Category: News/Misc. Page 143 of 229

Okay, so trying to do a little catch up. Three months: 62 books, 17,772+ pages/equivalent (one book was audio-only, so I don’t have a page number). A lot of audiobooks in there. Honestly, that number suprises me–I had a better-than-normal September that helped a lot. There were some blah books in there, yet on the whole, the numbers were good enough that I averaged 3.6. But anyway, I’m pretty much back to form on the reading front, now I’ve got to work on writing. Doing this helped (psychologically, anyway).

So, here’s what happened here in September-November.




























Still Deciding













Still Deciding

		Average =	3.6
	5		1
	5		4
	16		0
	11		0
	17

“Traditionally” Published: 40
Self-/Independent Published: 23

Genre	These Months	Year to Date
Children’s	2 (3%)	5 (2%)
Fantasy	5 (8%)	31 (13%)
General Fiction/ Literature	2 (3%)	16 (7%)
Horror	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Humor	0 (0%)	1 (0%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller	14 (23%)	82 (34%)
Non-Fiction	13 (21%)	25 (10%)
Science Fiction	6 (10%)	20 (8%)
Steampunk	0 (0%)	2 (1%)
Theology/ Christian Living	5 (8%)	19 (8%)
Urban Fantasy	14 (23%)	38 (16%)
Western	0 (0%)	0 (0%)

Firefly: The Sting by Delilah S. Dawson (and several artists): The Women of Serenity Misbehave on Their Own
Catch-Up Quick Takes: Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz, Simon Prebble; Deadly Assessments by Drew Hayes, Kirby Heyborne
Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin: He’s Hardly the Retiring Type
Curse the Day by Judith O’Reilly: A Technothriller/Conspiracy Novel filled with Action (and some low tech solutions)
Bad Turn by Zoë Sharp: Charlie Fox is On Her Own and in Treacherous Waters
The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold: A Fantasy Novel that Defies My Pithy Headline Composing Abilities
Lone Jack Trail by Owen Laukkanen: Trouble Strikes Deception Cove Again
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding: BOOK XII., vii.-xii.
A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire: McGuire’s Latest Will Satisfy—and Shock—All of Toby’s Fans.
The Secret of Rosalia Flats by Tim W. Jackson: A Trip Home to a Tropical non-Paradise Brings Nothing But Trouble
Venators: Legends Rise by Devri Walls: The Venators Have Their Hands Full in this Packed Adventure
Far from the Tree (Audiobook) by Rob Parker, Warren Brown: A Disturbing Crime, A More Disturbing Investigation
Velocity Weapon (Audiobook) by Megan E. O’Keefe, Joe Jameson: A Brother, A Sister, A Battleship, and the War that Unites Them
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: A princess. A riddle. An heiress. A game.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding: BOOK XII., xiii – BOOK XIII., iv..
May Day by Josie Jaffrey: Even Vampires Need Law Enforcement
Kitty’s Mix-Tape by Carrie Vaughn: One More Trip to Kitty’s World in this Collection
The Beast and the Bethany by Jack Meggitt-Phillips, Isabelle Follath: A Story of Friendship and a Magical, Voracious Beast
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding: BOOK XIII., v. – viii.
Next to Last Stand by Craig Johnson: Boy Howdy, Walt Longmire and an Art Crime, Who’d Have Seen That Coming?
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto (Narrator): When You Can’t Kill Someone Anymore, Criminals Have to Get Creative
Silent Bite by David Rosenfelt: Andy Carpenter Does a Favor for a Friend and Ends Up Regretting It
Rattlesnake Rodeo by Nick Kolakowski: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
Venators: Legends Rise (Audiobook) by Devri Walls, Daniel Thomas May: The Venators Have Their Hands Full in this Packed Adventure
The Nicotine Chronicles edited by Lee Child is a thing I read
Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs: Interacting with the Classics from a Contemporary Perspective in Order to Learn and Critique
The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly: To Prove He Didn’t Do It, Haller has to Prove Who Did
My Life as a Dog by L. A. Davenport: Man’s Best Friend, Indeed
The City That Barks and Roars by J. T. Bird: It Takes Four Legs to Walk These Mean Streets
The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli: A Hunt for the Truth on the Streets of New York and Milan
What the World Needs Now – Trees! by Cheryl Rosebush, Zuzana Svobodová: Orangutans and Rainforests for Kids
Criminal Collective by Russell Day: Great stories about People at Their Worst

