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Saturday Miscellany—11/7/26

Okay…I didn’t do a lot of reading once I got back home (and most of what I read had someting to do with Tuesday’s events), reentering my life has been trickier than leaving it. But, I do have a couple of good reads to pass along.

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 Olfactory History of Book Collecting—an excerpt from From Sniff: A History of Smells by Will Tullett that should resonate with readers
bullet Why Are Fantasy And Sci-Fi So Often Grouped Together? And Should They Be?—I ran out of time to contribute to this Fantasy with Friends, Peat Long’s contribution is better than what I would’ve come up with, anyway—with similar results.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet Twisted Passages Bruce Borgos (THE RIDDLE MAKER)

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week:
I’m weak from blood loss, exhausted by literally fighting for my life, and relieved now that the two immediate threats to my friends and neighbors seem to be averted. I should be sleeping like a baby.

Come to think of it, babies are terrible sleepers.

The problem is that I’m sleeping like a real baby when I ought to be sleeping soundly, like a metaphorical baby.
—Prey of Angels by JCM Berne

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
bullet Mutation by Nerys Wheatley
bullet Max Hamby and the Blood Diamond by Kathy Cyr—Nunc hoc in marmore non est incisum
bullet The Operator by Kim Harrison
bullet And I talked about the releases of: strong>Curse on the Land by Faith Hunter ; The Lost Child of Lychford by Paul Cornel; Shadowed Souls by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes; and Burke’s Last Witness by CJ Dunford

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi—A small town has to deal with monsters of multiple types in this strange Scalzi novel. I wrote about it a little recently
bullet Elf Unwrapped: Behind the Scenes of a Modern Christmas Classic by Andy Richter with Aaron Karo—”In this laugh-out-loud oral history, comedian and costar Andy Richter goes on a mission to find out by reconnecting with the very people who brought this magical vision to life. Through exclusive interviews, hilarious anecdotes, and heartfelt reflections with key players… Andy ultimately unwraps the story of how a quirky holiday film about a human raised by elves became such an enduring cultural phenomenon.”. I gushed some about it here
bullet Saved by the Spell by Tanya Huff—”At the High School for Magical Arts, the teachers are dismayed at the rise of a Hero…because it means a Villain isn’t far behind… Funny, irreverent, and absolutely charming, this cozy fantasy is a gleeful romp through fantasy school tropes—from the other side of the desk. “
bullet Orbital Bombardment Victory Road by Wil McCarthy—”A road trip AFTER the end of the world!…From the Stormlands to the halls of Gem City, and from sea to shining sea, the apocalypse has never been so sweet.” Click the link to read the rest, if only to see why I couldn’t get it into a sentence or two.
bullet Read Your Color: Discover Your Reading Type and Build a Life-Changing Love of Books by Steven J. Reese—This seems questionable, but I’m super curious: “Get more out of reading with this radical guide to shelf-improvement, which reveals your core preferences and helps you choose books based on why you read, not what you’ve read before. Includes the viral Read Your Color quiz taken by more than two million people!”

an image of a social media post by Owel! at the Library @StechesbyBoze reading 'We lose the habit of reading because we're afraid of wasting our time. We think we need to be productive and
Image source: Penguin Random House on Facebook

Looking Back at October

I finished 33 titles (7 up from last month. While I didn’t finish any audiobooks, I did manage to finish a lot of books.

So many, you’ll see that I made progress on the TBR piles and on several on the TBR Range. I guess I just need to take more months off to do little more than read. I’m sure that’ll be easy to do before retirement…well, at least I know what retirement will look like.

The Month in Reading
October Calendar
(thanks to Bookmory for the image)

TBR Piles

Audio E-book Physical Goodreads
Want-to-Read
NetGalley
Shelf/ARCs/Review Copies
End of
2025
4 89 112 192 11
1st of the
Month
3 97 137 209 11
Added 0 1 2 2 14
Read/
Listened
0 10 12 0 8
Current Total 3 88 127 211 16

My TBR Range
TBR Range Chart
(click to embiggen)
Breakdowns:
“Traditionally” Published: 19
Self-/Independent Published: 14

Genre This Month Year to Date
Children’s 0 (0%) 25 (9%)
Fantasy 12 (36%) 68 (25%)
General Fiction/ Literature 2 (6%) 23 (8%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 6 (182%) 57 (21%)
Non-Fiction 2 (6%) 23 (8%)
Science Fiction 4 (12%) 31 (11%)
Theology/ Christian Living 4 (12%) 25 (9%)
Urban Fantasy 1 (3%) 16 (6%)
“Other” (Horror/ Humor/ Steampunk/ Western) 2 (6%) 5 (2%)

Review-ish Things Posted
Books of the Month

Other Recommended Reads

Other Things I Posted

Spotlights

Music Mondays

WWW Wednesdays

Saturday Miscellanies


Enough about me—how Was Your Month?


