Category: Books Page 141 of 160

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:

• Hemingway’s Tough-Love Letter of Advice to F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing and Turning Suffering into Creative Fuel — Interesting feedback on Fitzgerald’s 2nd best book, IMHO. I loved the line where Hemingway stops himself and says, “It’s a lot better than I say.” I’ve found myself in that place frequently. That’s about as close to Heminway-esque as I’ll achieve.
• What If I’m Actually a Character in a Larry McMurtry Novel? — It’s been decades since I’ve read McMurtry (it was the last century, come to think of it), but this reminded me why I should
• 7 sidekicks that improve anything by A. Lee Martinez — A. Lee Martinez brings us the first of this week’s lists.
• The Guardian gives us the second: Big Dumb Objects: science fiction’s most mysterious MacGuffins
• Five Books About Policing the Supernatural — I’ve actually read at lest one thing from each of these — I think that’s a first. I’ll have to take her word about the Hughes’ series, not sure I’m willing to try that one again.
• Bringing Literary Love Into Your Relationships
• 10 Authors with Tattoos Inspired by Their Own Books — oh, wait, there’s another list, some good ink, too.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson — Crime Fighting and Vampires — sounds like a good idea from someone (see above) who knows their way around Policing the Supernatural.
• The Dragon Lords: Fool’s Gold by Jon Hollins — the tag line definitely grabs your attention: Guardians of the Galaxy meets The Hobbit in this rollicking fantasy adventure.” And the description makes it sound like it’d be worthwhile seeing if the book is nearly as good.
• Flying by Carrie Jones — looks like I might enjoy spending an afternoon with this, and it could be a new obsession for my Doctor Who loving daughter.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to wanderlustexplored, ThemisAthena and kittensandhumans 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:

• The Revival of Print Books Continues — no runaway blockbuster this year (yet?), but better sales over 2015
• The Reading Rules We Would Never Follow as Adult Readers — I have to admit, I’ve been guilty of holding my kids to some of these.
• Winnie-the-Pooh beats Harry Potter in best-loved book character poll — A survey in the UK says ol’ Pooh-Bear is the favorite kids’ book character.
• Is ‘devouring’ books a sign of superficiality in a reader? — I think there’s some good points made here, but I think there’s some fundamental problems.
• How audiobook narrators master their craft — I’ve been really enjoying Scott Brick’s audio work lately, so it was nice to see this piece. Also, enjoyed getting to know a bit more about the industry.
• More Than “Strong”: Why Men Need to Write More Complex Female Characters — A. Lee Martinez, who has written strong females, complex females, and strange females sounds off on the topic.
• His name is ‘Ove,’ he’s cranky, and readers love him — Loved Backman’s second novel, haven’t had the time for this one yet.
• In Praise of Humor in Fantasy and Science Fiction — Martinez is also on this list, with some other notable books.
• Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from Reading Science Fiction
• ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ Would Be Very Different If It Were Written In 2016 — *chuckle*

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Innocents by Ace Atkins — Quinn Colson’s back on the job, and there’s a Girl on Fire who isn’t Katniss Everdeen. Sounds like trouble.
• Time Siege by Wesley Chu — a couple of new Chu’s this week — the sequel to and a son. Not that he’ll ever read this, but ‘gratz to him on both counts. Looking forward to devouring the former, and wish the latter well.
• Salvation Lake by G. M. Ford — Leo Watterman is back to remind me that I didn’t get to the last one yet. Oh, I’m sure there’s a good mystery here, too — it’s not all about me 🙂 It seems to involve Leo’s dad, which means things are going to get dark and twisted.