Other than the Saturday Miscellanies (September 5th, 12th, 18th, 26th; October 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st; and November 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th), I also wrote:

20 Books of Summer 2020: Wrap-Up
Even More Quick Questions With…Nick Kolakowski (his fourth time doing this!)
Happy Birthday, Archie! (my annual tribute to Archie Goodwin)
Shelfies! (an Irresponsible Reader first!) Also, Looking for Some Advice
Thanksgiving 2020
Top 5 Tuesday – Top 5 Favorite Characters A-E, Top 5 Favorite Characters F-J, Top 5 Favorite Characters K-O, Top 5 Favorite Characters P-T
Down the TBR Hole (13 of 24+)
Down the TBR Hole (14 of 24+)
Down the TBR Hole (15 of 24+)
Down the TBR Hole (16 of 24+)
WWW Wednesday for September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23, November 11, November 25
The Friday 56 for 9/4/20, 9/11/20, 9/18/20, 9/25/20

How were your months

Saturday Miscellany—11/28/20

By HCNewton

On November 28, 2020

In Books, News/Misc., Saturday Miscellany

Okay, I didn’t produce as much this week as I’d intended—I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, but re-establishing patterns is difficult. I did write every night this week, just didn’t finish a whole lot. More importantly, I read a decent amount (700+ pages), which makes me feel better about life.

Not a lot to post here this week (holidays tend to do that), but I hope you’ll find something worth your while:
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 Obviously, the big thing this week is: Bertelsmann to Buy S&S for $2.2 Billion—The parent company of Penguin Random House said it had reached an agreement to buy Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS, yay, capitalism and all that, but…how often to monopolies work out for the best? I’m so glad for Indie Presses right now and hope that they can survive this increasingly bad year for them.
bullet Book Business Reacts to Simon & Schuster Sale
bullet The Monster Publishing Merger Is About Amazon—Penguin Random House purchasing Simon & Schuster is not the gravest danger to the publishing business. The deal is transpiring in a larger context—and that context is Amazon.
bullet What the Penguin-Random House Merger Means to You, Average Reader—The Atlantic piece above linked to this one from back when Penguin and Random House Merged.
bullet Cozy Mysteries and Legal Thrillers: The Intersection of Two Crime Genres: Disparate as they may seem, the cozy and the legal thriller derive from the same mysteries and influences.—One of those things that I can’t help but think I should have noticed before
bullet Book I read thanks to blogging (that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise)
bullet The Tropening: Book Tropes that I love (or hate)—the most important line in this fun post is this: “That being said, there are exceptions to all of these for me. As long as the trope is well written, I’m flexible.” It’s precisely why I’ve abandoned efforts to do posts like this one myself…I can always think of well-written exceptions to my objects of derision. Still, I like reading other bloggers’ approaches to the topic.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet A Very Fahrenheity Christmas—Fahrenheit Press did exactly what you expect from a publisher of gritty, twisted, noir. They put out a feel-good Christmas collection. 2020 demanded it.
bullet Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline—I know nothing about this other than it’s sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to start (maybe by Tuesday).
bullet Forged by Benedict Jacka—the penultimate Alex Verus book hit the streets this week. I expect many, many things to go wrong for ol’ Verus.
bullet Last Stand in Lychford by Paul Cornell—this series comes to a satisfying close. There’s also an edition out now with all 5 novellas in one. Either is recommended by me (longer post to come)

Thanksgiving 2020

By HCNewton

On November 26, 2020

In Calendar Items, Miscellany, News/Misc.

Even in the midst of this dumpster fire of a year, there’s a lot to be grateful for–not just the fact that we got two Dresden novels from Jim Butcher (but definitely that). I do a semi-serious/semi-jokey post on this day, but this year, I think I’ll just simply say a sincere thank you to everyone who’s read this blog, commented, (re)tweeted a post, tweeted at me, recruited me for a Book Tour, asked me to read their book, wrote/published a book I’ve read (and/or bought with the intention of reading someday).

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving—full of whatever it is that you like to fill the holiday with.*

* or, y’know, a good Thursday for everyone not in the U.S.

WWW Wednesday, November 25, 2020

By HCNewton

On November 25, 2020

In Books, Currently Reading, News/Misc., WWW Wednesday

It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the States—instead of preparing to be gluttonous, why don’t we do a WWW Wednesday instead?

