Category: News/Misc. Page 216 of 229

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:

• Read Slowly to Benefit Your Brain and Cut Stress — huh. Very interesting. (ht: Harry Connolly)
• How Long Does It Take to Read Popular Books? — fun infographic Updated the link to point to the creator of the infographic
• Studies Find That Reading Harry Potter Can Make You A Better Human Being — There are problems with some of the premises this is built on, but interesting reading nonetheless
• A Ghostwriter Steps Out of the Shadows — I’ve always been curious about ghostwriters, I find this fascinating
• Book Publishing, Not Fact-Checking — Important to remember
• I Don’t Care About Accuracy In Book Adaptations — I’m not sure I agree with Peter Damien here, but I can see his point — good to remember especially as This Is Where I Leave You was released yesterday.
• Three Authors Who Kept Their Visions By Adapting Their Books to Screen — Speaking of adaptations . . .
• When Should I Quit a Book I Don’t Like? — I need to do better at this. Maybe.
• The Rumpus Interview with Lev Grossman — great interview.
• Go Forth and Re-Read Your Favorite Books From Childhood: A Dare — I need to do this more, too. I re-read The Westing Game a couple of months ago, the first time since . . .well, the 1980s, I guess. Loved it (need to find the time to review it), was so much fun spending a couple of hours with these old friends.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato — great premise, lots of good buzz, I’m in as soon as I find the time.
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey — the sequel to The 5^th Wave, one of the best books I read last year.
• Black Water by Faith Hunter — Jane Yellowrock shorts. Cool.
• Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon by David Barnett — this Steampunk/Alt-History sounds like a fun ride. His Big Idea post

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/09/16/the-big-idea-david-barnett/

• Broadchurch: The Novel by Erin Kelly — Watched the series twice, can’t wait for the second series — heck, I’m almost looking forward to Gracepoint. So a novelization, with more details, and a hint about what’s to come? Yes, yes, and yes!!

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:

• 3 Reasons Why Kids (and Adults) Need to Read More Now — not that I — or probably you — need convincing, some interesting statistics.
• Millennials read more books than their elders, Pew study finds
• Brash Books: What Sets Us Apart From Other Publishers — a nice introductory video to this new crime imprint (mentioned last week), if you check the right column, there’s some more videos about them. Am looking forward to handing them some of my money soon.
• Speaking of crime novels, Why today’s most exciting crime novelists are women — I’m not sure I buy all of Laura Miller’s take on the state of the genre, but there’s some good stuff about the new crop of female writers
• A nice Michael Connelly quotation from The Writers’ Police Academy
• The best place to hide a body? Just ask writer Tod Goldberg — Nice interview about Goldberg and his new book and The Rumpus has another one.
• When I Think “Fearless,” I Think of Flannery O’Connor — a nice piece on one of my favorites.
• The Epic POV — Kameron Hurley has an interesting piece on the multiple-POV style of so much contemporary fantasy. I’d quibble with some of this, but on the whole, it’s a good read. For not the first time (but maybe the first time on the blog), I note I’d rather read Hurley on fiction, than Hurley‘s fiction.
• How Rainbow Rowell Went From Newspaper Reporter to Superstar Novelist — One day, I’ll stop reflexively posting articles about Rowell. Today’s ot that day.
• Brimstone and Leather: A Eulogy for Kim Harrison’s Hollows Saga — Paul Goat Allen pays tribute to the series that ended this week. Nice piece, even if (as I’ve noted before), Allen clearly likes this series far more than I do.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot by Reed Farrel Coleman — Coleman takes over Jesse Stone and saves the franchise. Content-wise, anyway. Hopefully sales are enough to justify more than the few he’s signed up for. Loved this, I’ll add, in case my 5-star review was too subtle.
• The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison — I’m tempted to get this one now, after such a good experience with the penultimate novel recently. But, I’ve got 12 of these in paperback, I’m not breaking up the set. I’ll get to it in April.
• City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett — I’m hearing nothing but praise for this new fantasy.
• Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg — in case you couldn’t tell by the above two links, I’m pretty intrigued by this one. I’ve read a little of Tod Goldberg’s stuff before, and I’ve liked it, but this looks like it’ll be a stronger, more compelling work from him.
• Yesterday’s Hero by Jonathan Wood — Think I forgot to mention a couple of months ago, that Wood’s No Hero was being republished, so I’m making sure I talk about this republication. These two books rocked, and I was so disappointed that no one seemed to notice them a couple years ago when they were first published. Cannot wait for the overdue third in this series next year.