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

(I got this from Geek & Sundry’s FB page, not sure the exact source)

I’m guessing the 4^th is responsible for the fact that I only gathered 2 links for the Odds ‘n ends bit this week about books and reading. Still, I liked ’em, maybe you will, too:

• Larry Correia had a great post about writers’ extra-curricular activities — in short, Larry Correia, George R. R. Martin, and their colleagues, are not your bitches.
• 17 Things That Will Take Reading To The Next Level — I could use some of these, for sure

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Sacrifices by Jamie Schultz — I’ve been waiting for this one since about 10 minutes after I finished last year’s Splintered.
• The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez — Martinez is a long-time fave around these parts, and for him to kick off an actual series is cause for joy. (cool looking book, too)
• Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn — if you haven’t heard the buzz about this one, I’m astounded. Good job, you. But man, the concept and the buzz make me want to read it.

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:

• Neil Gaiman Delves Deep Into Norse Myths for New Book
• Why I still love actual paper books — Alexis Boncy nails it.
• Reading should be about pleasure, not points or prizes
• The Evolution of the Book, Animated –Brain Pickings bring us a nifty TED-Ed video, and many other interesting links.
• A Brief History of the Audiobook — and more educational material — I learned something here.
• Confessions of a Reader: The Classics I’ve Never Read — “Life’s too short to be ashamed of the books you haven’t read.”
• Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned From Reading Fantasy — yeah, sure, almost every lesson here is horribly wrong — but it’s a fun list 🙂
• How To Tell If You Are In A J.R.R. Tolkien Book — Just in case you’ve ever wondered
• Bookish insults — Short and to the point, funny
• Hard-Core Bookish Insults — BookLikes thought this was a good post, and then made it better. Or, at the very least, longer.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl — where geekdom and literature collide, apparently. It sounds pretty cool to me, for more, listen to this Once & Future Podcast episode and/or read this Big Idea post. I’m hoping to post about this soon. Y’know, once I read the thing.
• Granted by Michelle Merrill — blah
• Let There Be Linda by Rich Leder — a very strong and strange black comedy, you might have noticed the 200 posts here the other day about it. Give it a shot.
• The Quest for Merlin: Magimakía by Rafael Lovato — the first installment in a new YA trilogy
• In Twenty Years by Allison Winn Scotch — a Big Chill-esque novel that’ll be charming, thoughtful, semi-depressing, and tinged with hope. Or so I guess, that seems to be Allison Winn Scotch’s thing.

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:

• Pulp Friction: If Barnes & Noble goes out of business, it’ll be a disaster for book lovers. — well, this is depressing
• Library Of Congress Collection Of “Profoundly Influential” American Books Is Eclectic, But Not All That Diverse — very interesting list, even if you’re not ga-ga over the post’s take on it.
• Women Are Writing the Best Crime Novels: They don’t seem to believe in heroes as much as their male counterparts, which in some ways makes their storytelling a better fit for the times. — huh
• 11 Great Publisher Names and Where they Came From — another piece this week where the title says it all, what am I supposed to do with these?
• 7 Geeky Love Stories That Prove Nerd Love Is The Best Love — basically, a shopping list for my daughter.
• Cover Reveal: Children of the Different — Friend of the Blog, S. C. Flynn, is one step closer to releasing his first novel by revealing his cover. I don’t know what I expected it to look like, but it wasn’t this — this is so much better.
• The Ultimate Reader’s Guide to Whiskey — infographic for the week. Very handy.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg — The 5th installment in the Fox and O’Hare series. It’s one of the most entertaining series going, and I can’t imagine that this is anything but good.
• Play Nice by Michael Guillebeau — how do you not want to read something described as “an Elmore Leonard-style Nancy Drew story”?
• Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen — a thriller with SF elements and a sense of humor. Sounds Perfect.
• New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey — killer concept.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and thanks to bensbitterblog and Karen for the feedback — I really appreciate that.

