Category: News/Misc. Page 116 of 229

2022 Plans and Challenges

Thanks to Facebook’s On This Day, today I was reminded of my 2014 New Year’s Reading Resolutions. Boy Howdy, did I do a lousy job with those. Of the 12 specific resolutions, I still need to accomplish at least 5 (there’s room for interpretation on a couple of them)—I still want to accomplish 4 of them. Maybe this reminder will help?*

* Yeah, I’m not counting on that, either. But it’s nice to dream.

So, I’m reticent to get into calling my shots, as it were, too much anymore—there’s a project from 2020 still hanging over my head, too. And a few others, too, I’m sure—I just don’t want to go spelunking through the archives to find more personal failures (minor, to be sure, but technically failures).

So, here’s what I’m going to shoot for around here in the next 12 months.
bullet Cut down on my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and the unread books that I own (a perennial project, but I made some strides last year)—one of the Book Challenges this year should be a fun way to help.
bullet I’m going to finish my Classic Spenser series and maybe find another Classic to do a project read-through. We’ll see about that. (I added this one after scheduling this post, but you know what? I’ve been kicking myself for ages for dropping this…)
bullet Be pickier in the Book Tours I participate in—I’ve already started this (Damp Pebbles Blog Tours ceasing operations helped, too—no slight intended to the Tour Organizers I still enjoy working with, but Emma was better at getting me to take risks). I still like Tours, they expose me to things I wouldn’t normally read—and I’m going to keep doing them. But I’m going to be pickier about them.
bullet Similarly, I’m doing fewer Book Challenges. I like the ones I’ve picked out—but they’re concrete things, no more of these “Read as Many of X as You Can” challenges. They don’t move the needle one bit for me as far as picking books—I read as many as I’m going to anyway, just with a count. But Challenges with specific targets can be fun. I’ll talk about those in a minute.
bullet Get better at proofreading—apparently, there’s a need.
bullet Try to interview more authors (maybe others, too?), and get better at that, too.
bulletThere are a few other ideas, but they’re harder to explain than to just do. You’ll know them if you see them.

2022 Book Challenges

12 Books
Perhaps you’ve seen this on everyone’s timeline this last week or so—12 months to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. This looked like a great way to read something out of my wheelhouse—and so far, it should be. Only 1 of the 9 recommended so far is something that I’d have really considered. I still need 3 more recommendations—so hit the comments, folks!
12 Books Challenge


2022 “Support Book Bloggers” Challenge
Support Book Bloggers Challenge
This just looks like fun, mostly things I should be doing anyway. Go check it out.


2022 While I was Reading
While I Was Reading
I’ve done this one for the last few years—and Ramona’s done a great job of stretching me. And will continue to do so—this year’s categories are more challenging than I’m used to (I have to figure out authors’ astrological signs?).


Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge

Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge
I dig the way this one is organized—if nothing else, my TBR should go down by 12. 🙂


I’ll also undoubtedly do the 20 Books of Summer Challenge…that’s been pretty fun.


That’s everything I have planned, I can’t wait to see what unplanned things happen around here. Hope you’re around to join in the fun!


(Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay)

December 2021 in Retrospect: What I Read/Listened to/Wrote About

Even if the month brought me a bad Jack Reacher (stupid Lee Child wanting to retire…how selfish), I think it was pretty good for reading around here: 33 Books finished, 8,149 pages (or the equivalent) with a rating of 3.5 Stars on average (a little lower than I’ve had lately, but still really good).

I don’t have any books unfinished–sure, that meant I read short works for the last day and a half of the month, but I wanted to start 2022 with a clean slate (something I almost never do, so I was pretty happy about that).