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 reading Madness of the Q by Gary Basnight and am listening to The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It by John Tierney & Roy F. Baumeister, narrated by Paul Bellantoni on audiobook (which is incredibly interesting, except when it dabbles into American Church History and shows no understanding of Whitefield or Edwards).

Blank Space

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Paul Cornell’s Last Stand in Lychford, the conclusion to his Witches of Lychford series and Kopp Sisters on the March by Amy Stewart, Christina Moore (Narrator) on audio.

Blank Space

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should finally be Battle Ground by Jim Butcher and Wake of the Bloody Angel by Alex Bledsoe, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator) on audiobook.

Blank Space

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

Saturday Miscellany—11/21/20

By HCNewton

On November 21, 2020

In Books, News/Misc., Saturday Miscellany

I actually sat down 4 nights this week to post about something, and only ended up with one thing usable. That’s bugging me, but I do sort of feel like a blogger again—I just can’t prove it to anyone yet. Let’s see what next week brings, shall we?

In the meantime:
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 Your Favorite Bookstores Are Dying. They Told Us How We Can Help.
bullet #DisneyMustPay Alan Dean Foster—This is just wrong on so many levels.
bullet How Steve Martin and illustrator Harry Bliss ended up working on the ‘upbeat book’ we all need right now—this sounds like a great idea
bullet Recipes Inspired by Books/Book Series—I saw this linked in a Jim Butcher Newsletter, but there are plenty of great looking recipies on The Gluttonous Geek for other fandoms as well. Someone could have a lot of fun here.
bullet John Wisniewski interviews Nick Kolakowski
bullet The Most Unusual Murder Weapons in Crime Fiction: A leg of lamb, an exploding cow, and an enormous bottle of champagne…—I’ve read the exploding cow, the rest of these seem equally inventive.
bullet 5 Ways to Find Magic in Reading

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet Author Stories Podcast Episode 1000(!!!): Craig Johnson Helps Us Celebrate 1000 With Next to Last Stand—Always enjoy listening to Johnson on this podcast and hearing a bit more about his year’s Longmire novel was a treat.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet A Wealth of Pigeons: A Cartoon Collection by Harry Bliss & Steve Martin—I like the idea (see above), I like the samples I’ve seen online. I need to get this—I used to be better about reading cartoon collections and miss it.

EXCERPT from The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli

By HCNewton

On November 20, 2020

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Quotations

Earlier this morning, I talked about the book, and now I get to give you a little taste—the opening paragraphs, I hope it hooks you the way it did me.

from Chapter 1 of The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli (available from Polis Books)

Friday

In the gutter lay a man, face up, between two parked SUVs on Sutton Street. He wore a pale gray suit with impossibly thin pinstripes. It was Zegna, because I’d seen one on my partner, Detective Hamilton P. Turner. The suit was still in good shape, a testament to its workmanship, but the man was not.

I squatted and looked at him in the evening of an April day. I put on my latex and turned him gently. Our fashionable boy wore no tie and his pink shirt had a large red-brown blotch right where his heart used to beat. His suit was ruined in the back, an exit hole right through the trapezius. That’s what the coroner’s report would probably say.

He was about six feet, one inch. Skinny, with fine brown hair, blue- gray eyes. glauco, they say in Italian, which is what the body turned out to be. My grandfather was called Glauco for his eyes. This guy was good looking. Once. No sign of a struggle. Two wounds: a dime-sized hole punched through the back of the head and one more straight into the chest—probably the second shot as he lay prone—to make sure he stayed all the way dead. Below, burrowed halfway into the asphalt, was a slug.

The blues who’d found him already radioed for the NYPD photogs and CSU.

I walked back to my car to call my partner, who’d hadn’t told me why he couldn’t come along to the party. “I’m good,” I said to Turner. “You’re missing a beautiful spring evening in New York City, marred only by one dead body.”

His voice crackled over the radio: “Just the one? Gonna rain later. Meet you back at the precinct, Paolino,” Turner said.

I tossed the receiver back into our Crown Vic’s front seat and walked back to the body. Turner liked to call me little Paul because I was taller than him.

The photogs showed up and cordoned off the area around the body.

“Any other bodies, Detective Rossi?” the photographer asked me.

“I told you, one. Why does everyone think there’s more than one?” I said.

