Category: Books Page 147 of 162

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:

• 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards Winners — I’ve never claimed to have the most mainstream taste, but I’m very underwhelmed by this year’s winners (I only voted for one winner).
• When Popular Fiction Isn’t Popular: Genre, Literary, and the Myths of Popularity — Because it’s been, what, a week? since I posted something on the genre-wars, Lincoln Michel on Electric Lit calls for more facts and stats and numbers to be used in the discussion. I’m not sure it’ll help, but it’s interesting.
• Baby Boomers Still the Spine of Independent Book Selling
• How Social Media Changed The Way We Read Books — I bet we see this kind of thing talked about more and more.
• What? I Can’t Hear You Over My Nerd-Rage! — Inspired by a recent episode of The Once and Future Podcast, Melanie R. Meadors puts (virtual) pen to paper to talk about Nerd-Rage. Pretty good stuff here, worth the read if only for Delilah S. Dawson’s perfect last line.
• Two interviews with authors of books I read and blogged about this week: The Most Revealing Thing I Can Say: An Interview With Mary-Louise Parker, Author of Dear Mr. You and Ethan Hawke: By the Book
• It’s that time of year, some Best of 2015 Lists:
  • The New York Times’ The 10 Best Books of 2015 — I’ve heard of a couple of these.
  • The Guardian’s The best fiction of 2015 — I did better with these lists, especially SF/F and Crime & Mystery.
  • BuzzFeed Books’ The 24 Best Fiction Books Of 2015
• The 17 Funniest Tweets About “Harry Potter” In 2015 — should give you a grin or two

Only one New Releases this week that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Revolution was Televised by Alan Sepinwall — an updated/revised version of one of my favorite books of recent years — written after the finale’s of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. If you like good TV drama, you’ll find something in this book that’ll resonate with you. Sepinwall’s reviews are lurking in the background of what I post here (not that anyone but me can tell), can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on this.

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:

• If you enjoyed a good book and you’re a woman, the critics think you’re wrong — Jennifer Weiner fires another volley at the literary establishment.
• At Long Last, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Have Infiltrated the Literary Mainstream — I’m not entirely convinced by this evidence, but hey…what do I know? Nice idea anyway.
• These Books Are Also Brazilian Subway Tickets — A couple of months ago there was something about books as water filters, now this? Books are so versatile! and I hear that many of them contain facts, opinions and stories! Snark aside, this is pretty cool.
• A Thank You to The Hunger Games Film Team — Suzanne Collins thanks the people behind the films, in the films and the fans as she prepares to “move on to other lands” than Panem.
• Speaking of which, BookBub has 12 New Series to Read Now That ‘The Hunger Games’ Is Officially Over.
• The True Story of Sergeant Goosby and His 19 Dogs — a profile of the man behind Crais’ Sgt. Leland from The Promise and Suspect.
• This week’s Infographic: Memorable Lights From Literature — from the Solar Centre. Nice list — which gets bonus points from me because Eilonwy’s “bauble” is featured — just not enough Chronicles of Prydain love out there in the world.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Luke Skywalker Can’t Read by Ryan Britt — A combination of geekery, humor and cultural commentary. I’m seriously stoked about this one, having heard Britt on a couple of episodes of The Once & Future Podcast — notably this one about the book.
• Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe — the brain behind xkcd has a new book, where using only the most common “ten-hundred” English words and line drawings, he explains complicated things like: food-heating radio boxes (microwaves); tall roads (bridges); the shared space house (the International Space Station), the pieces everything is made of (the periodic table), boxes that make clothes smell better (washers and dryers).
• Santa 365 by Spencer Quinn — a Chet & Bernie short, seemingly holiday related. If nothing else, should ally fears some fans had at the end of Scents and Sensibility

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Ana Spoke and affyyia 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:

• Why Are the Copyright Owners of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ Saying it Was Co-Authored? — huh, this is problematic on a number of levels.
• Literature vs genre is a battle where both sides lose — there’s some really good material here
• Along those lines… Everything is miscellaneous: why publishing needs tagging
• Don DeLillo received an honorary National Book Award this past week, and the bits of his speech I saw tweeted sounded great. Can’t post it, but here’s a great interview from the Paris Review: Don DeLillo, The Art of Fiction No. 135
• Orbit Books Will Publish An Astonishing 90 Books A Year Starting In 2016 — io9 nails it with “Astonishing”
• New looks for old books: Why classics are getting makeovers
• Fahrenheit Press go ‘Transmedia’ – another first — these guys just keep doing what you wouldn’t expect
• Of Beards and Books: An Interview with Patrick Rothfuss
• B&N’s The Best Science-Fiction & Fantasy of 2015 — Sigh…we’re at this point already in the year? Goodreads is about done with their voting, I’m starting to see these lists popping up. Anyway, some good TBR fodder here.
• My Complicated Relationship to the Dust Jacket — I’ve recently gone a few rounds with online friends about this. Where do you come down on this? I’m pro-dust jacket, and go out of my way to preserve them

This Week’s New Release I’m Excited About, hopefully the month ends stronger:
• The Shootout Solution by Michael R. Underwood — I blogged about this yesterday, a fun genre-mash up. Over at Tor.com, Underwood wrote about one of the bigger challenges of the book: The Stand-Up Hero: Third Time’s the Charm

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to S. C. Flynnfor following the blog this week — and for tweeting a couple of posts. Thanks to sheialanipov for dropping by the comments section. Both of them have great looking sites that I’ve enjoyed browsing through — check them out.

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:

• Worldbuilders 2015 — It’s that time, folks. Who’s ready to make the world a better place while winning fabulous prizes?
• Unpublished Charlotte Brontë Works Discovered — sure, they might be the 19^th Century equivalent of Go Set a Watchman, but they might not be…
• Raymond Chandler Didn’t Care About Plot — I found this fascinating, and something I’m going to have to read a few times — Chandler on American English, plot, and detective fiction.
• Why You Should Read for 20 Minutes Every Day — drawing upon research we’ve looked at before, but you can never read this kind of thing often enough
• The End Of The End Of The World — “Everyone loves a good apocalypse. But some writers are opting for optimistic, solution-oriented sci-fi instead.”
• Similarly, New Republic ran this piece: The New Utopians — “Kim Stanley Robinson and the novelists who want to build a better future through science fiction.” I’m not sure I buy all this, but it’s food for thought.
• On the other end of the spectrum, closer to our time, and a lot less optimistic, Free Beacon ran Mizzou and the Master of Our Universe — how Tom Wolfe is the right filter to see current events through. Not just a great look at Wolfe, but some pretty sharp thinking, if you ask me.
• After all that heavy stuff, we turn to Bustle’s 11 Books That Will Put You In A Good Mood
• The books of our souls — on Rereading and what it tells us. I really like this one, wish I’d written something very much like this

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Promise by Robert Crais — is finally out and was worth the wait. Trying to finish my post on this one now, just what his fans wanted.
• Winter by Marissa Meyer — The Lunar Chronicles concludes and from what I hear, it goes out strong.
• Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke — this looks fascinating
• Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker — An epistolary memoir, I guess is what you’d call this. If only for style, this looks interesting.
• Home by Matt Dunn — you can’t go home again, right? But why?
• Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion by Matt Zoller Seitz — some of the best writing you’ll find on one of the best shows you’ve seen.

Thanks to Dessa for the interaction — you need to check out her series Cover to Cover (and the rest of the blog, too). Also, thanks to Obsidian Blue and Dany Spike for the conversation over on the BookLikes version
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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 DeLillo Nailed Us in ‘White Noise’ — Man…I need to re-read this novel. My first blog was called “White Noise” because of this book, and it’s been far too long since I’ve let it nail me.
• Literature vs. Genre – Seconds out (Part 1) — Mike Carey — a heckuva UF/Horror/Comic writer — writes a pretty good piece on this recurring theme. I particularly appreciate the line (as apparently the editors did, as they used it as a pull quote), “One thing you tend to notice after a while, though: it’s almost never writers of genre fiction who are picking the fight.” Killer last paragraph, too.
• The Guardian ran a nice Q & A with Nick Hornby this week. He was also on The Nerdist Podcast today, the first 20 minutes have been fun, looking forward to getting to hear the rest.
• TIME magazine had a little tidbit from George R. R. Martin on the ending to Game of Thrones.
• Rick Riordan dropped some news last week.
• The Case of the Missing ‘Encyclopedia Brown’ Movie — not only an interesting piece about the past and future of filmed adaptations, history of the series (that meant so much to me as a kid) I was unaware of.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Crossing by Michael Connelly — I’ve tried really hard not to learn anything about this book featuring Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller, but what little has slipped past my defenses has: A. ruined a bit of The Burning Room, which I hope to get to next week; and B. whet my appetite for this one.
• Made to Kill by Adam Christopher — I don’t know if I can read this without constant comparisons to A. Lee Martinez‘s The Automatic Detective, but it’d probably be worth a shot.
• The Builders by Daniel Polansky — Anthropomorphic animals in a dystopian-looking world. Myke Cole‘s blurb seals it for me: “Nobody does dark like Polansky. The Builders is Redwall meets Unforgiven, combining the endearing wit of Disney’s Robin Hood with all the grit and violence of a spaghetti western.”
• The Ark: Children of a Dead Earth Book One by Patrick S. Tomlinson — S.F. P.I. novel in a great setting.
• Black Wolves by Kate Elliott — a fantasy world going through cultural/religious/etc. changes. She wrote a Big Idea on Whatever for this.
• Mystic by Jason Denzel — a great-looking epic fantasy that’s not that epic. There’s a Big Idea for this, too.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Wizard for following the blog this week, and to Obsidian Blue and Marjorie for following the Booklikes version.

It’s a skimpy week, but 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:

• Tolkien Reads from The Hobbit in Rare Archival Audio from His First Encounter with a Tape Recorder — title says it all
• What Libraries Can (Still) Do — a hopeful and thought provoking piece from the New York Review of Books.
• As a novelist, I have to ask: Are amateur reviews at all valuable to anyone? — Russell Smith asks an interesting question. (hat tip: Constantly Moving the Bookmark )
• BookBot ™ — not your typical book recommendation site
• What Happens After Opening A Book? — In the vein of the infographics showing what happens to someone after drinking a can of Coke, etc., the University of Virginia’s library put one together for books.

This Week’s New Release that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Burning Room by Michael Connelly — released in mass market paperback, which means I can get it. I don’t know why I haven’t changed and started buying Connelly in hardcover, but I haven’t. So, I now get to catch up with everyone — until The Crossing comes out in a few days.

Didn’t get as much done around here this week as I wanted to — alas, sometimes the parts of my life that make this possible (e.g., job, sleep) have to take priority. Just based on the partial posts that got written this week, next week might make up for this one. In the meantime, to tide you over:

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

• Books At Home Tied to Future Reading Skills — Good news for my kids 🙂
• Fewer Americans are reading books, but don’t blame the millennials — clearly, everyone’s parents didn’t have enough books in the house.
• Why the Printed Book Will Last Another 500 Years: The Future of Reading Came and Went — I’m aware that Adam Sternbergh writes things other than the Spademan novels, but I’ve never bothered to read them until this one. Obviously, no near-future hitmen involved, but still good.
• What do writers owe readers in the digital age? — So Joanne Harris churned up a little storm cloud this week talking about the relationship between readers and authors in the Social Media Age. On the whole, I appreciate what she has to say, but I see the point of her detractors as well. Good coverage — which includes her manifesto.
• Reading for Pleasure: A book blogger’s creed — Here’s something I can get behind; one book blogger’s response to Harris’ manifesto. Speaks for a lot of us.
• One of my favorite series, the Eddie LaCrosse novels, has its first novel republished this week . Here’s a nice post about Alex Bledsoe writing it.
• Lending books: share your horror stories — Just in time for Halloween, stories about book lending gone bad from The Guardian. The Horror.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith — If I’m understanding things correctly, this’ll be the last Cormoran Strike for awhile, so she can get some projects related to a kid wizard wrapped up (anyone ever heard of that series?). It’ll be a shame to bid au revoir to the lunk, but I’m looking forward to this.
• The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone — a little Veronica Mars, a little Izzy Spellman, a little Ree Ree Reyes — at least, so it seems. I’ll let you know in a week or two. Looks fun regardless.
• The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe — sorta counts, was republished this week with a snazzy cover to match the more recent releases. A really good book, solid PI novel in a fantasy setting. Get to know this guy!

For those who like to read these kind of things, I did update ye olde Blogroll this week, there are good things to be found at those links. Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Laura@125Pages
and Nightlizard (who has impeccable taste in fictional characters) for following the blog this week — you’ll be seeing a lot about ol’ Laura@125 Pages next year (linked to her in this space a couple of weeks back, too). Many thanks to Fran Wilde for the kind words and signal boost this week, too.