Writing-wise, I put out a variety of things, and a pretty good number of posts, but the things left unfinished stack is way too large…

All in all, color me pleased. Although, at this point, anything that brings an end to the up-and-down year that 2021 was is good to me. Anyway, here’s what happened here in December.
Books Read

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Fortune Favors the Dead Who Is Jesus?
3 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars
The Last Time She Died Dr. Rick Will See You Now Cold Reign
4 Stars 3 Stars 5 Stars
Mistletoe and Crime Better Off Dead We Had a Little Real Estate Problem
4 1/2 Stars 2 Stars 3 Stars
A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry Faith in the Time of Plague A Sheep Remembers
5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars
Grave Reservations A Private Investigation Risen
4 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars
Messy The Nutcracker My Contrary Mary
3.5 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars
The Sentence Is Death Things Unseen Why Did Jesus Have to Live a Perfect Life?
3.5 Stars 5 Stars 4 Stars
A Dream About Lightning Bugs Fortune and Glory Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You
3.5 Stars 3 Stars 3.5 Stars
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas Stuff You Should Know Agent to the Stars
3.5 Stars 2 1/2 Stars 4 Stars
Anonymous The Case of the Left-Handed Lady The Iggy Chronicles, Volume One
4 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars
Dogtology Zoth-Avarex's Escape Plan
3 Stars 3 Stars

Ratings

5 Stars 1 2 1/2 Stars 1
4 1/2 Stars 1 2 Stars 1
4 Stars 7 1 1/2 Stars 0
3.5 Stars 5 1 Star 0
3 Stars 13
Average = 3.5

TBR Pile
Mt TBR December 21

Breakdowns
“Traditionally” Published: 21
Self-/Independent Published: 11

Genre This Month Year to Date
Children’s 0 (0%) 2 (1%)
Fantasy 1 (3%) 7 (20%)
General Fiction/ Literature 5 (16%) 24 (8%)
Horror 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Humor 2 (6%) 9 (3%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 11 (34%) 117 (38%)
Non-Fiction 4 (13%) 22 (7%)
Science Fiction 1 (3%) 20 (7%)
Steampunk 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Theology/ Christian Living 5 (16%) 38 (13%)
Urban Fantasy 3 (9%) 49 (16%)
Western 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Review-ish Things Posted

Other Things I Wroteotherwriting
Other than the Saturday Miscellanies (the 4th, the 11th, the 18th, and the 25th), I also wrote:

How was your month?

Saturday Miscellany—1/1/22

Happy New Year, readers!

I don’t have a lot to say this week—so let’s just get on with things, okay?

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:
bullet What’s the Best Book of the Past 125 Years? We Asked Readers to Decide.—From the NYT. I can’t argue with the results, I guess I could, but I won’t.
bullet The 36 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2021—Not your typical year-end post.
bullet Humor in Books, and Other Places, Too! An Interview with L.L. Stephens—another in Lockhaven’s series on humor.
bullet Building a fantasy world map using Adobe Illustrator—never read Jackson’s work, but this was fascinating
bullet Speaking of maps, this is impressive: Alex Verus Map Project—a valiant Alex Verus fan has created a google map of every location in the Verus novels.
bullet Alcoholic Drinks to Pair With Favorite Fantasy and Horror Books—I attempted a post like this a couple of years ago, this is the way to do it.
bullet The Simple Guide to Netgalley—A Handy Guide from Tales from Absurdia.
bullet Of the making of Year-End Posts There Is No End (well, it just seems that way—there probably will be an end in a couple of weeks). Here are a few more that I found interesting:
bullet The Best Reviewed Crime Novels of 2021—From CrimeReads
bullet The Fantasy Hive 2021 Year-End Awards
bullet FanFiAddict’s Justin’s Top 10 Reads of 2021
bullet Ben from Literature & Lofi’s Favorite Books From 2021
bullet Yearly Roundup & Favourite Books: 2021—from Spells & Spaceships
bullet Reader Voracious has released their 2022 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—if you’re looking for a tracker, you should give it a shot
bullet 2022 “Support Book Bloggers” Challenge—this seems like a really neat idea
bullet What Book Series Did I Finish Reading in 2021?—quite the feat.
bullet Out of Order Reading Methods—clearly, this is the work of a monster. This is not the kind of thing that should be normalized! (just kidding, this is a fun post)

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Beth Tabler who followed the blog this week.

