Category: Calendar Items Page 23 of 25

Two whole weeks with nothing reviewed. Was two paragraphs away from having one up yesterday. Actually, I’m about two – four paragraphs away from having a bunch go up. Need to buckle down and finish those.

Anyway, 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:

• Down Mean Streets a Writer Went to Create a Hard-Boiled Character — The NYT gives us a peak at a new book about Raymond Chandler.
• title — And The NYT has a fun interview with Janet Evanovich.
• A Writer’s Worst Moment. — Paul Cornell collects the worst moments in a few author’s careers.
• Ebook growth is stagnating — the infographic sums the state of the industry up pretty well, who’d have thought this would happen so soon?
• Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover: Tech-Savvy Teens Remain Fans of Print Books — Nielsen reports that teens lag far behind adults in the ebook market. It’s counter-intuitive, sure, but for those who equate ebooks with the fall of civilization, this has to give a measure of hope.
• 10 Authors That Deserve More Buzz — The BiblioSanctum provides a pretty nice list.
• Why I AM Participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge in 2015 — Last week, we looked at the why not. This week, it’s the why. Put me down for a ditto to this.
• The Book Riot 2015 Read Harder Challenge — In the last few years, I’ve had reading projects — from the serious to the silly. Didn’t really have much of one this year, at least not until late in the year. Might try this one in 2015 — it’ll be a stretch in many ways, but I think I can pull it off.
• But before we can start 2015, we’ve got some more 2014 Best of Lists to look at (mine should be ready early in 2015).
  • There Are Way Too Many ‘Best Of 2014′ Lists — yup.
  • My Long List: Best Books of 2014 — I like Ivory Owl’s categories
  • The Best Books of 2014, According to WSJ Readers — huh.
  • The Top 25 Best Fantasy Books of 2014 — Haven’t read a lot of what’s on this list (want to, tho’), but I’ve read enough to know I agree with a lot of Snow’s take (but not all)

Not too surprisingly, very, very little was released this week — and nothing that caught my eye. There’s at least one thing I know will come out next week (I ordered it months ago, and will hopefully get to read it this year).

Hey, remember when I reviewed things here? Posted fairly frequently, too. Honestly can’t tell you why this month or so has been so dry. I promise, I’m trying. Spent a part of each of the last few weeks thinking I was going to get ahead of the game, and each one has found me further behind.

Anyway, I did get a really big list of 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 Most-Recommended Novel Of All Time Is… — After reading the HuffPo thing, go play with the interactive graphic. Really interesting.
• The Gorgeous, 75-Year Evolution of ‘The Hobbit’ Covers/ — some of these are really cool
• What Lee Child Has Learned from Writing the Jack Reacher Books –a conversation with Esquire mag. I think I agree with his pick for the one he’d submit to a prize committee.
• Neal Stephenson signs on as tech company’s ‘chief futurist’ — Sure. Why not? I’d feel better about this if I hadn’t read some of his visions of the future. Naturally, I don’t think he wants to create The Diamond Age, but, you can never tell….
• 25 Genre Novels That Should be Classics
• Will Warren Hammond and Carrie Vaughn Go Where No Local Sci Fi Writers Have Gone Before? — a nice look at a couple of Colorado SF writers.
• Novelists Adam Sternbergh and Lev Grossman on Genre Fiction and Theories of Nerd-dom — Loved books by both of them this year, very interesting stuff here.
• Why I’m Not Participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge in 2015 — I totally get everything Pryde says here — and agree with most of it. I’m 20+ behind at the moment (hoping to get up to 18 behind by the end of the year), and it’s driving me crazy. Which is stupid. But I’ll probably do it again next year. Maybe.
• 2014 in Review — a nice recap/glance forward, etc. from Bookworm Blues. I want to be a blogger like her someday.
• What Amazon’s Bestsellers Say About American Culture in 2014 — huh. Maybe.
• And still more best of 2014 lists. Which again, are great fodder for TBR Lists:
  • David L. Ulin’s best books of 2014 — The LA TimeS Book Critic gives us a list of books I’ve never heard of.
  • Here’s the Ultimate List — BookBub aggregates 23 different lists. Wow, so helpful.
  • 11 Books Strand’s Booksellers Loved Most In 2014
  • Books That Deserved the Hype
  • The Year In Great Sentences — not just good books (etc.) but great on the micro level.
  • Our favourite books of 2014 — Edmonton Journal writers share their choices for best reading. I’ve said almost the exact same thing more than once about Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe (rest of the list is alright, too, but not as right)
  • Our Favorite Book Covers of 2014 — nothing against other lists, but I think I agree with BookRiot’s more
  • Some of the Best Lit Tweets of Some of the Year — Possibly the most entertaining of these lists I’ve linked to this month
  • title — blah
  • My best reads o’ the year — Kevin Hearne (on his nice looking new site) gives us his favorite 3.
  • Top 5 Urban Fantasy Novels I Read in 2014 — from Bibliotropic
  • Best Military Fiction of 2014 — from The Book Plank. I totally agree with his take on Cole’s Control Point
  • MIND MELD: Best Books of 2014 — Speaking of Myke Cole, he and other writers combined for this list for SF Signal.
• Embiggening English: The Simpsons and changing language

A big, fat goose egg with New Releases this week — there’s at least one next week to close out the year.

Hey, it’s National Book Lovers Day! Yay!

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:

• 10 Ways To Celebrate National Book Lovers Day — HuffPo has a decent (starter) list of ways to commemorate. You could also give books to your favorite book blogger — or me.
• Lev Grossman’s The Magician’s Land came out this week. If you’re as excited as I am about the last volume in this series, a few things to read while you wait to get your hands on it:
  • A Brief Interview With Lev Grossman
  • Ok, Ok, I Believe in Magic: On Learning To Love Lev Grossman’s Trilogy — I couldn’t read all of Preeti Chiibber’s review, because he started to get more detailed than I wanted. But I liked what I read, and will come back to this before the end of next week.
  • The Magician’s Land: Why Lev Grossman’s Trilogy is My Fillory — Nicole Dieker gets a little more detailed than I’d prefer, but what she said was so, so good. About The Magicians and fantasy in general.
• How Rainbow Rowell Turned A Bomb Into A Best-Selling Novel — a great — and very revealing — profile of Rowell
• How Strong Is Your Reading Addiction? — won’t tell you my score, but . . . it could’ve, technically, been higher
• Patrick Rothfuss’ review of Coraline — One could seriously have a great time just reading Rothfuss’ goodreads reviews. This Coraline review posted this week is a good example why.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman — did I mention that I was excited about it?
• Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn — I had one complaint about the last one in this series, I fully expect that this one will do better on that point.
• Revenant by Kat Richardson — The release of the ninth (and final) Greywalker book is great reminder that I need to read #3.
• Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer — this one looks pretty darn good.