An image of a Desk Calendar saying October and showing the Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow icon

WWW Wednesday—November 4, 2026

Late yesterday, we got sent home–and my brain is scattered. It turns out when you leave work for a month, there’s a lot to do when you get back. Who knew? Anyway, the ol’ gray matter is worn out and not capable of much today (plus there were many things to unpack, sort out, etc.) So, this is all I managed to put together. Hopefully by Friday, I’ll be productive again.

WWW Wednesdays Logo

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?

Cover of Of Soul and Steam by Ibraheem Qureshi
Of Soul and Steam
by Ibraheem Qureshi

I’ve had depressingly little time to read the last couple of days, so I’m not making much progress with this–but man, it’s a trip.

What did you recently finish reading?

 

Cover of Prey of Angel by JCM Berne Cover of Three Shattered Souls by Mai Corland
Prey of Angels
by JCM Berne
Three Shattered Souls
by Mai Corland
Cover of Interstellar MegaChef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan
Interstellar MegaChef
by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Prey of Angels is such a great read–I’m so glad to be (almost) caught up with the series.

Three Shattered Souls did not wrap up the trilogy the way I wanted. But. It was about the only way to get it done. I can’t complain.

Lakshminarayan’s novel was nothing like what I expected. It’s been a while (probably since Alton Brown’s last book) since I thought about food so much and in ways other than, “Ohhh, that looks tasty” and “I really should eat less.”

What do you think you’ll read next?

Cover of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler Cover of Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
by Django Wexler
Sea of Charms
by Sarah Beth Durst, read by Caitlin Davies

I need to revisit Davi’s attempt at becoming the Dark Lord for a Book Club discussion next week–and I’m looking forward to it.

My reserve on Durst’s book came up just before we headed home, so, sure–I’ll give it a whirl.

How are you starting November?

Archie Goodwin on Voting

For the 3 of you who are unaware, it’s Election Day in the U.S., so I thought I’d share this little bit from Archie Goodwin to commemorate it.

Archie GoodwinThe most interesting incident Tuesday morning was my walking to a building on Thirty-fourth Street to enter a booth and push levers on a voting machine. I have never understood why anybody passes up that bargain. It doesn’t cost a cent, and for that couple of minutes, you’re the star of the show, with top billing. It’s the only way that really counts for you to say I’m it, I’m the one that decides what’s going to happen and who’s going to make it happen. It’s the only time I really feel important and know I have a right to. Wonderful. Sometimes the feeling lasts all the way home if somebody doesn’t bump me.

–Archie Goodwin
from A Family Affair

MUSIC MONDAY: “Freedom Bus” by Sheryl Crow ft. Jesse Welles

The Irresponsible Reader's Music Monday logo

Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.

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Saturday Miscellany—10/31/26

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 Daunting Art of Selling Fewer Books: How CEO James Daunt Is Turning Barnes & Noble into a Serendipity Engine
bullet The Financial Recklessness of Books—a handy graphic from East Village Bookshop, next time you feel the need to defend your hobby
bullet Apateon Press Launches Republishing Program—we need more of this, just wish it was tied to a different distributor (or several)
bullet The Limits of Rationality: On Gulliver’s Travels at 300—at LitHub, “Ed Simon Considers What Jonathan Swift’s Novel Can Reveal About Our World Today”
bullet An Arthurian conversation—Speculative Insight picks the brains of Lev Grossman, Lavie Tidhar, Nicola Griffith, and Alix E Harrow. I need to chew on this.
bullet “I Play the Field; I Read Around.”: The Great Circle Author on Her Omnivorous Habits, E-Reader Renaissance, and Unending Search for “The One.”
bullet Do You Distinguish Between “Best” and “Favorite” Books? …Or are the two lists indistinguishable in your mind?—James Davis Nicoll offers different examples than I would, but other than that…yes, this.
bullet Thirteen for Halloween: Mr Hyde, the Monster Repression Made—multiple sources have pointed me to this one this week. Well worth it.
bullet On why we write stories, and while we should reject gen-AI while we still can…
bullet Read Once & Done vs. Re-reading Favourites
bullet 10 Greatest Hard Sci-Fi Novels Of The Last 10 Years, Ranked—your results may vary, but there’s some good TBR fodder here
bullet Murder, Magic & Mayhem: 6 Books You NEED on Your TBR!—from the Crime Book Junkie.
bullet The spirits, entities, and supernatural folk of The Fontayne Company—A.J. Calvin gives a little preview of her next duology. Color me intrigued.
bullet I don’t usually post review posts here (maybe I should), but this one just sounds so good, I had to share: The spirits, entities, and supernatural folk of The Fontayne Company
bullet Monthly Manga Mania Featuring Firsty Duelist: COSMOS by Ryuhei Tamura—Firsty’s one-sentence summary sells me.
bullet 5 More Bookish Pet Peeves—a follow-up to the video I shared last week