Only 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:

• Reading Makes You Sexier To Potential Partners, And These Are The Sexiest Genres — It’s been a long time since I was dating (or trying to), but I’m not buying it.
• But What If We’re Wrong…About Good Literature? — Chuck Klosterman’s new book and 14 classics that went unappreciated in their time.
• 15 Thought-Provoking Quotes from Literature — A nice looking and thought-provoking infographic from Readers.com.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Ghost Rebellion by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris — Yay! The 5th Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novel is here. I enjoyed this one, I think you will, too. (I posted about it last week)
• The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez — Martinez is writing a series, which is enough to get me interested. Add in the hero who’s been saving the world for about 30 years, and just wants to be normal, and I’m beyond interested.
• Shadowed by Karen E. Olson — so, Nicole Jones’ attempt to lie low on Block Island failed. What do you want to bet her Canadian location works out better? Yeah, me neither.
• Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley — This is sitting on my TBR shelf (literally), and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t fit it in for a couple of weeks.
• Man On A Rock by Grant Sutherland — Fahrenheit Press’ first novella looks like the kind of thriller summers are designed for. (you know, if summers were designed for people who read)
• Escapology by Ren Warom — looks like a classic cyberpunk novel, just brand spankin’ new.
• Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja — SF with action and humor. I’m reading comparisons to Scalzi and Adams. Even without those, this looks fun.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Alois Larc and greatestcatpics 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:

• Stealing Books in the Age of Self-Publishing — This is disturbing.
• Most YA fiction is grown-up fiction in disguise — Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…
• Daniel O’Malley Talks Stiletto, Writing a Razor-Sharp Sequel — Like I needed a reason to want to read this more . . .
• Author Interview: Matthew Norman — nice interview with Norman.
• 34 Compelling First Lines of Famous Books — nice infographic (hat-tip: Lagniappe Literature)
• Every Modernist Novel Ever — Mallory Ortberg scores again

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Infomocracy by Malka Older — post-cyberpunk, political-technological thriller.
• The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar — Angry Robot republished this Victorian adventure that I always meant to get around to. Good reminder.

Lastly, I’d like to thanks to a href=”https://thereadingdesk.wordpress.com/” target=”_blank”>Vijayalakshmi Harish for all the encouragement this week, check out her pretty nifty blog, too.

(source unknown)

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them (especially if you read BookRiot a lot), but just in case:

• Why teenagers are so resistant to e-readers — at least one teen’s thoughts
• Economists show that boys who grow up around books earn significantly more money as adults — feelin’ good about my boys’ future
• 4 Times Don DeLillo Predicted the Future — really, I’ll stop talking about DeLillo and his new book soon. Probably sometime after I read it.
• Goodreads Launches New Homepage — eh…less than impressed, but I don’t hate it. You?
• The Stakes of Genre Categorization — Michael R. Underwood talks about Genre Categorization and another way to go about it.
• “The Boxcar Children” and the Spirit of Capitalism — I read many of these books as a kid (several times), I never noticed what this piece from The New Yorker points out. Not sure I totally buy it, but thought it was interesting. Learned some interesting behind-the-scenes info about the books, though.
• Tor.com Publishing Acquires Three Books From Myke Cole — There is no part of this that doesn’t appeal to me.
• How I mourned my sister through the books she left behind
• The 7 Kinds of Reader I Wish I Were — Me, too
• Books & Co. – Ace Atkins — a piece on Atkins from Arizona PBS.
• Play along – Summer Book Bingo — seems like a fun way to track reading…we’ll see how it goes (but who will hear me yell out, “Bingo!” when I win?)

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Cupid Reconciliation by Michael R. Underwood — The bestest
  Genrenaut story yet. I hope you all are reading this series (or at least buying them).
• We’re All Damaged by Matthew Norman — Norman’s follow-up to Domestic Violets is a strong candidate for my year-end list. Probably a stronger candidate if I ever get around to reading it. Still, it looks nice on my TBR shelf.
• The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman — do I really need to say more than just the author’s name?
• Death by Cliché by Bob Defendi — “Death by Cliché is a heartwarming tale of catastrophic brain damage. Share it with someone you love. Or like. Or anyone at all. Buy the book.” The Big Idea about it.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and thanks to Sidney (in case you’re reading this) for the very nice and helpful email this week.