Tag: Miscellany Page 10 of 176

WWW Wednesday—January 21, 2026

On January 21, 2026

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

I’m sure it wasn’t the most appropriate way to commemorate the day, but I really enjoyed the bonus reading day on Monday — and, for a change, I took advantage of it. I’m at least one book ahead of where I expected to be today. I’m not going to be able to pull all of it off–but my January TBR is feeling largely doable. For today, anyway.

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?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?


Twelve Months by Jim Butcher	The Librarians by Sherry Thomas, read by Louisa Zhu

The fact that I’m posting this, or working, or acknowledging I have a wife and dogs while I have Twelve Months to focus on is rather surprising. I’m just in full geek-out mode.

I’m still getting a sense of The Librarians, the setting and characters are charming as all get out–but I’m still waiting for the plot to start. We’ll see how it goes from there.

What did you recently finish reading?


Lit by Tim Sandlin	Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor

Sandlin’s cozy doesn’t feel all that cozy, but technically is one. It’s a hoot. Idaho does not come off well in this book, I will recommend it soon regardless.

Oh wow. This audio version of Ozark Dogs is just as powerful as the novel–only losing a bit of its punch because I revisited it. Cranor is a fantastic narrator, I should add.

What do you think you’ll read next?


Strange Animals by Jarod K. Anderson	The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Chouinard, read by Stephanie Németh-Parker

I’m looking forward to seeing for myself how Anderson’s book lives up to the description (click the link) or to the good things that people are saying about it (like Jodie did)

I don’t remember what it was about Chouinard’s book that got it put on my hold list–I’m just going to trust that former me knew what he was doing. It’s been a minute before I dabbled in a light-hearted serial killer book.

Any book(s) have you excited lately?

Fantasy with Friends: What Do You Think of Romantasy as a Category?

By HCNewton

On January 19, 2026

In Books, Fantasy with Friends, News/Misc.

Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.

This week’s prompt is:

What do you think of romantasy as a category? What makes something romantasy vs. a fantasy book with a romance?

As for the subgenre as a whole, it’s not for me. I’ve got nothing against it, but it’s not something I seek out or would. But I have friends who love it—I have family members who love it—and I’m glad they have something that entertains them.

There are individual works that I’ve read and enjoyed—some I didn’t realize fit into that category until after I’d read them, and one or two I’ve been specifically recommended. So yeah…I don’t see myself as a fan of the subgenre, but that doesn’t mean I will run away from a good one. I just won’t go looking for one.

For me—and I’m looking forward to reading more informed definitions—a Romantasy is a Romance Novel that takes place in a Fantasy world (the way that the Eddie LaCrosse novels are Detective Novels that take place in a Fantasy world, or The Midsolar Murder books are Murder Mysteries on a Space Station, etc.). These are distinguished from books that are solid Fantasy novels with a love story (The Bright Sword, for example); or a Detective Novel with a touch of the mystic (or at least possibility of it) like the Walt Longmire series; or a Science Fiction novel where someone is murdered like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Given that understanding, my typical disinclination to reading Romance is the same as disinclination to reading Romantasy.

I’m sure some of the other posts in response to this prompt will be more thoughtful. I’m looking forward to reading them. Do you have responses to this? (either for the comment section below or from your own post)

Saturday Miscellany—1/17/26

By HCNewton

On January 17, 2026

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 Best Sci-Fi First Contact Adventures—a nice little stack of goodies. I can speak for 2.4 of the 7, and agree with Peloquin’s choices–and the rest look just as good.
bullet Willow Wraith Press is starting to host a promising series of articles about Self-Publishing, they kick it off (aptly) with What is Self Publishing?
bullet Beauty With Teeth: What I Want From Fae Fantasy—this is a lot of what I wanted to say Monday, and didn’t quite manage to.

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week :
bullet “I’m not saying pain is what defines us as human beings. But it is, in many ways, what unites us.”―Battle Ground by Jim Butcher

