The Irresponsible Reader

Remember me? Sorry this page hasn’t been updated in forever, I’m really frustrated that things have gotten so hectic (beyond hectic) that I haven’t been able to write practically anything. It’s worse than that, actually, I’m down to about a novel a week for the last month and a half or so. Still no time to write anything, but I figure at least I can dump a bunch of miscellany links and whatnot.

• I have to start with this one: On Becoming 1/3 of Robert B. Parker — I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve been disappointed (to put it mildly) with Michael Brandman‘s efforts taking the helm of the Jesse Stone books — as much as I’ve appreciated his work on the movies. I’ve only read Coleman’s piece in the In Pursuit of Spenser book — and about 1/3 of Walking the Perfect Square so far — but I’ve got a really good feeling about this.
• Speaking of Robert B. Parker, here’s a nice lil’ piece, A Conversation with Ace Atkins
• How you help authors the most — Kevin Hearne answers a question I’ve always wondered: what’s the best way to get your book buying dollars to help an author?
• Brad Parks, who’s becoming one of the more reliable mystery writers around, recently paid tribute to Sue Grafton at a mystery convention. Watch his Alphabet Sue
• Retaining the Look of a Series — I thought this blog post from Strange Chemistry about the design of covers for a series was quite fascinating.
• The genre debate: Science fiction travels farther than literary fiction — The Guardian gives us yet another defense of SF/F’s ability to do what “literary” fiction cannot
• On the lighter side, a nice little Buzzfeed post: 33 Reasons Why You’re Addicted To Books
• and lastly, I second everything here: A Few Things I’ve Learned As An Avid Reader

I know I’m forgetting a few, but here are the new releases I’m most excited about/interested in since I last posted:
• The Dragon Business by Kevin J. Anderson — looks like fun
• Attack The Geek: A Ree Reyes Side-Quest by Michael R. Underwood — One of the most fun Urban Fantasy series around gets a new entry. Yah-hoo!
• The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham — The first in a hopefully very long Veronica Mars series. Not as good as I hoped, but fun enough to keep me wanting more. I’ll try to write more soon.
• Heaven’s Queen by Rachel Bach — The Paradox series ends here. Can’t wait.
• Dawn’s Early Light by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris — The third Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novel. Should be fun.

The end of last week rolled away from me before I could assemble this for Saturday. So, rather than dusting something off, I figured I’d throw up the odds ‘n ends from last week about books and reading that caught. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• 5 Reading Rules for Book Lovers of All Ages — A nice little piece from Reading Rainbow, didn’t even know that was still around.
• There Is Reading, and There Is Looking at Letters — ever since stories about Spritz started hitting the web, I’ve been sounding like a cranky old man to any of my friends who’ve sounded even a little interested. But come on!! The headline says it all, but the post that follows does a good job explaining it.
• The 25 Best Tumblr Accounts for Book Nerds — I’d seen a couple of these before, but not many — and there’s some real fun feeds here.
• David Nicholls moves on from One Day with new novel — Like many others, I really liked One Day, (couldn’t finish Starter for Ten, though). Hope this is more like the former.
• Ernest Cline is the luckiest geek alive — Great profile about Cline — consider me a huge fan, and I expect Armada will only cement that.
• title — blah

There Was One Release Last Week that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Night Broken by Patricia Briggs — a new Mercy Thompson! Know nothing about it, but that it’s sitting on my desk waiting to be taken on a road trip with me this week.

Still in the midst of the reading/writing lull I mentioned last week — working really hard at shaking it. In the meantime, here are some 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 Strongest Brand In Publishing Is … — Fascinating look at publishing, book/author branding, etc.
• 19 Quotes That Will Make You Fall in Love With Books All Over Again — The headline oversells it a bit, but, there are some great lines here that will likely resonate with anyone who reads this blog. Favorites include: “The love of books is a love which requires neither justification, apology, nor defense.” – J.A. Langford and “I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough… The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” – John Adams
• An Interview with Author Jonathan Wood — I thoroughly enjoyed the ebook versions of Wood’s first two novels — No Hero and Yesterday’s Hero. Very glad to see him get the better exposure that paper copies will bring — and that there’s a third volume next year.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Player by Brad Parks — the newest in the series about a mystery solving member of that very endangered species, newspaper reporter. I expect that it’ll be tense, amusing, and well-crafted.
• Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire — the third InCryptid novel. I’ve got this sitting on my desk, waiting for the road trip I’m taking in two weeks. I might be able to wait that long to tear into it.
• Notes from the Internet Apocalypse by Wayne Gladstone — this looks pretty funny.