Category: Blog Series Page 3 of 164

Saturday Miscellany—2/24/24

Let’s start with some good news—there’s a new independent bookstore opening soon in my area, and they must be getting serious about things because they’re hiring staff now. I’m enjoying watching them share some of their prep work, and we’re hoping to do something on this site together as they get closer to Opening Day.

I’ve got a super short list this week—I have not been doing a lot online, as you may have noticed. Remember a few years ago when I was talking about my son’s kidney transplant? Well, he’s about to start shopping for a new one—he’s currently at his second dialysis session, and there was a little bit of drama surrounding discovering it’s time for that (seriously, the effects of kidney failure on your body can be fairly astounding).

Also, this week we’re skipping the 10 years ago look back this week because I got off track and I’ve already taken care of this week. So…my flashbacks will pick up again next week (just out of curiosity, is anyone enjoying that bit in the first place?).

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 An anti-censorship resource, Book Résumés, just launched. Each “résumé summarizes the book’s significance and educational value, including a synopsis, reviews from professional journals, awards, accolades, and more.”
bullet Bring Back the Big, Comfortable Bookstore Reading Chair —yeah, I can see Johnston’s point.
bullet Bear McCreary Unleashes “The Singularity” Album, Graphic Novel, Concert—color me intrigued
bullet Fungi in Fiction by Adrian M. Gibson—a guest post over at Before We Go Blog on a topic few, if any, have likely considered.
bullet Stop using “YA” as an insult—Kopratic sounds off at The Fantasy Inn
bullet A quick video post: 5 Books Better than Dealing with Real Life

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg—An “exploration of what makes conversations work—and how we can all learn to be supercommunicators at work and in life.” Frankly, I don’t need to be a super-communicator, I’d be happy with better-than-I-currently-am. I’ve enjoyed Duhigg’s previous two books, and imagine this will be equally engaging, interesting, and perhaps helpful.
bullet Buffalo Fluffalo by Bess Kalb, Illustrated by Erin Kraan—No idea what this is about…fun title, great cover. Nuff ‘said.

Picture of a despondent woman with the text: No matter how often Jane re-read her favorite novel, the typographical error on page 102 still got to her.

WWW Wednesday, February 21, 2024

This has turned into one of those weeks…I’ve read for 60 minutes (combined) the last two days—and I don’t expect today is going to be much better. Those 30 minutes a day is enough to keep me sane…just. (they’re also a good reminder that my mind does require some time for reading). They’re enough to help me keep going with my, I’m Reading Every Day for American Cancer Society, too—a nice bonus. Shall we take a quick look at the books I’m spending a little time with?

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?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading the disturbing (as the cover suggests) Abnormal Ends by Bryan McBee, and am listening to Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter, read by Khristine Hvam on audiobook to refresh my mind on the series before I dive into the next one.

Abnormal EndsBlank SpaceSpells for the Dead

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished (and posted about ) Adam Johnson’s Fortune Smiles and Another Girl by Peter Grainger, read by Gildart Jackson on audio.

Fortune SmilesBlank SpaceAnother Girl

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be the ARC of Rift in the Soul by Faith Hunter (so I’d better make sure I get in some good Audiobook listening time soon) and my next audiobook should be An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy, read by Suzanne Toren, which looks like a quick and fun read.

Rift in the SoulBlank SpaceAn Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good

How’s your reading going this week?

Grandpappy’s Corner: Taco Tuesday by Brick Puffington, Amy Blair (Illustrator): It’s Not Quite “Eat Mor Chikin,” But…

Grandpappy's Corner Taco Tuesday Logo

Taco Tuesday

by Brick Puffington, Amy Blair (Illustrator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: Cottage Door Press
Publication Date: September 03, 2019
Format: Board Book
Length: 12 pg.
Read Date: February 18, 2024
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s Taco Tuesday About?

This book is a taco trying to convince the reader to eat something other than tacos—it talks about the problems with eating a taco, and how great other foods are in comparison.

It’s a fun idea, right?

Let’s Talk about the Art for a Minute

It’s bright, it’s simple in a way that will attract a very young reader. It’s playful and cheery. Just what the doctor ordered, basically.

How is it to Read Aloud?

There’s not a lot to it—it’s a super quick read, if you’re just about the reading and not playing with the puppet. The pages are tiny and have very few words on them. The rhymes are fun enough. I’m pretty sure by the time I finish this post I’ll have used 5x the words in the book (at least).

So, what did I think about Taco Tuesday?

Let’s see…the little finger puppet taco is pretty cute (it’s the Grandcritter’s favorite part, as far as I can tell). That should be mentioned first off.

Secondly, man, am I glad that the audience for this book is not going to remember—or fully understand—this book. Because, really—it’s about a cute little taco trying to get the reader to eat anything, anything, but them. And the book closes with the reminder it’s Tuesday. That’s pretty dark for a board book. But again, the target audience isn’t going to think that hard about it.

Their parents (or whoever is reading this to/with them), on the other hand, will understand that—and it’s a dash of fun to help out with a book that doesn’t offer a lot for us.

This is cute, it’s fun. It’s multifaceted—a kid to play with the pages, the puppet, and look at some pretty colors and bright pictures. That’s more than enough for me to recommend it.


3 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Grandpappy Icon

Grandpappy’s Corner at 1 Year

Grandpappy's Corner Birthday
The first Grandpappy’s Corner post went up a year ago, and I’ve posted an average of 2 books a month in that series since then–I expected to do more, but I’m happy with what has come from it. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed them, too (if you’ve taken the time to look at them).

To commemorate the day/take advantage of the time the holiday gave me, I’ve finally gotten around to putting together an index of sorts for those posts and the posts that would’ve been part of the series had I started it 7 or 8 years ago. Boy howdy, have I talked about a lot of books for infants/toddlers (more toddlers/pre-readers, truth be told). Also, yeah, I know the formatting needs a little tweaking…sometime soon.

A good number of these try to teach something–and many of those things are worth learning. Some are just pretty to look at. But the ones that primarily appeal to me are the silly ones that you–and, sure, the kid you’re reading to–can have fun with. The art for those as well as the very strange text just makes me happy and I wish I spent more time reading books like that. (the Grandcritter is approaching his first birthday, and I’m looking forward to his longer attention span so we can spend more time reading together, so that’ll help.)

Anyway, one year down, 24 books posted about, more to come!!

Grandpappy Icon

Cake Image by marcos101 from Pixabay

Saturday Miscellany—2/17/24

Running late today…no interesting story behind it (which is good and bad), just a thing that happened. But I do have a few things to share for whenever you see this post.

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 Loss of Things I Took for Granted: Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively.—this is disturbing
bullet Can We Please Put an End to Overperformed Audiobooks?
bullet 20 Modern Whodunits to Read if You Love Golden Age Mysteries —this is a pretty good listicle from The Real Book Spy
bullet Coming to Terms With “Cozy” Fiction: Categories and genres are weird things. Sometimes they make perfect sense; sometimes they feel like mental sandpaper.
bullet Why is there an obsession with rehabilitating villains??—while I wouldn’t want to argue against rehabilitating anyone in real life, I think the Orangutaton Librarian hits on something here when it comes to fiction.
bullet The Various Things Ratings Can Mean—Peat Long drops some wisdom
bullet Books with Relationships for People who Don’t Love Love: 2024 Edition—the atypical Valentine’s Day list is back with some good recommendations.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
bullet Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells
bullet Hide by Lisa Gardner
bullet And I mentioned the release of Grimm: The Chopping Block by John Passarella—the Grimm tie-in novel that I never got around to tracking down.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown—a strange world of magic, time travel, and books. I quite enjoyed it.
bullet The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond—magically-enhanced con artists? Count me in.
bullet Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar—this is one of those books that I’m not going to pretend to be able to describe in a sentence without reading, but it looks promising.

Keep Reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have. - Lloyd Alexander

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession by Jake Kendall

I’m very pleased today to welcome The Write Reads Blog Tour for Jake Kendall’s The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession! The Tour has been going for a couple of days now–go check out https://twitter.com/WriteReadsTours from now until the 26th to see a what those who’ve read it have had to say. But in the meantime, let me tell you about the book.

The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession Tour Banner

Book Details:

Title: The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and ObsessionClytemnestra’s Bind
Genre: Art History Fiction, Short Stories
Publisher: Neem Tree Press
Format: Paperback/Ebook
Length: 272 pages
Publication Date: February 22, 2024
The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession Cover

About the Book:

Spanning three hundred years of art history, The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession tells the stories of those with an insatiable hunger for creation – those who may sacrifice friendships, careers, romance, and even their own happiness in pursuit of a vision.

Weaving art styles such as Cubism, Surrealism, and the Baroque into his prose, Jake Kendall has crafted a vivid and inventive collection. Each story is complemented by a black and white illustration, drawing out the visually evocative nature of the writing and offering readers a unique artistic delight.

Book Links:

Amazon UK ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads

About the Author:

Jake KendallJake Kendall was born in Oxford and studied an MSc in Creative Writing with the University of Edinburgh. He takes inspiration from the visual arts, a theme that formed his debut collection. The Vanitas & Other Tales of Art and Obsession (Neem Tree Press) refracts contemporary issues and anxieties through timeless imagery and artistic movements. Jake lives and works in Edinburgh and spends his free time visiting bookshops, exhibitions, theatre, and independent cinemas.