The Irresponsible Reader in 2021: Thoughts, Thanks, and Stats

Programming Note: Over the next few days, I’ll be looking back over 2021—but I’ll try to come up with some new material, too. Many/most others have already done their best-of/year-end wrap-up posts, but I’m a stickler—I can’t start doing this kind of thing ’til the year is over. My brain doesn’t allow me to work that way (I just hate projecting things in general—and some years ago when I just read irresponsibly, but hadn’t adopted the name, the last novel of the year was so far beyond the rest that I can’t start looking back until 12/31 at the earliest).

As we kick off 2022, as is my custom, I wanted to take a glance back at 2021 (may it soon be a distant memory). 307 books finished (plus comics, picture books, short stories, and the like that I don’t know how to count)—my mind is thoroughly boggled! I exceeded my goal (nothing like exceeding an arbitrary number to boost the ol’ ego), too; finishing around 86,000 pages; with an average rating of 3.69 Stars. I only DNF’d one book, which is nice (or could I have enjoyed myself more if I’d done more?).

On the blog front, I put up 562 postsan all-time high for me82 more than last year!! I had another year of strong gains in trafficviews and visitorsI’m not big-time (never going to be), but those numbers consistently weird me out (which is why I only look every 6-12 months). My follower count (here and on social media sites) is encouraging and humbling, I really feel like I ought to do more to earn them.

I didn’t have any big blog projects for the year this yearI did finish my trip through The History of Tom Jones, but the follow-ups I thought about never materialized, but may in 2022. I also want to get back to my Classic Spenser series…that one is bugging me. I’ll talk about some other plans soonmaybe, maybe I’ll just put them in place instead.

As is my habit, here’s my breakdown of books by genre (and I’m going to have to change things soon, this chart doesn’t show up well anymore, I just like showing the trends). Genre labeling continues to be more difficult as I’m reading a lot of hybrids (most of us are, they’re being produced more), but I tend to go with the overarching genre. Basically, everything’s the same, with just a percent or two of adjustment. It’s been forever since I’ve read a Western or a Horror noveland “humor” is pretty useless as a category, as a lot of things I read could be considered that. Once again, for someone who doesn’t plan too thoroughly, the percentages stay remarkably consistent from year to yeartastes (and series I follow) apparently stay the same. I need to devote a Saturday afternoon some time to doing the math to make this chart more useful/attractive. I didn’t expect both Fantasy and Non-Fiction to dip the way they did this yearnot at all surprisingly Mystery/Thriller/Crime picked up those percentage points, though.

Genre 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
Children’s 2 (1%) 5 (2%) 7 (3%) 11 (4%) 7 (3%) 5 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Fantasy 20 (7%) 35 (13%) 28 (10%) 30 (11%) 7 (3%) 31 (13%) 17 (9%) 11 (7%) 15 (8%) 12 (6%)
General Fiction/ Literature 22 (7%) 16 (7%) 21 (8%) 22 (8%) 29 (10%) 27 (11%) 17 (9%) 7 (4%) 30 (16%) 30 (14%)
Horror 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (.4%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Humor 9 (3%) 2 (1%) 4 (1%) 3 (1%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 3 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 117 (38%) 90 (34%) 105 (38%) 107 (38%) 102 (37%) 61 (25%) 64 (34%) 62 (37%) 63 (33%) 73 (35%)
Non-Fiction 22 (7%) 28 (10%) 25 (9%) 22 (8%) 10 (4%) 11 (5%) 8 (4%) 4 (2%) 2 (1%) 11 (5%)
Poetry 2 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Science Fiction 20 (7%) 20 (8%) 30 (11%) 25 (9%) 27 (10%) 37 (15%) 16 (8%) 17 (10%) 14 (7%) 11 (5%)
Steampunk 1 (0%) 2 (1%) 1 (0%) 3 (1%) 1 (0%) 2 (1%) 7 (4%) 3 (2%) 3 (2%) 11 (5%)
Theology/ Christian Living 38 (13%) 23 (8%) 34 (12%) 25 (9%) 30 (11%) 33 (14%) 42 (22%) 42 (25%) 37 (19%) 10 (5%)
Urban Fantasy 49 (16%) 42 (16%) 25 (9%) 29 (10%) 45 (16%) 36 (15%) 19 (10%) 20 (12%) 26 (14%) 48 (23%)
Western 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%)

Thanks to the nifty spreadsheet made by the Voracious Reader, I was able to get a few more stats. I find them interesting, maybe you will, too.

