Category: Saturday Miscellany Page 34 of 35

Phew, the week’s over. Work’s been really busy, and have had barely time to read — most of which has been all about deadlines — ARCs, Library Due Dates, etc. One week to go and life calms down a bit. In the meantime, here are some odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Unseen Harper Lee letters give intimate view of To Kill a Mockingbird author — aside from Lee’s (I’m guessing intentional) misunderstanding of Hebrews 13:8, these sound fascinating.
• When British Authors Write American Dialogue, or Try To — there’s some good stuff here.
• New York Observer columnist who offered ISIS money to kill him thinks we should close all public libraries, takes heat — the writing is a bit too much for me here, but I saw this play out some on Twitter this week and wanted to post about it, in case anyone missed it. Poor guy didn’t know what he was getting into (or, he absolutely knew and wanted the attention).
• Seanan McGuire: All Books Are Real Books — you don’t have to spend a lot of time/effort here to see I’m a McGuire fan. So it’s not surprising that I enjoyed this interview — but I expect that people who aren’t me will, too.
• The Secret Of NIMH Was Inspired By A Horrific Experiment — A little behind-the-scenes look at The Secret of NIMH/Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (I read the book a more times than I saw the movie growing up, but I spent too much time doing both).
• In Defense of Reading (and Writing) for Fun — Melissa Caruso speaks for many of us with this, saving the link to use for the next time I have to have that conversation with family/acquaintances.
• Why We Keep Telling the Same Stories: Neil Gaiman, Halldor Laxness and the art of revisiting myths
• PWs Best Books of 2017 — It’s October and we’re already doing this?
• 6 Famous Writers Injured While Writing

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Die Hard Christmas The Illustrated Holiday Classic by JJ Harrison, Doogie Horner — which I quite liked, as you can read here.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Skulls and Coffee, BellaDonna, vickibrock44 and Rizky FAUZI (I’d never be brave enough to do what he’s doing with his blog — no matter how great the idea is) for following a version of the blog this week.

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Book Publishers Go Back to Basics: As consumer e-book sales fall, publishers look to find new footing with old ground—and faster pipelines. UPDATE: Well, pfui, there wasn’t a paywall on the article when I read it. Basically, publishers are scaling back e-book efforts and putting out more paper editions– and embracing making them nicer/more attractive/etc. which seems to be helping sales. Thanks to Bookstooge, my unofficial (and very much needed) Saturday Miscellany editor, for catching this.
• Book Blogging: Back to Basics — Speaking of Back to Basics, this book blogger reminds us all of something many/most of us have felt. I like her approach to getting through it.
• The Best Baby Names from Sci-Fi and Fantasy Literature — I’m not sure this is a great idea. I was somewhere recently where I heard some parents refer to their 10-12 year old daughter by the name of a YA heroine, and couldn’t help wondering what the kid will be thinking in her 20s about that choice.
• …and that’s apparently all I saw this week.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• Mysterypod with Reed Farrel Coleman — Coleman talks to Stephen Usery about his latest Jesse Stone novel, and a little about Gus Murphy, his book with Michael Mann and more.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne — Hearne trades the Urban in for Epic in this fantasy novel. I started this 2 days ago and am making incredibly slow progress (my fault, not the book’s), but it’s just gorgeous. I am going to have many, many good things to say about this next week.
• Righteous by Joe Ide — Isaiah Quintabe is on the hunt for his brother’s killer and trying to keep a DJ safe from various criminals.
• How to Think by Alan Jacobs — building on recent works about the science of thinking, Jacobs focuses o the art of it. I had a little tosay about it.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to whatsnonfiction for following the blog this week.

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• A Day in the life of…An Independent Bookshop
• My Favorite Books to Sell Over 20 Years of Owning a Bookstore
• Space Bikers Return on the Cover of Blood Binds the Pack — cover reveal, blurb and an interview with Alex Wells about the sequel to Hunger Makes the Wolf. I assumed a sequel was coming, but now that I’ve seen this, I’m excited and not all that inclined to be patient.
• Commonplace Books Then and Now: From Marcus Aurelius to taggable book quotes: why we’re compelled to track our reads. — some of these make my little spreadsheet look pretty pathetic.
• How Mark Twain helped Nick Offerman become a weirdo: The comedian brings Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ to life in a new audiobook from Audible — a nice piece from EW.com

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Long Day in Lychford by Paul Cornell — The Witches of Lychford are back — it wasn’t my favorite, but it’s still soemthing you should read (plus the first 2). Here’s my $.02 on the novella
• Drawing Dead by JJ DeCeglie — Fahrenheit Press’ latest offering features a drunk, gambling addicted PI in hock to the mob. Probably not the feel-good book of the year, but it has all the makings of a gripping read.

Just a few odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• How Do You Define Urban Fantasy? — B&N’s SF&F blog brings together a handful of good authors to define UF, I really appreciated the recommendations (and share many)
• 15 Children’s Books No One Reads Now — some of these I get, but no one reads Caddie Woodlawn any more? Really? That’s just criminal.
• Ten years after The Sword-Edged Blonde — Alex Bledsoe looks back on the experience and lessons learned from the publication of his first novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde. One of those books that you all need to read. Need. Not should read. Need to.
• Why do you Read? — we can all related to this, right?

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Reasons To Resist.

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Why Book Criticism and Literary Culture Needs a Poptimist Revolution — Elisabeth Donnelly has some mighty interesting things to say and ponder over about book criticism.
• Why Read the Classics? — Ginni Chen, over at B&N’s blog, answers: The classics will make you love reading even more. I like her thinking. Need to do follow through with it more.
• Yes, People Still Read Movie Novelizations . . . And Write Them, Too — I don’t read nearly as many Novelizations and Tie-Ins as I used to, but I do respect the craft. There are some really good ones out there (and some crappy ones — just like other kinds of books)
• Seanan McGuire announced this week that Indexing: Reflections will be coming next year. Indexing wasn’t my favorite thing that she’d done, but I’m eager to see what she does from here with this group.
• The Once and Future Podcast — my favorite podcast about books, SF&F and writing is coming back from hiatus in a few weeks. Here’s a bonus episode to whet your appetite: Leigh Perry & Toni Kelner. There’s a lot of great interviews in the archvies.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Lock In by John Scalzi — this really doesn’t seem like my kind of book from the descriptions, but something tells me I’m really going to dig this when I get around to reading it.
• The Revenge of Seven by Pittacus Lore — The fifth in the Lorien Legacies, and I know, I know it’s built on cynicism and questionable motives, but there’s something about this that just works.
• The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter: The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, Book 1 by Rod Duncan — Steampunk with a twist, so I understand. Looks pretty interesting.
• Once Upon a Rhyme: Volume I of the Charming Tales by Jack Heckel — this looks like fun. Nothing inventive (at least from the description), but still a fun read.