“Yeah, but you know, sometimes you think there’s one and then other bodies just start showing up when you look around. They’re like rabbits.”

I smiled at our photographer, Joe Rinn. He had a nice sideline doing weddings. “You never tell those brides what you do, do you? That you flash dead bodies all day. That your work graces medical school books about fatal wounds?”

“Nah,” he said, smiling back at me, then turning to the job at hand. “I tell ’em I’m an artist.”

I stood back and let the artist work. I tugged my right ear, tilted my head to get another look at this guy, and wondered what this poor fucker had done to deserve a dog’s death.

Rinn circled the body like a vulture. “The geeks’ll be here in a minute. And hey, a Post guy is comin’, too. He asked me to keep the bodies fresh.”

“A body. One body. We’ll try to oblige, but if the fourth estate doesn’t show in time, tough,” I said.

After they took the first set of photos, the CSU geeks began. Hair, blood, and nail samples. They scraped his jacket, pants, and shirts with tape to pick up foreign elements, like someone else’s hair or blood.

I looked around to figure some possible MOs. There was a small service alcove down a few steps and a few feet away. Our hunter knew his rabbit’s habits. Maybe tailed him for a few days. He waited in the alcove and calmly skipped up to the victim as he walked between a Range Rover and an Escalade. That gave the shooter some tall cover, and then he did him. Bang. Bang. Or rather Ping, Ping, with a silencer. The killer had probably taken care after the first shot to lay the body down, so that they were partially obscured, on Sutton near 51st. And that’s when he—or they—popped him a second time. His head, inches from the curb, was near enough that his blood had drained into the sewer nearby. Just when you think you’ve seen it all.

The body came conveniently with docs, a small black address book and an Italian identity card wrapped in a soft, dark brown leather case— Gaitano Muro, forty-six years old and a Milan address, so immediately I thought Mafia. Even the stupidest perp knows not to leave docs in a fixit job. The killer must have been spooked immediately and had to run. This was a botched execution. Two kill shots to rob someone? Not likely.

The address book had names and phone numbers but little else. No addresses. The ID was diplomatic, Capo Servizio something or other, Consolato Generale della Repubblica Italiana, it said, with an embossed little star inside an olive branch and a mechanical gear wheel. My Italian wasn’t bad thanks to my grandfather. Muro was a diplo and Signore Muro from Milan came all the way to New York City and found unexpectedly that this late April evening would be the least lucky night he was ever to have, and he was dropped in the gutter on Sutton St. I suppose there are worse streets to die on.

I’d bet it wasn’t the way he thought it would go. Nobody ever does.

Read the rest in The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli to see what happens from here.

Thanks to Polis Books, Vito Racanelli and Saichek Publicity for this excerpt!

Saturday Miscellany—11/14/20

By HCNewton

On November 14, 2020

In Books, News/Misc., Saturday Miscellany

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 6 Reasons to Shop Your Local, Independent Bookstore—some of these stats are chilling
bullet How Books Designed for Soldiers’ Pockets Changed Publishing Forever
bullet Bookshops are a precious shelter from the storms of life
bullet The Mermaid’s Pool – A Q&A with author David Nolan—Nolan discusses his latest novel, the role of the North West of England. Great stuff.
bullet The Evolution of Jack Reacher: Lee Child’s biographer on the creation of an iconic figure, from the first draft to the published novel.
bullet His Dark Materials gave Lin-Manuel Miranda ‘new perspective’ on adapting Kingkiller Chronicle—huh. Hard to adapt, hard to finish the trilogy.
bullet Why the funniest books are also the most serious—from BBC
bullet The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020—Time Magazine sounds off. Haven’t heard of almost all of these. Guess I have some catching up to do.
bullet What the size of your book collection says about you—I frankly object to the 500+ description…
bullet Books Are Awesome—Ryan Howse talks about judging books for what they are, not for what they are not.
bullet Reviewing and self-doubt—The Tattooed Book Geek has some nice, encouraging words.
bullet The 7 Deadly Reading Sins…—Guilty of a few of these

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly—Mickey Haller defends himself against murder charges. You’ve gotta read this one, as I said recently
bullet The Mermaid’s Pool by David Nolan—Nolan’s Black Moss still haunts me, I cannot wait to read this sequel.
bullet Answers in the Form of Questions by Claire McNear—McNear probably would’ve preferred the news not providing so much attention to the book’s topic, but, what are you going to do? I’ve heard nothing but good about this book and have to get it right away.