I honestly thought that re-read percentage was going to be higherit dropped by 2% from last year. I expected it to be in the high 20s/low 30s.


Audiobooks also dropped a little this year, as that’s the majority of my re-reads lately, I guess that explains the drop there. Still, that’s another surprise decrease.

Enough about me. Now we get to my favorite partI want to talk about you, who keep me going and show an interest in what I’m doing here and give some thanks to people for their impact on The Irresponsible Reader (the blog and the person) in 2021:

 

Have a great 2022, hope you find plenty of good things to read!

WWW Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Time for the final WWW Wednesday of 2021! It’s been quite a year, right?

 

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m finally reading Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck and am listening to Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton (Narrator) on audiobook—it’s as fun as I remember when I read it a decade or so ago.

AnonymousBlank SpaceAgent to the Stars

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished the very odd The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux and Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant on audio.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás CubasBlank SpaceStuff You Should Know

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be Family Business by S.J. Rozan (been waiting for this one!) and my next audiobook should be another trip to Amish country in Gone Missing by Linda Castillo, Kathleen McInerney (Narrator).

Family BusinessBlank SpaceGone Missing

How are you all wrapping up the year?

Down the TBR Hole Revisited (3 of 3)

Down the TBR Hole Revisited

Huh. When I looked at this list, I really thought I’d cut some fat (although this part would be harder than the rest since some of these aren’t published yet, so I haven’t heard anything about them from other readers). I still managed to cut a little bit, which puts my Want-to-Read list under 150–which means overall, I’ve cut 90+ from the list since I started this (either through deleting or reading). I call that a win.

The big question is, what will this list look like in 2024-5 when I try this again?

This meme was created by Lia @ Lost in a Story—but Jenna at Bookmark Your Thoughts is the one that exposed me to this, and as my Goodreads “Want To Read” shelf is scarily long, I had to do this.

The Rules are simple:

  1. Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
  2. Order on ascending date added.
  3. Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books.
  4. Read the synopses of the books.
  5. Decide: keep it or should it go?
  6. Keep track of where you left off so you can pick up there next week! (or whenever)

What distinguishes this series from the Mt. TBR section of my Month-end Retrospectives? Those are books I actually own while Goodreads contains my aspirational TBR (many of which will be Library reads). The Naming of the two is a bit confusing, but…what’re you going to do?

(Click on the cover for an official site or something with more info about the book)

