I was perspiring. I truly hope you’re faring better in your corner of the world than the Northwest US is.

Also, have you all seen this site: BlogOverview.com? It looks like a great resource to find blogs on all sorts of topics, researched and curated by people, not an algorithm (and I’m not just saying that because I really dug the way they described this site, I’ve picked up a few to follow)

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 Douglas Coupland on Generation X at 30: ‘Generational trashing is eternal’—Sure, this is more of an advertisement for his new book, but the fact that the novel Generation X is 30 should be noted.
bullet On the Road to Bridget Jones: five books that define each generation—Fun lists to go along with that Coupland piece
bullet Bosch Season 7 Preview: In a Changed World, How Should We Feel About Police Shows?—applies to the book version of Bosch, too.
bullet Ditto for this one: title—Michael Connelly Says Bosch Is Just Like Batman – Without ‘the Cape and Mask and Stuff’
bullet Books and Bias: Rediscovering the writing and ideologies in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels—I’d quibble with some of the details sure, but great piece.
bullet Lessons of a self-published writer: independent bookstores are good, Amazon not so much.
bullet Coffee and Condolences: One Year Later—Some thoughts from Wesley Parker about the genesis of his book.
bullet Deadpool Creator Fabian Nicieza on (Finally) Finishing His Novel: It only took 35 years of writing comics to learn that 35 years of writing comics would help him write his debut mystery.—this reads a lot like something written by Deadpool’s creator should. Interesting look at the process of getting to his debut.
bullet Why I Like To Reread Books
bullet Why I am NOT telling you my book number… (But I will shout about books I love.)—I get this argument. I like it. I don’t think I’m going to stop mentioning my number and judging myself by it in my monthly posts, but…maybe?
bullet The Pros and Cons of Historical Fiction
bullet Reading during the pandemic—I think many of us can identify with this.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Questland by Carrie Vaughn—Jurassic Park, but for D&D types.
bullet Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza—Click the link for the whole blurb, but “a hilariously entertaining debut featuring two unlikely and unforgettable amateur sleuths. An engrossing and entertaining murder mystery full of skewering social commentary, Suburban Dicks examines the racial tensions exposed in a New Jersey suburb after the murder of a gas station attendant.”

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to tubasarwat, Elias Graves, and jakeschubert7 who all took the time to hit the follow button this week.
I wish I knew who to attribute this to, I saw it on the feed for The Shaggy Shepherd Book Reviews and had to share:

The Friday 56 for 6/25/21: Till Morning is Nigh by Rob Parker

Between a couple of books with dull page 56s and a few Uncorrected Proofs (I don’t feel comfortable quoting from them), it’s been a while since I had something for this. But, I’m back!

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from 56% of:
Till Morning is Nigh

Till Morning is Nigh by Rob Parker

…Broadshott is easy to keep a fix on thanks to her bobbing blonde hair, and as I get to within five yards of her, leaving the maelstrom churning behind us, a figure in jeans and a green parka steps from the crowd, arm cocked facing her. I don’t know what it is, but my moral compass won’t let anyone get hurt, and in an instant, instinct has me pouncing at the man, grabbing his arm mid hurl, and twisting him back into a heap on the floor with his arm up his back. As I drop him, a strawberry milkshake pops from his grasp, glooping all over him.

I remember this started happening back in the summer, this milkshaking of right-leaning figures. Like it was an acceptable thing to do. It’s still assault at the end of the day, and if one side is using any kind of violence to intimidate or quell the other, no matter how silly and harmless a splash of milkshake is, then you’ve run out of arguments. A failure of words is a failure of reason–and I can’t see a reason it should be done. And a milkshake is one thing. Tomorrow it could be a brick or stone, just like I thought it was today.

WWW Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Time for WWW Wednesday!

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading Dead Ground by M. W. Craven, and if I believed in an Id, mine would be screaming at me for taking time to do anything but read it for the next 200+ pages (like compiling this post). I’m also going through Hidden by Benedict Jacka, Gildard Jackson (Narrator) on audiobook.

Dead GroundBlank SpaceHidden

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Rob Parker’s Till Morning is Nigh, probably the best of the bunch. I also finally finished Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator) on audio.

Till Morning is NighBlank SpaceScarface and the Untouchable

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be Dog Eat Dog by David Rosenfelt (you have to wonder how he waited for the 22nd book to use this title) and my next audiobook should be Death’s Rival by Faith Hunter, Khristine Hvam (Narrator) as I continue to revisit the Jane Yellowrock series in audio.

Dog Eat DogBlank SpaceDeath's Rival

You reading anything good at the moment?

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