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week:
“I had nothing left but promises of “I’ll do better down the road”. Which, of course I wouldn’t, but at least I had the foresight to lie to myself. “—Whispers of the Storm by Z.B. Steele

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
bullet Time Siege by Wesley Chu
bullet Blackbeard’s Daughter by Diana Strenka
bullet Beyond the Gray Leaf by Dustin Renwick
bullet Calvin by Martine Leavitt
bullet Curse on the Land by Faith Hunter
bullet Good Behavior by Blake Crouch
bullet Scattered Screams by C. A. Huggins
bullet The Farthest City by Daniel P. Swenson
bullet And I mentioned the release of The Terranauts by T.C. Boyle

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Hollow by Michael Connelly—Bosch looks into a case from his own past. This looks great!
bullet Boundless: 17 Stories Starring Disabled Kids edited by Marieke Nijkamp—”A middle-grade short story anthology featuring disabled kids, written by disabled writers”
bullet This Is a Door by Daniel Nayeri—”A young boy, a mouse, and a dog set out to find their purpose in this fairy tale adventure told in an innovative visual format that offers a one-of-a-kind reading experience.”
bullet We Thought They’d Never Leave: Musings on Food and Family by Tony Shalhoub with Josie Adams

an image of someone in a sheet with two eyeholes cut out for a ghost costume holding a bag paper bag asking 'Books Please'
(I don’t know the source of it, just got it in a text yesterday from my last supervisor asking, “this you?”)

Captivating Character of September: Ted

Captivating Character of the Month Graphic

My Most Captivating Character of the Month for September comes from Fredrik Backman’s My Friends. I don’t have a post up about this one yet, because…well, I just don’t. It was really hard to pick a book this month because I read a lot by my standards, and most of them had at least two characters that deserve some thinking on. Almost everyone who graced the pages of My Friends deserved a post–and, I did have drafts that featured 7 different ones. In the end, Ted won out.

Ted is a former history teacher who left the profession after being stabbed by a student (he was not the intended target, he just got between the knife and the teacher it was meant for). Honestly, that’s a pretty good way to talk about Ted. He’s generally the thing between a person and something else. Sometimes it’s a positive thing–like when he bridges the gap between his famous painter friend and a teenager exiting the foster system. But there’s a lot he’s standing between someone and a goal/person that’s not so positive, either–much to his own detriment

For the purpose of the narrative of the book, he’s the one that helps Louisa (the teenager I just mentioned) understand his artist friend and a painting that has meant to much to her for most of her life. Ted tells her the story behind the painting, the people captured in it, and how the painting was almost never completed–and how it got the artist exposure to the art world outside his small hometown. In doing so, he helps her to understand some things she’s sensed but hasn’t been able to articulate, she sees that she’s not as alone in the world as she thinks, and he essentially makes her a member of that small group of friends from decades before.

In the midst of friends with big personalities, fragile families (not that his was a model of anything functional), and emotional extremes, Ted was the glue that kept them together without overshadowing anyone–he did it quietly. He found himself taking responsibility for them, at least emotionally–but his home was also a source of safety, healing, and food. To be fair, his mother did psychologically damage Ted, but it was unknowing and unintentional; because of her, his friends had a place to escape to, to dream, to heal, and to enjoy life.

Despite his early protestations, he ends up providing the same for Louise. He can’t help it, that’s just who he is. He’s the kind of guy who will turn his life around for a friend–whether it’s someone he’s known since childhood, a brother who bullies him and allows him to be bullied by others, or an annoying person he just met. He takes responsibility for them and makes their lives at least a little better.

It’s captivating to see that character unfold.


Phew! Made it through this whole thing without indulging my impulse for a Barney Stinson-inspired joke. It was hard, but I did it!


What character would you name for last month?

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WWW Wednesday—October 28, 2026

I figured as long as I was going to be here, I’d take the time to play catch-up with a couple of series, and I should have those wrapped up no later than Friday. There’s part of me wishing I’d done that with others–but I didn’t. And I’m glad I picked the books I did to tackle anyway. I’ve even read a couple of books that I’d penciled in for November! I’ve still got almost a week left, I don’t know what all I’m going to read, but based on the way the month has gone so far…I’m looking forward to it!

WWW Wednesdays Logo

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?

Cover of Three Shattered Souls by Mai Corland
Three Shattered Souls
by Mai Corland

I’m being really tentative with this reading–this are going to get ugly pretty soon, and I’m not sure I’m prepared for it. But I also have to know. So I’m reading between the fingers covering my eyes.

What did you recently finish reading?

Cover of My Friends by Fredrik Backman Cover of Elf Unwrapped by Andy Richter
My Friends
by Fredrik Backman
Elf Unwrapped: Behind the Scenes of a Modern Christmas Classic
by Andy Richter with Aaron Karo
Cover of Whispers of the Storm by Z.B. Steele Cover of The Call of Karen by Denise Lynn Lambert
Whispers of the Storm
by Z.B. Steele
The Call of Karen
by Denise Lynn Lambert
Cover of The Riddle Maker by Bruce Borgos Cover of Defy the Dark edited by M.D. Presley
The Riddle Maker
by Bruce Borgos
Defy the Dark: 12 Fantasy Stories of Resilience
edited by M.D. Presley

I will not say that this is my favorite book by Backman, but it just might be the best I’ve read by him. I’m trying to get a full post up about it, but I’m struggling.

The only struggle I had writing about Elf Unwrapped was just not telling every interesting tidbit I picked up along the way.

I expected Whispers of the Storm to be good. Boy howdy, it was as god as I’d hoped (if not more). I’ve got a new book to add to my default Indie Fantasy Recs list.

I talked about The Call of Karen earlier today, so I won’t recap it more than just to say it was goofy fun.

Borgos’ knocked it out of the park with his latest thriller. But I do think I’ve figured out his major weakness with the series. It’s been something niggling away in the back of my head for most of the books. Not sure I care, but I like having answered a question.

Defy the Dark is (as expected) a mixed bag filled with many highs, and no real lows (but a couple of things that left me indifferent).

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Cover of Prey of Angel by JCM Berne
Prey of Angels
by JCM Berne

Project: Catch-up on Hybrid Helix continues…

How are you wrapping up the month?

MUSIC MONDAY: “My Generation” by The Who

The Irresponsible Reader's Music Monday logo

Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.

This is allyson johnson’s fault(?)–haven’t been able to get this out of my head since her comment last week.

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Fantasy with Friends: Do You Enjoy Magical Realism?

Fantasy with Friends A Discussion Meme Hosted by Pages Unbound

Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.

This week’s prompt is:

Do you see magical realism as related to fantasy? Do you enjoy reading it? Why or why not?

I don’t know enough about Magical Realism to really answer this. From what I’ve read, the major writers in the genre/literary movement would say no. That’s not what it’s about. And I’m fine with that.

But every time I’ve read it–or something like it–it feels like a very restrained fantasy novel/story dressed up as the kind of literature that you can hear the capital “l” when you speak of it.

I guess one of the big ways that I personally categorize things as “magical realism” (guided by some things I’ve read) is that the magic really isn’t acknowledged as such, or defined as anything out of the ordinary. It’s just a thing that happens and characters roll with it. The magic also tends to be on the smaller, or at least subtle, side–at least for most of the novel/story, and then it might break forth into something bigger or dramatic.

The first time I encountered Magical Realism was in The Milagro Beanfield War–and I remember almost nothing about the book or film, and given how popular it was in my household growing up, that rather bothers me (please, no one tell my father). But I do vaguely remember how when the possible magic stuff happened how unremarked upon it was (at least by most characters). While in Like Water for Chocolate it was acknowledged, but it was just seen as part of life–just a thing that happens sometimes.

In Fantasy, you might get some people treating magic that way, but there will be those who won’t, too. Maybe that’s the easiest tell.

Do I enjoy reading it? Yes. Do I seek it out? No. Should I try to? Probably. I can think of three works that fit the description that I’ve written about here. One of the best novels I’ve read for this blog is Tiffany McDaniels’ The Summer That Melted Everything (maybe some of her other books fit that, too–although her MG books are flat out Fantasy), there might be more. Just the three works I’ve mentioned in this post tell me that I should do a better job of reading them (and that I need to re-read those I’ve mentioned, particularly John Nichols’ book).

So, at the end of the day, this is something I’ve only dabbled in. You’ll want to read the other posts linked to in the Pages Unbound post (as well as that post itself)..

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