Vanishing Edge Vanishing Edge by Claire Kells
Blurb: FBI Agent-turned-Forest Service investigator is on the hunt for a killer in the Sequoia National Park.
My Thoughts: I vaguely remember reading about this on a Crime Reads post–sounded good (still does), and I’d probably enjoy it. But…I know I’m not going to get around to it.
Verdict:
Thumbs Down
The Cipher The Cipher by Isabella Maldonado
Blurb: A pair of FBI Agents (both with troubled pasts) are on the hunt for a serial killer.
My Thoughts: This one (and the next by Maldonado) were also featured in a Crime Reads post. The mini-blurb above sounds pretty generic, I know, but I remember something about the write-up that convinced me that Maldonado is somsone I want to try. So I put the first entries in her two series on the list, and am going to keep them there for at least a little longer.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
Blood's Echo Blood’s Echo by Isabella Maldonado
Blurb: A Phoenix PD Detective is on a crusade to take down a local crime family
My Thoughts: See above. I typically enjoy police detectives more than FBI Agents, so I’m leaning to trying this one first.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
The Accomplice The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz
Blurb: Owen and Luna have been best friends since college, the kind you always wonder why they didn’t end up together. When Owen’s wife is murdered, Luna starts putting pieces together with that murder and things that happened years ago. The book “examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering how well you know the one person who truly knows you.”
My Thoughts: It’s Lutz, so of course I’m going to read it, she’s still on my “auto” list–writing the above blurb is the first time I even looked at a synopsis I have the eARC on my Kindle now, actually, it’s probably going to be the first novel I start in 2022.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
How to Save a Superhero How to Save a Superhero by Ruth Freeman
Blurb: A ten-year old becomes convinced that a former superhero is a resident of the retirement community her mom works at. What’s more, she stumbles onto a conspiracy that puts him–and the whole human race–in danger.
My Thoughts: I thought I remembered where I saw this book recommended, but it’s not on the blogs I thought it was. Whoops. Regardless, it sounds like a cute story. It’s staying, I need some MG fluff.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
Fatal Storm Fatal Storm by Carrie Vaughn
Blurb: “Cormac and Amelia take a job at a quaint Victorian mountain lodge: keep an eye on the famous psychic there to judge whether the place is haunted. Simple, right? Three problems: the blizzard that snows everyone in for the weekend, the murdered body that shows up in the morning, and the fact that everyone is sure Cormac did it.”
My Thoughts: I just need to take some time and read all the Cormac and Amelia stories, and keep forgetting. This story’s presence on the list is a mnemonic device to help. The pair was a big part of what made the Kitty Norville series work–am glad to see them keep the world alive.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
Family Business Family Business by S.J. Rozan
Blurb: “The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a world of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and—because this is New York City—real estate.”
My Thoughts: Like the Lutz book earlier, Lydia Chin/Bill Smith books are auto-reads for me. This one is waiting at the Library for me to pick up. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
Dance Among the Flames Dance Among the Flames by Tori Eldridge
Blurb: I’m not even going to try to do this one. Click the links.
My Thoughts: This looks like a heckuva departure from her Lily Wong series. I’m super-curious about it and am looking forward to its release.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
The Awkward Black Man The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley
Blurb: A collection of short stories.
My Thoughts: For years, I’ve felt like I’m missing out on not getting into Mosley–not a FOMO kind of thing, more of a “what is wrong with me that I don’t appreciate him.” After Allyson J Johnson mentioned it in a WWW Wednesday comment, I thought this might be a good way to jump start that effort (although a subsequent comment chilled me a bit).
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
How to Save a Superhero How to Save a Superhero by Ruth Freeman
My Thoughts: Okay, yeah, something about this clearly appealed to me because I put on the list twice. Whoops.
Verdict: At least this helps me trim the number, right?
Thumbs Down
Maxine Justice: Galactic Attorney Maxine Justice: Galactic Attorney by Daniel Schwabauer
Blurb: “Maxine Justice is an ambulance-chasing lawyer desperate for relevance and cash when aliens hire her to represent them before the United Nations.”
My Thoughts: I saw an advertisement for this on Publishers Weekly, and the premise seemed so ridiculous and tongue-in-cheek I had to give it a shot.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
One for All One for All by Lillie Lainoff
Blurb: A YA gender-bent Three Musketeers featuring someone who (today) would be diagnosed with POTS.
My Thoughts: My daughter’s recently been diagnosed with POTS, so it’s been on my mind. When I saw this mentioned on my Twitter feed, I had to give it a shot. If for no other reason than to make sure my daughter gives it a read.
Verdict:
Thumbs Up
The Liar’s Knot The Liar’s Knot by M.A. Carrick
My Thoughts: I was really impressed with the first in this trilogy last year. I’ll likely be as impressed with this one–I will admit that I’m intimidated by the prospect of picking it up. Can I remember enough of what came before?
Verdict:
Thumbs Up

Books Removed in this Post: 2 / 13
Total Books Removed: 7 / 33

Anyone out there read any of these books? Did I make the right call with any of them?


(Image by moritz320 from Pixabay)

2021 While I Was Reading Challenge

2021 While I Was Reading Challenge

Earlier today, I finished my fourth annual While I Was Reading Challenge. Well, I thought I did, anyway. As I was putting this list together, I realized that the entry I’d pencilled in for “An essay or short story collection” was published last Fall. In fact, every short story collection I thought of as “recent” was from 2020. I somehow managed to make it through this year without a single short story collection, same with most of the essay collections I could think of. I guess this is why I keep a reading log, I just need to pay more attention to it.