Shelfies! (an Irresponsible Reader first!) Also, Looking for Some Advice

By HCNewton

On November 12, 2020

In Books, News/Misc.

Shelfies are a pretty common thing for Book Bloggers to post, I’ve never shown any of my shelves for one simple reason—for the last few years, my shelves have been a disastrous, disordered mess, comprehensible to me and me alone (my wife would frequently have to get my help to find her own books!).

But now, I’ve managed to get my library in some sort of order—the best it’s looked in ages—and I can’t wait to show you the pictures:

Sure, I’ve got a little work to do on the presentation, but I think I’m off to a good start.* It’s going to take me a little bit to get through the 33+ cubic feet of Fiction and 31+ cubic feet of Non-Fiction and get them set up decently and in good order, but I’m looking forward to it.

* Or, you know, not off to any kind of start at all.

While I’m at it, I think I should finally get around to cataloging/inventorying my collection. It looks like the best two options are LibraryThing and Libib, does anyone have any experience using them for cataloging? I’ve used LibraryThing a little bit for reviews, but not for adding a lot of books all at once. Does someone have another/better option?

WWW Wednesday, November 11, 2020

By HCNewton

On November 11, 2020

In Books, Currently Reading, News/Misc., WWW Wednesday

Trying to get back in the saddle a bit, might as well try a WWW Wednesday, right? Even if I’d have let myself take the time, this would’ve been a really dull series lately. I’ve read–no kidding here–4 books since the end of September. Four. Thankfully, the audiobooks have proceeded on about the same pace as usual, but that should give you an idea how weird things have been at home. But let’s focus on this Wednesday, okay?

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 reading the thriller, The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli and am listening to Undeading Bells by Drew Hayes, Kirby Heyborne (Narrator) on audiobook—it’s the latest in the series, and I’m not sure how I’m going to cope without having one of these to fall back on.

Blank Space

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished J. T. Bird’S The City that Barks and Roars (the dark Zootopia-like cop thriller) and the Andy Carptenter spin-off, The K Team by David Rosenfelt, Fred Berman (Narrator) on audio.

Blank Space

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book is probably going to be the follow-up to 2018’s Flight of the Fox, Madness of the Q by Gary Basnight, because I’m obliged to do it. But what I really want to read is Battle Ground by Jim Butcher—it came out the day I got word about my move, and I haven’t had time for it yet (which is driving me cray-hay-hay-hay-hazy)*. I have no idea what audiobook is coming next, I’ve got a couple of days to decide (or a library hold to become available) before I need one.

* That sounded just like Dr. Perry Cox in my head.

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

Saturday Miscellany—11/7/20

By HCNewton

On November 7, 2020

In Books, News/Misc., Saturday Miscellany

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 A long story: why record numbers of readers turned to doorstopper classics in lockdown—I let this trend slip by, I wonder if that was a mistake…
bullet 8 Types of Audiobook Listeners—I’m 3 of these, actually. Does that suggest a mental health problem?
bullet A Guide to Deciding Whether Your Fictional Character Is a Vigilante or a Straight-Up Killer: Sometimes the line between serial killer and avenging crusader is perilously thin.—I’m not sure I ever pondered this before.
bullet The First Two Pages: Rattlesnake Rodeo by Nick Kolakowski—This is a cool idea for a blog series, and I’m going to have to read some of the earlier installments. Basically, this is an essay by an author (in this case, Kolakowski) talking about the first two pages of their book. I could read stuff like this all day, especially about a book as good as Rattlesnake Rodeo was.
bullet Why Are We Obsessed With The Underdog?—this needs a little more meat on these bones, but I like this take.
bullet Looking to Norsevember: Everything you need to know.—Spells and Spaceships gives an introduction to Norsevember, a Norse inspired reading challenge.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet The NPL Book Nerd Podcast—My library launched a podcast this week, which is pretty cool. I think Episode 1 is a little too brief, a little to light on information. But once this thing finds its sea legs, I’m gonna dig it.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Criminal Collective by Russell Day—As this is from Day, it will most likely be my favorite short story collection of the year, these 19 stories look at the human condition: “From tea in a country vicarage to high stakes poker games in the inner city, Criminal Collective brings you stories about people just doing what people do, lying, cheating, back-stabbing, double-dealing and committing murder.”

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Anna who followed the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?