Category: Books Page 114 of 161

Wow. Everyone really took advantage of the holiday week. I found practically nothing for this post. Oh, well—it gives me a chance to focus on other bloggers, not the pros. Thanks to The Write Reads where I got most of the 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:

• Constable to publish Lee Child’s authorised biography—looking forward to getting The Reacher Guy next year.
• What I’ve learned as a book blogger—If she learned this much in the first 6 months, I wonder what Meredith Rankin’ll pick up after two years…
• To Track or Not To Track? – Progress While Reading—Anyone out there track progress? I really can’t be bothered most of the time (also, I tend to read too quickly to bother)
• Favourite Books Without 5 Stars—It always surprises me every year when I do my “Best Of” lists that I skip past some 5 Star books to complete them. It shouldn’t, as The Narratess helpfully points out

A Book-ish Related Podcast you might want to give a listen to:
• I don’t have a particular episode to point to, but I listened to a few episodes of this new-ish podcast this week: Under a Pile of Books—It focuses on SF and Fantasy. Sometimes it’s just the host, sometimes he chats with a blogger or author. It’s pretty good and I can see it falling into my regular rotation, check it out.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• One Man: A City of Fallen Gods Novel by Harry Connolly—A Fantasy Thriller, is the best way I can encapsulate it. Connolly describes it as: “big, odd, ambitious book about crime and magic and a screwed-up guy who has one last chance to do something decent in this world.” It’s his first novel in four years, and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t get to it for at least a week and a half. If there was one Fantasy/UF author that I could convince the world to notice, it’d be Connolly, and this looks like his most ambitious novel to date.
• Evil Valley by Simon Hall—After One Man, I’m diving into this one. I was lamenting recently that FP had seemed to stop with these TV Detective books, I’m so glad I was wrong!
• The ABCs of Metallica by Metallica, Howie Abrams, Michael Kaves—An Alphabet Picture book that pays tribute to the Metal Band. I talked about it some yesterday.
• The Hero by Lee Child—Child explores the concept of hero and narrative from pre-history to his own work. I gobbled it up on Thanksgiving to talk about it.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to overtherainbowbookblog and simplyclaudianicole for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

Phew. It’s been another week where I’m surprised that I’ve surfed around enough to have any fodder for this post. Clearly I need to work on self-awareness. There’s some good stuff here, chums.

Here are the 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:

• The First Annual Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award!—was announced this week. This is an international “competition for indie authors (both self-published and published by small indie presses).” Both bloggers and authors should check it out!
• I stopped reading novels last year. I think you did too.—this brought out my inner-Sherman T. Potter — “That is grade-A, 100% bull cookies!” A primer on fallacies could be written from this one source.
• B&N Cuts Freelance Writers from Its Teen and SFF Blogs—I saw a number of people tweeting/retweeting about losing their gigs from this. I feel bad for them, but am interested in seeing what happens to the site next.
• ‘Your throat hurts. Your brain hurts’: the secret life of the audiobook star—One of my favorite reads this week. Thanks to Portable Mistletoe for this one!
• The Best Thing You Can Do to Support a New Book—from Lifehacker.
• Best Strategy to Support a New Book—Ilona Andrews differs.
• A Word Museum Is Opening In Downtown D.C. Next Spring—I dig this idea.
• Why You Should Re-Read Paradise Lost—hmmm…maybe.
• How to be a Book Blogger…and not lose your mind—There’s some really good stuff here (some things I should heed, too).
• Why Should We Read the Classics?—Like, maybe, Paradise Lost? I’ve posted a few things along these lines lately, but Ramona makes a point or two I don’t think have been covered.
• 10 Up and Coming Indie Fantasy Writers to Watch Out For—I’ve only read one of these, and probably should get to at least 3 others.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen to:
• Once & Future Podcast, Ep. 201: Cherie Priest—Live from Gen Con 2019.
• NovelSuspects’s podcast—Okay, I haven’t listened to anything from this new podcast yet, but there are some really good looking episodes here that you’d probably enjoy.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon — a couple of these helped me have a great reading week:
• Robert B. Parker’s Angel Eyes by Ace Atkins—Spenser returns to L.A. and gets to work with Sixkill again. And, yeah, everything you remember from Spenser and the City of Angels is discussed and old friends/allies are visited. I’ve read it and will be saying some very positive things about it soon.
• The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell—The fourth Lychford novella is a high-point of the series, as I talked about this week
• Going Rogue by Neil Lancaster—the follow up to Going Dark is a fast-paced mix of procedural and action-hero thriller. I said a little more about it here.
• The Dead Don’t Sleep by Steven Max Russo—Another great thrill-ride. I talked about this last month. By the way, I have a Q&A coming early next week with Russo that you should definitely check out.
• Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks—It’s been a few years since I’ve read a Dicks novel (nothing against him, I just haven’t gotten to them), this looks good enough that I’m going to dip back in.
• Firefly: The Sting by Delilah S. Dawson and a pack of artists—Yo-Saf-Bridge teams up with River, Zoë, Kaylee and Inara? Say no more.
• Sabbath by Nick Mamatas—An 11th Century warrior in modern Manhattan to save the world? What could go wrong?