Oh, well the important thing is, that it’s done, right?

2021 Reading Challenge Categories

  1. A book published before 2000: The Case of the One-Eyed Witness by Earle Stanley Gardner
  2. An essay or short story collection: Nothing Like I Imagined (Except for Sometimes) by Mindy Kaling
  3. A book you’ve been looking forward to: Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby
  4. A book you’ve been avoiding: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux
  5. A book of magical realism: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
  6. A book with alliteration in the title: Headphones and Heartaches by Wesley Parker
  7. A book with food or drink on the cover: Love by Roddy Doyle
  8. A cozy mystery: The Curious Dispatch of Daniel Costello by Chris McDonald
  9. A book with a dog on the cover: The Keepers by Jeffrey B. Burton
  10. A memoir: A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons by Ben Folds
  11. A book by an author who has written more than 10 books: Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg
  12. A debut novel: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Saturday Miscellany—12/25/21

I cannot believe anyone’s actually reading this today, but stranger things have happened, I guess.

Eh, maybe you need a break from the festivities, here’s a little to occupy your mind. It’s not much, I think everyone was lightening up on content this week.

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:
bullet Libraries enlist states in fight over ebook rules
bullet The Most Popular Books and Audiobooks on NetGalley in 2021
bullet The most popular US library books of 2021
bullet 2022 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—2022 will be my third year using this template from Reader Voracious—I still don’t use all the features, but those that I do are more than worth it. Even if I wasn’t blogging, I think I’d prefer this to what I came up with on my own.
bullet It was the last week for The #R3COMM3ND3D2021 series over at Damp Pebbles. The posts over the last week were by:
bullet Podcast Audiobookish
bullet BookBlogger Karen Cole
bullet BookBlogger Rae
bullet Author Joy Kluver
bullet BookBlogger Emma—the proprieter of Damppebbles herself chimes in to wrap up the series
bullet A few more installments of this year’s Best Of Lists…
bullet 12 Authors Share the Best Books They Read in 2021—from the We Are Bookish blog
bullet from FanFiAddict: Tom’s Top 10 Reads of 2021
bullet Witty and Sarcastic Book Club declares the year a win: Operation 2021: Success! (or Favorite Books from this Year)
bullet Why I’m not seeing a numbered reading goal for 2022…
bullet Blogging VS. Social Media: why having a book blog still matters—I’ve seen a little of this conversation online, but this is a pretty full response to the idea that book blogs are obsolete.
bullet Why Book Blogs are Relevant & Valuable Marketing Tools—okay, the above was a full response, this is…um…fuller I guess.
bullet The Die Hard Book Tag—a holiday-season Book Tag I can get behind.

The Friday 56 for 12/24/21: A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it.

from Page 56 of:
A Dream About Lightning Bugs

A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons by Ben Folds

A few years ago, I volunteered to be a substitute teacher for my kids’ seventh-grade music class. Just for a day. That’s all I had to do. I knew most of the kids in the class anyway. It should have been a breeze.

It wasn’t.

If I didn’t fully appreciate the public school music teachers of my youth before 11 a.m. that day, by noon I damn well did. As I stood before the class, a lifetime of experience performing in front of people went straight out the window. The forty-five-minute affair was absolutely exhausting. Kids, 1—Folds, 0. Animals, every one of them! I am no music teacher and I bow to each and every man and woman who is. I especially bow to the ones who can see that these children are not animals and recognize which ones could use a push, or a hand, like I did when I was younger.

Festivus 2021: For the Rest of Us

Shunning the commercialization of Christmas*/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Santaween/Chrismukkah, we’re again celebrating Festivus (for the rest of us) here at The Irresponsible Reader.

Let’s begin our observance!

Festivus PoleHere I am with my Festivus pole. I really appreciate the very high strength to weight ratio, it’s a mighty fine pole.

Note the lack of distracting tinsel. It’s very important.

And now, let the Airing of Grievances begin.