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:

• Two Novelists Launch Brash Books, New Crime House — Yeah, I wasn’t impressed with their first title, but the idea behind Brash Books — and the men behind it, do have me very interested. I hope this works out.
• Margaret Atwood’s new work will remain unseen for a century — this project is either one of the coolest or one of the stupidest ideas I’ve run across. Either way, it reeks of hubris
• The best mixtapes in fiction — The Guardian talks about the trend of writers coming up with mixtapes/playlists and some of the best mixtapes in British fiction.
• Checking Out America’s Libraries — H&R Block (of all people) put together this infographic of interesting facts and figures (some dismaying. . . 7 books checked out a year by the average user?!?). I liked the comparison of libraries to McDonald’s (even if I have a hard time believing it)
• Pfui on Fair Play: Rex Stout on Rules for Writing Detective Fiction — Stout has problems with the supposed rules for mystery writers, and on the one hand he’s right (far be it from me to disagree with the master), because it works so often when they break this rule. But man, it bugs me as a reader when they do it.
• Longmire’s Cancellation Makes No Sense — Oline Cogdill is more angered than I am by this, but I’m pretty rankled. I really don’t get the thinking here. Thankfully, we still have the books.
• 10 Things That Happen When You Can’t Put Down A Good Book — blah
• Wilson’s got a lot of interesting things on her blog, but these Writers Laughing posts are great.

(My TBR pile got a massive injection this week thanks to) This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Hidden by Benedict Jacka — It’s been far too long since I spent time with Alex Verus.
• The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire — but it’s been longer since I’ve read a Toby Daye novel. Not sure how I decide which to read first.
• Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs — a collection of Mercy Thompson short stories? Yes, please.
• Maplecroft by Cherie Priest — Cthulu stuff has never really spoken to me, but . . . something about this take makes me think I could like it. Here’s her Big Idea piece on the book.
• Personal by Lee Child — Jack Reacher goes to Europe. Should be relaxing, no?
• The Drop by Dennis Lehane — a return to the world of Mystic River? Sounds great — and probably, pretty messy.
• What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe — title kinda says it all. From the brain behind the xkcd webcomic.

For the last day or so, one of the top “Trending” stories on Facebook has to do with George R. R. Martin, the headline reads: George R. R. Martin Teases Lots of Death in the next ‘Game of Thrones’ Books. Yeah? No kidding. Death, never would’ve suspected lots of that. Need to prepare for the next headline “George R. R. Martin Warns that Next ‘Game of Thrones’ Books Will Be Very Long.”

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:

• The Princess Bride You Didn’t Meet In The Movie — I’m not sure I’d agree with everything Leslie Kendall Dye says about the book in her little essay, but — it’s thought-provoking, and anything that gets people to read this book works for me. Love the movie, love the book more.
• 23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now — Reader’s Digest lists 23 critically acclaimed writers that supposedly deserve more attention. Now, I admit I don’t read as much “serious” fiction as I ought, but I figured I’d have read a couple off this list. Nope. Had only even heard of one of these. Humbling.
• Speaking of “serious” fiction: Jennifer Weiner: why I’m waging war on literary snobbery — Another piece about Weiner’s quest to get “chick lit” (and herself) taken more seriously
• Adult Fiction? — huh, whaddyaknow? Adults reading books about teens — you know, what’s marketed as YA today, and which so many look down on adult’s reading — has quite the long and impressive pedigree. Teresa Michals’ essay is well worth the read, no matter what you think of YA books.
• In what’s becoming a regular feature on this list, Patrick Rothfuss’ review of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making — This has been sitting on my TBR pile since 2011, and on my daughter’s bookshelf since then, too. I need to buckle down and just read the thing, don’t I?
• The Wisdom of Hounds — Mark Mason’s musical tribute to Oberon, the true star of the Iron Druid Chronicles. Also worth checking out if you’ve never read IDC, but appreciate things from a dog’s point-of-view.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• One Kick by Chelsea Cain — am hearing good things about this, assuming those are right, with this premise? Should be a good read.
• Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods by Rick Riordan — it looks pretty funny and informative — what D’Aulaires’ was for me, but with Percy’s snark. And, apparently, huge. Huge as in abnormally tall, not thick.
• What Might Have Been by Matt Dunn — whoops! — should’ve listed this one last week, this looks like a fun read.

A quick personal note: As we have for 7 or so years, my kids took part in our local library’s Summer Reading Program — for my family, it’s never actually increased our reading, but it’s a fun little thing for the kids to do (and it gets them a free book). The last few years, they’ve added a program for adults — also, doesn’t do anything to increase my reading, still I like to participate. Turns out that I won one of the drawings from the program this year — a Kindle Fire — and a free book (Fannie Flag’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion). I’d like to give a shout out to the Nampa Public Library as well as a hearty thanks for my new tablet. Remember to support your local library.

Just a couple 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:

• Italo Calvino Offers 14 Reasons We Should Read the Classics — This review of an essay from the 80’s offers some very compelling reasons to read (or re-read) the classics. I need to do better at this, and I have more reasons to do so now.
• The Phantom Tollbooth took me into fantasyland — Lucy Mangan describes how Juster’s fantastic classic changed her.
• 8 Famous Authors On The First Book They Ever Loved — we all started somewhere. Kinda interesting to see where these first loves took them.
• Rainbow Rowell’s Best Book Quotes on Love — One of my worst kept secrets is my Rowell fascination. Here’s some great lines that help explain it.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Cursed Moon by Jaye Wells — the sequel to the promising, but not as good as I’d hoped, Dirty Magic
• We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory — this could be a fun and trippy read