Category: Blog Series Page 9 of 220

Saturday Miscellany—12/13/25

On December 13, 2025

In Books, News/Misc., Saturday Miscellany

Yeah, this is late. Was busy grandparenting, so I don’t feel too bad. Priorities for the day: Grandcritter #1. Several steps down: You, dear reader. One step lower: Reading something. (well…maybe a half-step, maybe a quarter-step…possibly the same step…somewhere in the general vicinity anyway). A few steps lower: everything else (Hi, wife and kids!)

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 Sophie Kinsella, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ Author, Dies at 55
bullet PW’s 2025 Person of the Year: Nihar Malaviya—for his efforts countering book-banning, censorship, etc., PW named Penguin Random House CEO, Nihar Malaviya, their Person of the Year.
bullet New Kindle Feature Uses AI to Answer Questions About Books—And Authors Can’t Opt Out—this is ridiculous (and more than a little maddening)
bullet The Empty Lab, in Science and in Fiction
bullet To New Beginnings: Growing Past Percy Jackson: On aging past our childhood heroes, and leaving room for the next generation of fans—(this can apply to other fandoms, too, not just Percy)
bullet FFA’s Most Anticipated Titles of 2026 (so far)—oh, 2026 is going to be a busy year for my TBR.
bullet 746 Books is 12 today!—heckuva landmark.
bullet Over on Bluesky, Adam Holcombe posted his 2025 Wrapped: Author Edition—a fun way to look at his year. By the way, if you haven’t checked out his Bounty, Inc., you really should.
bullet And now, it’s time for some more Best Of ’25s:
bullet The Best Debut Crime Novels of 2025—according to Crime Reads
bullet Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2025—Reactor’s Reviewers have a veritable cornucopia of books to tempt you with
bullet 20 Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Authors Pick Their Favorite Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books of 2025—io9 got a bunch of authors to do the same
bullet The Hard Word is going for something a bit more ambitious, but I’ll lump them in with this anyway: Top Twenty-Five Crime Novels of the Last Twenty-Five Years (20-25)
bullet A.J.’s Completely Random Book Awards: 2025—I love these categories (and agree with several of the choices)
bullet Book’d Out brings us Five Books Best Nonfiction Books of 2025
bullet Best Books of 2025 TFF To-Read Festivus Guide—from The Forgotten Fiction
bullet Jo Linsdell compiled Book Bloggers’ Picks: One Must-Read Book We Loved This Year
bullet And with a few shopping days left before Giftmas/Santaween/whatever you call December 25th (or your gift-giving holiday of your choice), here’s a couple of more gift guides
bullet The 2025 CrimeReads Holiday Gift Guide
bullet Gifts for Readers: 50+ Ideas Book Lovers Actually Want —another great compilation from Jo Linsdell

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet The Four Beardsmen’s Big Fat Bookish Quiz of the year!—this looks like a blast.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
bullet Dry Bones by Craig Johnson
bullet The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall—I’m kicking myself for not continuing with this series (didn’t realize it’d been this long since I’d dabbled)
bullet The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes—another series that I should’ve stuck with…
bullet Stepdog by Nicole Galland
bullet And I mentioned the release of The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon (and one from last week that I forgot about):
bullet Lit by Tim Sandlin—a twisted-looking cozy mystery
bullet The Wizard’s Cat by Nathan Lowell—I had a lot of fun with the first in the series, looking forward to dive in.

BBNYA SEMI-FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Another Kind of Thing by A P Pullan

By HCNewton

On December 12, 2025

In Book Tour, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

I’m very pleased today to welcome The BBNYA Semi-Finalist Spotlight Tour for A P Pullan’s Another Kind of Thing! This book has made it to the semi-finals, so you know there’s something good going on–but before getting to this Spotlight, 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 (17 in 2025) 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.

Pilcrow

Book Details:

Title: Another Kind of Thing by A P Pullan
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery
Age Category: Middle Grade
Format: Paperback/Ebook
Length: 216 Pages
Publication Date: November 28, 2024

About the Book:

Eleven-year-old, Aidan North, is new to the little village of Kirklinn in Scotland.

Being new is not easy as Aidan does not seem to fit in.

Why do people call him a “weirdo?” Why do people not understand his love of fossils? And why more name-calling because he finds maths so easy?

Izzy seems the only one who at least is willing to try and understand him.

Then there is the word, “autistic,” that the school want to give him. Does that mean he really is weird and so different from everyone else?

Yet the discovery of someone Aidan claims to live in a cave only seems to alienate him further.

Will his discovery lead to the truth of a secret held for over 20 years?

This is a story about a young boy trying to find his way in this complicated world.

So will uncovering the secret, help him on his journey to be accepted by others and, as importantly, himself?