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to tracy cole, lidija.biskup, Notes Kecil, Beth Tabler, and R. for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

Good reads, but 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:

• Publishers Should be Making E-Book Licensing Better, Not Worse—EFF weighs in. Not the most in-depth analysis, but a good one (and the internal links are groovy).
• Why Seth Meyers Loves Having Authors on His Show—I thought this was fun, and particularly liked his comments on shelf organization.
• Why I Always Read the Acknowledgements—do you skip these? I tend to skim the lists of names, but focus on the parts describing why the name was listed.
• Femmes Fatales and the Shattering of the Capitalist Dream: Reconsidering a 20th century crime trope, and what it says about the evolution of noir.—I’d differ with the politics undergirding Kolakowski’s piece, but I appreciated the look at the fiction.
• The 10 Commandments of Reading—I should get these framed.
• How To Read a Book PROPERLY—well, yeah.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• You Must Have A Death Wish by Matt Phillips—Phillips’ Know Me from Smoke was so good that I don’t care what this is about, I’m excited. (oh, it’s about a rookie hitman, if you must know).
• Action At A Distance by Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Brian Williamson, Stefani Renne—the newest Rivers of London comic paperback looks into Nightingale’s WWII past.
• Paradox by Jeanne C. Stein—It’s been six years (wow! six years??!?) since Stein has published an Anna Strong novel. Can’t wait to see what brought her back.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to babblingstories, Zoé O’Farrell and kerrimcbooknerd for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

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:

• The Strange Things You Find on Authors’ Websites
• A Simple Solution for Bookish Forgetfulness—This (and the article it references) are pretty good reads, and there’s some good ideas within.
• On The Casual Sociopathy of The Traditional Mystery: Should There Be Such Thing As A “Comfortable” Murder Mystery?—I’ve wondered about this a little myself lately. Not as articulately, I note.
• The Joys of Rereading Books on Audio—This is my experience precisely.
• “Who is your favourite fictional detective?”—Novel Heights compiles answers from various authors.
• The Veracity and Heart of Modern Action Thrillers: Infusing Esoteric Fact and Heritage into Fast-Paced Crime—Good piece. And (as it was intended to do), makes me want to read Eldridge’s new book.
• (At least) Two New Twenty Palaces Books!—Someone else is as excited as I am about these upcoming books.
• #R3COMM3ND3D2019—I can’t believe I forgot to mention this last week. Damppebbles has brought back their series where authors/bloggers/etc. get a chance to talk about 3 books from the last year they’re excited about. You need/want TBR ideas? Great place to find some.
• Why I Reread Books—Witty and Sarcastic Book Club’s got a great post on this (also ties into some of the earlier pieces this week).
• Canon fodder: Please, I am begging you, stop telling me which good books are actually bad.—Good stuff.
• The importance of endings—Really well done.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Maxine Unleashes Doomsday by Nick Kolakowski—Post-apocalytic heist novel (well, more mid-apocalyptic), is just a blast. I tried to titlesummarize my thoughts about it yesterday.
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Illustrated Edition) by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Elise Hurst—I got this a few days ago, it’s just gorgeous. I don’t need another copy of this fantastic book. But I don’t care. This trailer gives you a feel for the illustrations.
• The Ninja Daughter by Tori Eldridge—”An action-packed thriller about a Chinese-Norwegian modern-day ninja with family issues who fights the Los Angeles Ukrainian mob, sex traffickers, and her own family to save two desperate women and an innocent child.” How do you say no to that?
• The Last Dance by Martin L. Shoemaker—An investigation into space mutiny. Looks like a winner.
• Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky—I’ve been wanting to try Tchaikovsky for a while now, this might be the one that gets me.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Tom Gamache, proofreadingebooks (the name is making me nervous about my content), Yvonne and Fragilistic for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?