My thanks to The Write Reads for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.

WWW Wednesday, February 14, 2024

I’d make some joke about books being my true Valentine or something here, but Mrs. Irresponsible Reader reads this occasionally—and why test her sense of humor?

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?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?

I’m (really) finally reading City on Fire by Don Winslow (yeah, I said I was reading it last week, but as soon as I started I was reminded of a looming Library due date), and I’m listening to Another Girl by Peter Grainger, read by Gildart Jackson on audiobook.

City on FireBlank SpaceAnother Girl

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands and the great Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life by Matt Hay on audio.

Emily Wilde's Map of the OtherlandsBlank SpaceSoundtrack of Silence

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen, and boy howdy, am I eager to dive in. My next audiobook should be Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter, read by Khristine Hvam—I can’t believe it’s been three years since this came out, I need to refresh my memory a bit before I dive into the next one.

A Quantum Love StoryBlank SpaceSpells for the Dead

What books are stealing your heart today?

Opening Lines: City on Fire by Don Winslow

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art and we all do judge them that way). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I like to throw it up here. There are so few writers that can grab you like Winslow can from the get-go.

from City on Fire by Don Winslow:

Danny Ryan watches the woman come out of the water like a vision emerging from his dreams of the sea.

Except she’s real and she’s going to be trouble.

Women that beautiful usually are.

Danny knows that; what he doesn’t know is just how much trouble she’s really going to be. If he knew that, knew everything that was going to happen, he might have walked into the water and held her head under until she stopped moving.

But he doesn’t know that.

So, the bright sun striking his face, Danny sits on the sand out m front of Pasco’s beach house and checks her out from behind the cover of his sunglasses.

Opening Lines Logo

Book Blogger Hop: Happy Publication Day

Man, it’s been too long since I’ve done one of these. Time to get back in the swing of things, I generally have fun with these.


Book Blogger Hop

 

This prompt was submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver’s Review:

Do you post Happy Publication Day posts for books you read?

Not as such, no. I do see plenty of people tweeting that kind of thing—or posting to Facebook, etc., etc. But I rarely do that.

I try to do a blog post on the release day for books I receive an advanced copy of—hopefully a repost of my already written thoughts on a book or I’ll sometimes get a post up on the day itself if I didn’t have my act together in time.

I also make a practice of noting the release of books that I’m interested in or am excited to read in my Saturday Miscellany posts.

I’ve thought about moving that to Tuesdays, but that seems like too much work, and just one more thing for me to keep track of.

If you do, how do you commemorate publication day for books?

(authors need not reply, we all know you’re obsessively clicking refresh to see sales numbers)

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Sorrow’s Forest by Kaitlin Corvus

I’m very pleased today to welcome The Write Reads Blog Tour for Kaitlin Corvus’s Sorrow’s Forest. If you take a look at the feed for https://twitter.com/WriteReadsTours over the next few days, you’ll see a lot of bloggers who did find the time to write interesting things about it. Sorrow’s Forest was a finalist for the 2023 Book Blogger’s Novel of the Year Award, so you know there’s a lot of good to be said about it–but before getting to the spotlight for it, let’s start with a word about BBNYA.

BBNYA:

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Sorrow’s ForestBanner

Book Details:

Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Age Category: New Adult
Format: Paperback/Ebook
Length: 272 Page
Publication Date: July 15, 2022
Sorrow's Forest at All Cover

About the Book:

Sorrow’s Forest teems with beasts, some ugly, some beautiful, all unnatural. A ban restricts travel beneath her branches, existing for as long as Lakeview Township has, and most who disobey do not return.

To win a bet, twelve-year-old Mackie King enters the forest, and in its depths, he discovers a boy-like devil. Then he steals him from the trees.

In as little as an hour, the devil names himself Blue and fits seamlessly into the Kings’ life. No one seems to remember he wasn’t always there. Only Mackie knows the truth.

Now, Mackie and Blue are grown, Queen Sorrow has awakened, and she wants her devil back. She’s willing to tear the town apart to reclaim him. Mackie has always been resourceful, but it will take every bit of ingenuity he and Blue possess to thwart Queen Sorrow and her minions, save the town, and free themselves from the shadow of the bittering forest.

Book Links:

Amazon Canada ~Amazon UK ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ The StoryGraph

About the Author:

Kaitlin CorvusKaitlin Corvus is from Ontario, Canada. The north holds the best part of her. She writes about nobodies, monsters, and gutter glitter, loves the stars, the deep dark sea, and a good horror mystery.


My thanks to The Write Reads for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.

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