Airing of Grievances
Yes, some of these are only slightly revised from previous Festivus posts. Which is to be expected, it’s not like the entire universe fixed itself after I posted one lil’ post. It’s going to take at least three, right?

bullet I’m seriously disappointed that Ace Atkins is leaving the Spenser series. Sure, it’s best for him and his career to go off and work on his own projects, which will undoubtedly be great. But speaking selfishly (which is the point of grievances, right?), I don’t want him to go!

bullet Publishers are starting to use AI readers instead of humans for audiobooks! This is madness—we don’t need to make things easier for our new computer overlords by letting them lull us into letting our defenses down by reading our stories to us. Also, they don’t do a good job of it.

bullet I have a grievance with the book publishing/selling/marketing industry. It’s 2021, why are we still placing stickers on books? If we have to do that, why hasn’t Science come up with a sticker that doesn’t leave a gummy residue behind? C’mon, Science, if you can’t give us a cure for cancer, a pill so people with Celiac disease can eat bread, or an Oreo that will help me lose weight—at least you can give us stickers that don’t leave gunk on our books! Especially, especially when it covers the ISBN number for those of us trying to scan them.

bullet What’s worse than stickers are those things that look like stickers, but aren’t. Just stupid, garish circles that have been printed on the cover and really only serve to obscure the image.

bullet I have a grievance with Movie/TV covers on books. C’mon people, this is stupid. Sure, it maybe helps sell more copies of the books—but has any book been improved by one of these covers? No! Knock it off! And especially, stop it with sticking pictures of actors on books in a series that haven’t been adapted, just because some have (yeah, I’m looking at you, Longmire).

bullet Similarly, what’s up with publishers changing the look of series covers? I like when they match and I resent having to go buy second copies of the old ones to have a nice matching set. (which I generally avoid, but I think about doing it a lot).

bullet It’s another year without the next installment from Rothfuss/Martin. No, my grievance isn’t with them, it’s with the entitled “fan” of the work, whinging at every conceivable moment about how long it’s taking them. Because there’s nothing else around to read? Let ’em get it right and use that energy to support someone whose books could use it.

(still—Martin, Rothfuss, Lynch…c’mon…)

bullet Whether it’s from a mainstream publisher, indie press, or a self-pubbed book, we have the technology and (theoretically??) the education so there’s no reason for there to be missing/extra punctuation or misspelled words in books.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to book blog posts. No one paid for these.

bullet I have a grievance with the Book Blogging Community. There are way too many good book bloggers out there to keep up with. Some of you need to write less often! Also, you make the rest of us look bad.

bullet I’ve got a grievance with running out of places to put books and bookshelves that aren’t like a bag of holding or TARDIS and can’t take an increasing number of books. So…physics, I guess. Yeah, that’s right, Laws of the Physics, I’m calling you out. Get your act together!

bullet I’ve got a grievance with myself for putting off planning this post so long. I’m having a hard time coming up with Feats of Strength. I really need to start brainstorming earlier in the year…

bullet And what’s more…I lost my train of thought. Still, I managed to get a little off my chest, that felt good.

And now, the Feats of Strength

Time for Feats of Strength
In 2019, for my Feat of Strength, I held my TBR above my head, which I thought was pretty impressive. Then last year, I did something even harder—I signed out of Netgalley without requesting a single book. This year…

2021 Feat of Strength
Yes, that’s me lifting an entire bookshop. If that’s not a Feat of Strength, I don’t know what is. Okay, sure, it may be miniature, but it’s really hard to hold that steady without any of those teeny-tiny books falling off the shelf…

Let’s see how the rest of you do with your feats.

* I’ve gotten a little feedback about this—it’s pretty clear I’m a Christian. So why do I do a Festivus post instead of something about Christmas? While I do think that believers have the liberty to celebrate the Nativity if they desire to, I’m ambivalent toward the day, and hesitant to make a big deal out of it. So, I don’t. If you’re curious, I thought this episode of The Heidelcast did a decent job of articulating many of the issues (without getting nasty about it).

On the other hand, Festivus is just silly fun. Hope you don’t mind…

Happy Festivus

Page 116 of 229

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén