Category: Books Page 39 of 158

When going through the posts, etc. I had collected for this week, it felt like this was going to be nothing but a list of lists. Which would’ve been fine, but strange, you know? I did eventually get mostly past the lists to some other things. But I’ll warn you now, if you are looking to keep your TBR from exploding, there are several things I linked to today that you’ll want to avoid.

On the other hand, if you’re wanting it to explode with goodness…

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:
If Not For Libraries: Authors on the Importance of Public Libraries—The New York Public Library put this together earlier this year, and I’m not sure how I missed it until this week.
Five years and 2m copies later, self-published author lands UK book deal—Granted, the overwhelming majority of self-pubbed authors won’t see this kind of success. But doesn’t it make your heart warm to see that some do?
A.I. : In the Age of the Absence of the Author
Why Readers Love Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire Series —this is a good overview of the series/good intro for those who’ve thought about dipping their toe in.
Before We Go Blog is always a reliable source of good material, but three of the posts the team put up this week caught my eye.
Top Urban Fantasy Series To Get You Hooked on the Genre—I enjoyed (the?) previous version(s?) of this, but this updated one makes me feel positively un-read in the genre.
Top Ten Fantasy Characters That Probably Listen to Taylor Swift—Kudos to them for even coming up with this idea. I’m not a Swiftie (at least not after her second album), but I enjoyed the post
Seven Favorite Cinnamon Rolls in SFF Novels—Is Cinnamon Roll a term I should already be familiar with? Either way, I’m adding it to my vocabulary.
Top 20 Most Recommended Audiobooks of All Time—according to Libro.fm
Another batch of Best of 2023 lists:
Top Five Most Dramatic Twists I Read In 2023—Steven Writes comes up with another good category
10 of My Favorite Reads in 2023—from Pages Unbound’s Krysta
Adam Holcombe provided “A handful of great books, given to you in the form of specialized awards”
FanFiAddict’s A.J. Calvin’s Top 10 Reads of 2023
Favorite Books in 2023—from A Literary Escape
Out of This World SFF’s My Top 10 Reads of 2023!!!
Most Memorable Reads of 2023—from Reading Ladies Book Club
Top 5 Books of 2023—Top 5? As I’m going to demonstrate next week there’s no way I could get things down to 5. My hat’s off to Books are 42 for pulling it off.
Tales from Absurdia’s The Best Books I Read in 2023
Esmay Rosalyne’s Best Surprises of 2023
What Makes a Story Comforting?—another good one from Molly Templeton. I’m also tempted to (somewhat reluctantly) rewatch Grimm.
How to Plan for Your 2024 Reading Challenge —some good advice from NetGalley’s We Are Bookish blog
Backlist Bingo 2024—it’s been a minute since Armed With a Book did a Bingo, this looks fun
Read What You Got—a month-long push to clear up your unread books
The 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge—the last two of these from Runalong the Shelves have proved helpful to me. I’m back for a third go-round.
The Project Backlist Reading Challenge—another good-looking challenge
Bookish Travel: Visiting The 50 US States 2023—what a great idea…
2024 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—a great tool for Bloggers and super-organized readers (or those wanting to be)
Quotables: Words that Stuck with me in 2023—I love this annual post (which inspired my monthly posts…that I will get back to!)

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Sundry Notes of Music: An Almost Memoir by Ian Shane—some of the bigger moments of Shane’s life are described through the filter of important (to him) songs. Humor, love, loss, and a lot of music. I talk a little more indepth about it here.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Little Reader, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.

I’m glad you stopped by for this today, but I really want you to read my earlier post of the day, I had more fun with it than I usually do. So take a moment if you haven’t to check out: The Grandcritter’s First Festivus.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the “serious business” of today.

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:
Reading print improves comprehension far more than looking at digital text, say researchers—Not the first time I’ve heard this, but I do find it interesting. Would you all prefer if I started mailing these so you can understand it more?
‘It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads?—pretty sure I’ve posted things like this before, too. One of these days, the death knell may truly ring.
Last week, I linked to the first 20 of these, and now we can read The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 30 to 11 The 10 Biggest Literary Stories of the Year—(at least according to LitHub). Some interesting things here…many of which I was previously unaware of. That’s how in-tune with the Big News I am.
Before We Go Blog brings Five Recommended Books for Winter Reading—(or other times of the year, too)
Announcing the Picture Prompt Book Bingo Challenge for 2024—It’s like Dixit or Mysterium mixed with a Reading Challenge.
It’s time for some more 2023 Best Of Lists.I agree with a lot of these (and added more than I should to the overburnded TBR)
The Ultimate Best Books of 2023 List—Lit Hub’s Emily Temple compiles results from 62 published lists to list the best of the best.
Top Five Character-Driven Books I Read In 2023—from Steven Writes
Operation 2023: Success! (Or Favorite Books From this Year)—Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub has some real winners (and you’ll never guess the 2nd book on this list!)
Favourite Series of 2023—from Novel Deelights
CrimeReads’ The Best Noir Fiction of 2023
The Best Books I Read in 2023—from Read Betwixt Worlds
Tiny Elf Arcanist Character Awards 2023
CrimeReads’ The Best Traditional Mysteries of 2023
Why Stories About Stories Bugs Me