Book Links:

Amazon Canada ~ Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Goodreads ~ The Story Graph

About the Author:

Hi I am A P Pullan and I have been writing for quite some time now. I have taught primary aged pupils for over 25 years. Aidan is my main character in Another Kind of thing, my latest book. He is based on some of the children I have worked with over the years. Nothing motivates me more than doing creative writing or talking about books with children of all ages. I love visiting schools and if you visit my website you will see info and pictures about my visits @ https://theweepencil.wordpress.com/.

Am I writer? Well, I think I am more someone who just enjoys writing.

Website ~ Bluesky

My thanks to The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.

The Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award 2025 Semi-Finalist badge

Grandpappy’s Corner: That Christmas and Other Stories by Richard Curtis, Rebecca Cobb (Illustrator): Christmas is All Around It and So the Feeling Grows

By HCNewton

On December 11, 2025

In Fiction, Grandpappy's Corner, YA/MG/Children's Books

That Christmas and Other Stories

by Richard Curtis, Rebecca Cobb (Illustrator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: Puffin Books
Publication Date: August 5, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Length: 128 pg.
Read Date: November 28, 2025

What’s That Christmas and Other Stories About?

Richard Curtis wrote a children’s book, and had such a good time with it (and was inspired by Cobb’s illustrations) that he wrote a couple more. This book brings them all together in one—not unlike the movie Curtis wrote that was released last year called That Christmas. The books differ in important ways from the movie—but I’m not going to talk about that too much. It’s hard because I came to this collection because of it.

The important differences don’t eliminate the core of each story—whichever way you come to them first.

Curtis does write a little introduction for this book which contains a little insight into why he focuses on the holiday:

Quite why I’m so passionate about Christmas is a bit of a mystery to me; I’d already written the film Love Actually, with all its stories set at Christmas. I think the reason is because I’ve always loved Christmas in the simplest of ways — presents, Santa, family — but also it’s a kind of dramatic deadline. Have you been naughty or nice all year? Does the person you’re in love with love you? Are you a happy family or a family falling apart? Christmas is a sort of emotional magnifying glass: it can make sad and difficult times harder, but also make joyful and happy times even happier.

The Empty Stocking

This story focuses on two twin sisters, Charlie and Sam. Charlie is high on Santa’s naughty list, and Sam is very much not. Santa may know who does bad and good, but he apparently doesn’t know anything about context or motivation.

When Santa dis-proportionally distributes gifts to the twins—well, even he learns a little bit.

You just get a warm glow from most of this one.

Snow Day

On a Snow Day, one pupil and one teacher show up for school when no one else does. So they’re stuck together for the day. The student’s a frequent-flyer in detention, the teacher is the strictest in school—neither are looking forward to the day.

It starts out rough, and then ends up with the two finding a bond—one that benefits them both.

It’s silly, fun, and has a little bit of heart. It’s probably the most different from the film version—and I could argue for the superiority of both.

That Christmas

On a small island, the neighbors spend Christmases together in pretty much the same way every year. One year, the adults have to leave together on Christmas Eve, and leave the younger kids in the care of the older ones. Something goes wrong, and the parents can’t return. So the children celebrate Christmas in a very similar way to what they usually do—but with certain improvements (at least in their estimation).

There’s a very nice Linus-at-the-end-of-A-Charlie-Brown-Christmas-moment to this book—without actually quoting anything like Linus did.

Let’s Talk about the Art for a Minute

At the beginning, I wasn’t that impressed—I could see some children maybe enjoying it—but I couldn’t say the same. But before the end of the first book, I was on-board. By the end of the collection, I absolutely enjoyed it.

Along the lines of appearance—whoever was in charge of typography and layout did their job very well. Changes in type size and weight, as well as the placement of words on the pag,e were visually pleasing and did a lot to help out with the storytelling and tone.

How is it to Read Aloud?

There’s nothing exceptionally fun about the prose itself, like you often get, but the book is nothing but fun—and the typography I just talked about really helps the reader do that. Adults are going to have a blast with this.

So, what did I think about That Christmas and Other Stories?

It is charming. It’s sweet. There are laughs and “awww”s throughout. I don’t know what else to say—this is a winner, something great to pull out for the post-Thanksgiving through December 26 era annually.

I feel like I should say something more, but I just don’t have it in me. I heartily recommend it.

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

BBNYA SEMI-FINALIST SPOTLIGHT: Ariel: Dancing on TV by Ailish Sinclair

By HCNewton

On December 11, 2025

In Book Tour, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

I’m very pleased today to welcome The BBNYA Semi-Finalist Spotlight Tour for Ailish Sinclair’s Ariel: Dancing on TV! This book has made it to the semi-finals, so you know there’s something good going on–but before getting to this Spotlight, let’s start with a word about BBNYA.