Category: Books Page 56 of 159

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:
AI-generated fiction is flooding literary magazines — but not fooling anyone—Am sure you’ve all seen headlines about this already…
Literary giants have thoughts on the new edits to Roald Dahl’s works.—this is a bit (just a bit) moot thanks to the news yesterday that Roald Dahl’s publisher responds to backlash by keeping ‘classic’ texts in print—which makes a the voice inside my head that wears a spiffy tinfoil chapeau wonder if the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
The rise and fall — and rise again — of Barnes & Noble
What Is It That Makes Used Bookstores So Wonderful?: Used bookstores are more than just stores with books—Yes.
The Importance of Duality of Plot in Space Operas
The Importance of Rom Coms!
From the Pages of Slough House: Leadership Tips from Jackson Lamb, The Perfect Boss—yes, I’m critical of ChatGPT things, but when used the way that Jeff at Spy Write does here, it produces some fun content. I’m going to remember some of these tips for my next job interview…

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Chronscast E15 – Introducing Peat Long—Peat Long joins the team over at Chronscast and gets introduced here, if you’ve ever wondered about the voice behind the provocative blog posts, here’s your chance. (also, listen to their exit music at 1.0…I might make this podcast a regular listen for it alone)
The Professional Noticer An Accidental Death…with Peter Grainger—an incredibly rare audio appearance by the great Peter Grainger

Heavy on the book blogger posts this week—some great stuff, IMHO. The one news story is likely going to my favorite (or in the top 3) of the year.

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:
Calvin & Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Is Back With “A Fable For Grown Ups” Called The Mysteries—For me, all I needed to read/link to this week is this post. And yes, I’ve placed my order.
Although, I thought LitHub’s version of the announcement was more amusing.
What “The Last Unicorn” Means to Us Today: A metaphor for our search for belonging.—eh, sure, this is about the movie, not the novel. Close enough, I guess. (I do like the idea of Geek Therapy, and will have to look at more of this author’s work)
Adult Consolations: Tolkien on Fantasy—loved this
A draft examination of the direct influences of fantasy authors pre-2000 part one: Preliminaries and Overview—The title says it all—a great post from Peat Long (who should probably share the byline on my Miscellanies lately), the work on this one post has to roughly equal the work I’ve done on this whole blog over the years.
Celebrating Love Stories #RespectRomFic—In honor of that holiday earlier in the week
In the same vein: You can read it in the time it takes to have a one night stand’: authors on their favourite romcom books—this is an interesting list from The Guardian. Worth checking out if only for Mike Gayle’s entry, he suggests the last author I’d have imagined on a list like this.
Negative Book Reviews Are Necessary—yup
Songs that fit book characters—this is a fun idea
The Audience for Book Reviews

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Roughneck Dispatch: Jo Perry—Matt Phillips has started a new podcast about storytelling, this episode features a conversation with the great Jo Perry. I’m only halfway through the episode, but it’s so good that I didn’t want to risk forgetting to post the link.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel—A story of some twins struggling to make it in a small Ohio city (which is a lousy description, but you try to sum up this book in a pithy sentence). It’s from McDaniel, it’s beautiful, it’s tragic. Here’s my inadequate take on it from a couple of weeks ago.
Black Wolf by Kathleen Kent—An undercover CIA agent in Belarus during the crumbling of the USSR trying to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands, maybe discovers a serial killer (or something worse)

I didn’t have a lot of time on the InterWebs this week, which leads to a small miscellany. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ C’est la vie. But I did enjoy these pieces and think you will, too.

No New Releases caught my eye this week, which is good—I am literally 2+ weeks behind this year (and it’s the second week of February!!!), I don’t need the temptation.

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:
Banning books in the land of the free
What books hate most in readers.—I can’t read the story this is in response to (but the headline and subtitle make me think I’d have enjoyed it), but this is a fun post.
Can Detective Novels Withstand the Moonlighting Curse?—Seasonally appropriate, even if I dispute the existence of said curse.
The Many Levels of Mystery: ‘Whodunnit?’ to ‘Whydunnit?’ and Beyond (this is about much more than mystery or crime writing)
Reading Ireland Month is Coming—If I’ve heard of this before, I’ve completely forgotten it. Sounds like a fun idea. Head on over to 746 Books to check it out.
For the love of wild romance—Outside of the lack of Eames-appreciation, the only things wrong with this post is that it isn’t longer and published somewhere more eyeballs won’t land on it.
Let people enjoy their books how they see fit—it’s truly ridiculous that this needs to be said. But since it does (repeatedly), at least it’s said well.
5 Misconceptions About YA

The kind of activity by a Publisher (Indie or not, but an Indie has more freedom to do) that deserves attention:
We don’t want your money honey. Seriously, we don’t.—Fahrenheit Press points to some great charities to help earthquake victims in Syria & Turkey and will be donating all profits from their store this weekend, too.

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:
A New Way to Read Gatsby—huh…
The art of exclamation marks!—Huh!!
For a Mystery Novel, How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex?—I think this is a pretty good way to think of it from the author’s POV. From the reader’s, too.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Anyone’s Personal Library—even without the response to a certain link I shared last week (the one Peat described as “incredibly smugly middle-class”), this is a good read.
Best of the Best: 2015 to 2022—Like the Stephen Writes I linked to recently, I’m impressed that anyone is capable of compiling a list like this.
Why I Believe It’s Important to Clearly Indicate the Age Category of Books
Why Adults Love Young Adult Fiction
So, You Own a Tiny Human. How About Some Book Recs?—I could go broke from this post alone…95+% of these look great
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie- A Mom/Son review—I love the idea behind this!
I don’t know why I’ve never thought of doing something like this, but I might have to in ’24: Authors I wanna give a second chance to in 2023 and Try Again Authors for 2023

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen—I have no idea what this book is about, and want to go into it blind. I just assume it has something to do with Vampires. Probably some family drama, too. It’s from Mike Chen, that’s enough to put it at the top of the TBR.
Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano—single mom, novelist, and definitely-not-an-assassin Finlay Donovan gets into more hijinks involving a killer, the Russian mob, and her nanny.