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan—should’ve been mentioned here last week. Moving on from lake monsters, cryptozoologist/bookstore owner Morgan Carter looks into Bigfoot.
Down The Well by Veronica King—this just sounds like a ball. Sentient lamp posts? You can never go wrong with lamp posts in fantasy, making them sentient is a heckuva bons.
Grimdwarf: A Magaine of Fantastic Tales edited by JCM Berne—1. It’s free. 2. It’s good. 3. It’s a quick read. 4. It’s good. I have no idea how/if I’ll be talking about this zine regularly, but for now, I’m just going to promote it when I have the opportunity.

(can’t like back to the creator, since I don’t know where it came from)

Late again…but I have a good excuse. I was meeting a prospective/probable new member of the household, a sweet lab/boxer mix. So…this takes a back seat.

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:
On the Difficulty of Giving Books as Gifts
The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2023—from BookMarks. I’m feeling much better about all my negative reviews.
The best book covers of 2023 are the ones you’ll never see: The most interesting book cover designs are often left on the cutting room floor.
10 Things We Learned in 20 Years of Writing Mysteries—from the writers behind “Cleo Coyle”
Ian [Rankin]’s end of year round-up: 2023
Kevin Hearne also posted a Year-end roundup
FALL BACK TO READING SERIES – Featuring Lee Goldberg—Goldberg shares Non-Fiction and Fiction recommendations
The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 50 to 31—(at least according to LitHub)
How about some more Year-End Best Of lists? (in no particular order). Several of my TBR reads are here and not enough things that I have read are, oh and the TBR has been made longer by these, too.
CrimeReads’ The Best Crime Novels of 2023—Some great ones here (and in the Honorable Mentions!)
The 139 Best Book Covers of 2023
My Ten Favourite Reads of 2023—from Grab This Book
FanFiAddict’s The Bookwyrm’s Best Reads of 2023
Also from CrimeReads, The Best Debut Novels of 2023
Also from FanFiAddict, Charlies Top Reads of 2023
Top Five Powerful Books I Read In 2023—Stephen continues his trend of categorizing his lists in the best way
And one more from FanFiAddict, Lord TBR’s Top Reads of 2023
Rethinking the End of Year Book List—What better way to follow those up than with a reconsideration of the idea?
How do You Measure a Year in Reading?—I’ve read this a couple of times now, and will probably do it a couple of more
Maybe the Greatest Fantasy Standalones Ever—Not content with just looking at 2023, Peat Long tackles the Entirety of Human History
Ideas For 2023 Book Gifts—for the second week in a row, I’m starting on the same topic I began on. I’d like to say I’m clever enough to keep this up, but we all know better.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Fully Booked Best Middle-Grade Books of 2023 with Zach Weinersmith—before digging into Kirkus Review’s Best Middle Grade books of the year, the episode features a chat with Weinersmith about Bea Wolf, Beowulf, and MG books in general. I really enjoyed this one

I typically like to start these with an introduction of sorts (probably because I read too many recipe blogs and think I need to begin everything with a rambling essay), but I can’t think of anything to say today.

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:
The pages of life keep turning—awwww
My Year in Reading Children’s Books
Rereading My Childhood: Author Timothy C. Baker examines how our childhood reading shapes our memories and the way we see the world.
What better way to follow up three pieces about Children’s Books than with The Enduring Appeal of Murder and Mystery: A Brief History
S.A. Cosby was on The Daily Show this week, which is just cool to see.
#R3COMM3ND3D2023 The After Show Party—a good wrap-up of the series that has been called “the highlight of your bookish year.”
It’s that time of year, “Best Of” List Season. Here are a few that got my attention. I either agree with at least one thing on each of these lists (or added at least one book to my list from them)
The Best Reviewed Fiction of 2023—from Lit Hub’s BookMarks
The Best Fantasy Books of 2023—from Paste magazine (didn’t realize they cared about Fantasy books, but it’s a good list)
The 38 Best Books We Read in 2023: Lit Hub Staffers on the Year’s Best Reading Experiences
FanFi Addict brings us: DB Rook’s Top Reads of 2023
Ed’s Top Reads of 2023
Top 12 Favorite Books of 2023—from John Mauro at Before We Go Blog
My Top 10 Reads of 2023!!!—from Out of This World SFF
The End of All Stories: Bidding a Fond Farewell to The Great C.S. Lewis Reread—I didn’t read this series as faithfully as I could have, but I thought it was a great idea that was frequently executed well (except from when Mikalatos was just wrong in his opinions, obviously).
What’s The Best Book In A Trilogy Edition One – Tolkien, Feist/Wurts, Barker, Eddings, Lackey, De Bodard—I enjoyed the approach to this piece (have only read 2 of these trilogies, but I agree with the rankings). My gut says this conclusion is where I’d land, but I should probably try this myself.
Beginner’s Guide to Fantasy—how to get started—I always enjoy pieces like this. If only for the good recommendations they bring for non-beginners like me and/or reminders of books I haven’t thought of in too long
On Fantasy and Whores—yeah, a Peat Long twofer this week. I’d honestly never thought about this before, and probably should’ve
Let’s start on the same topic we started on with It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas: Picture Book Edition 2023—they’re all (or mostly all) a bit too old for Grandpappy’s Corner, but not for long. I anticipate adding many of these to my shelves soon.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Meet the Writers talked to Kevin Jon Davies about 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams and the man himself
Functional Nerds Episode 604-With Alex Bledsoe—a fun chat about his new short story collection and more
Crime Time FM MATT PHILLIPS In Person With Paul —not only a great talk about A Good Rush of Blood but their discussion about the essence of noir is great.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Mayors of New York by S.J. Rozan—because I needed a fresh reason to not finish my reading plans for 2023, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin hunt for the runaway son of NYC’s mayor.
Murder Crossed Her Mind by Stephen Spotswood—In their latest, Parker and Pentecost are also hunting a mising person in NYC.

You would not believe how many times I’ve tried to get this posted today…I barely do, and I was there for all of them. But, life has interfered (as it so often does). But it’s still Saturday, so I can live with it (the two posts I also planned on scheduling today, on the other hand are going to wait a week or more for attention).

But you didn’t come here for my whinging. You came here for this:

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:
Wisconsin libraries would have to notify parents about the books their kids check out under GOP proposal—I’m not fond of this, but I’m not sure it’s horrible. The other bill talked about in this story, on the other hand…
When Your Own Book Gets Caught Up in the Censorship Wars—a little BTS action
This Is Your Brain on Books
The big idea: should we abolish literary genres?
Webtoons and Webcomics Keep Scrolling into Print
Do You Believe in Magic? On The Timeless Charm of Children’s Books 
It’s getting to be that time of year, isn’t it? Libro.fm’s Top 10 Audiobooks of 2023
S.A. Cosby lists His favorite books of the year—have read a couple of these and have several others sitting on a stack in my office, glaring at me
And looking in the other direction, FFA’s Most Anticipated Reads of 2024
Scaring Myself: The Story Behind How & Why I Wrote CALICO…—Lee Goldberg talks about the background to his latest novel (that I will write about ASAP, but you should read)
The Case for Never Reading the Book Jacket—I thought this was interesting and had planned on putting it here in the first place, and then:
Molly Templeton responded with What Do You Want to Know About a Book Before You Read It?—what are your thoughts?
#R3COMM3ND3D2023 wrapped up this week, so I only have a few more TBR add-ons for you:
…with Donna of Retirement Reflections
…with Rae of Rae Reads
…with Ayo Onatade of Shotsmag Confidential—
…with Sarah Hardy of bytheletterbookreviews
…with Jo of Jo’s Book Blog
Announcing Solstitia: a Fiction Fans Magazine—the brains behind Fiction Fans are launching a zine/litmag. Looking forward to some good reads.
Similarly, JCM Berne is starting up Grimdwarf Magazine—and is worth looking into
Managing my TBR—The Narratess talks about getting her TBR slimmed down. No offense intended, but having read her numbers, I’m feeling better about mine. But still…
Is It Easier to Write Negative Reviews?—Not for me, no. But I can see where Krsyta is coming from.

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Joined Up Writing Podcast 204: S.A. Cosby—Cosby chats about All the Sinners Bleed and much more. I love listening to this guy.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Robert B. Parker’s Broken Trust by Mike Lupica—Lupica takes up the Spenser torch from Atkins, and is much better than I assumed. (I’d planned on finishing this today, but, life intervened). PI Fans would be smart to pick this up.
Didn’t See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto—okay, a YA take on You’ve Got Mail with gamers and a private school, isn’t really my cuppa. But I really liked Sutanto’s style at first contact. So, I’m going to give this a shot (as I try to work older books into my schedule, too).

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Taylor @ Taylor Fenner’s Bookish World, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.