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
bullet Sex & Violence in the Bible by Joseph W. Smith III
bullet The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams—to be fair, when am I NOT talking about this?
bullet In Defense of the Moth or A Meaningless Dance in Blinding Heat and Light by Johnny Newport
bullet Indexing: Reflections Episode Twelve: Never After by Seanan McGuire
bullet Hidden by Karen E. Olson
bullet The Odd Fellows Society by C. G. Barrett
bullet I mentioned the releases of: Once a Crooked Man by David McCallum; Reflections by Seanan McGuire; and Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet First Do No Harm by S. J. Rozan—Somehow this slipped by me last week. “Lydia Chin and Bill Smith face a dangerous task: they must unlock a hospital’s many secrets in order to save an innocent man.” That sentence only needs the first five words to get me interested, but the rest works, too.
bullet Forbidden Waters by Rob Parker—Cam Killick is back and this time he “has found is a murder weapon from a very recent crime – but how do you solve a murder without a body?”
bullet Godfall by Van Jensen—”In this riveting small town thriller, Sheriff David Blunt is faced with a string of murders following the arrival of an alien life form”
bullet The Luminous Fairies and Mothra by Takehiko Fukunaga, Yoshie Hotta and Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Translated by Jeffrey Angles—following up on his translation of the Godzilla novellas, Angles brings us the original Mothra story.

2026 Plans and Challenges

By HCNewton

On January 15, 2026

In Books, Calendar Items, Miscellany, News/Misc.

Finally it’s time to stop looking at 2025 (as fun as I hope that is’s been) and to start focusing on 2026.

Last year was a disaster for my plans and goals…both those stated and unstated. That only bothers me a little–I had too much fun with what I did accomplish, and was so tired because of everything else in life that perspective is easy. This is a hobby–I didn’t hobby the way I wanted to. But, still, hobbying was done.

This year

I do have things I want to accomplish here over the next 12 months for a variety of reasons—and listing them like this helped last year (although, you’ll see a lot of echoes here from that post. But most of those echoes are of a “continue doing this” nature). So, here’s what I’m going to shoot for around here in the next 12 months.
Cut down on my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and the unread books that I own (a perennial project, but 2024 was not good for the size of that stack)—I’m going to talk about that more in a minute.
Any book that I buy this year, I want to read this year (unless I buy it for a 2027 project). I will fail at this. But I’m going to try.
I’m going to continue to be picky in the Book Tours I participate in. I still like Tours, they expose me to things I wouldn’t normally read—and I’m going to keep doing them. But if I’m picky, it helps me focus on other things.
I’m cutting back on the Reading Challenges I’m going for.
Try to interview more authors (maybe others, too?), and get better at that, too. The Literary Locals series is helping with that. Hopefully that also means more of the HC Chats, too.
I want to continue the Literary Locals.
I plan on pressing forward with Grandpappy’s Corner, and hopefully do posts for it more frequently. One of my challenges (below) will help.

2026 Book Challenges

Goodreads Challenge

Last year, I lowered this goal, and am sticking with it. This is mostly an attempt to shift my attention away from the numbers–I honestly don’t care about them, I talk about them just as an indicator of how I spend my time (for myself), although it often comes across as something else. I’m also planning on tackling some more thought-provoking and slower reads this year, so this might help me not care about that. We’ll see how that works.

My TBR Range Challenge

I’ve been joking about Mt. TBR for a couple of years now, and then I saw some meme recently talking about some having TBR Piles and others having a mountain range. Of course, I liked that image. Around that time, I started thinking about how my pile has grown a lot over the last couple of years specifically. And I decided to look at the list by year (well, I took a few by aggregate because the numbers were so small). I found the results disturbing–but a little heartwarming for 2021-23, to give myself a little credit. I’m going to attack things here.

(thankfully, it’s hard to tell that there are slivers of yellow for Audiobooks, but it’s there)

Reading with Wrigs
The Tradition continues. I finished this one with room to spare last year–far better than the year before when I missed it for the first time. Gotta make it a streak.

The 2026 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge

I really appreciate the way this one is put together, and it’s pretty easy—just 1 book a month and my TBR should go down by at least 12, more if I can squeeze in some of the stretch goals. This has been pretty helpful the last few years, and I expect the same this year.

25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years
When I saw Slate’s 25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years list last Fall, I decided it needed to be a personal challenge for this year. And, hey, I read one of them a couple of years ago. This has gotta be in the bag.

2026 Speccy Fiction Challenge
I was going to call it enough with the above (and probably the below), but then shelleyrae @ Book’d Out invited me to participate in the 2026 Speccy Fiction Challenge, and I can’t resist. Also… it looks fun.

20 Books of Summer
Assuming that this is done again–hopefully last year’s hosts are up for it–I’ll be there. It’s a fun tradition.

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!

The image for the Picture book list is taken from the article. The Book stack image by yeliao521 from Pixabay

WWW Wednesday—January 14, 2026

By HCNewton

On January 14, 2026

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

No intro today, let’s just get to business:

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?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?


Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky	Battle Ground by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters

I’ve barely scratched the surface of Tchaikovsky’s book, but am eager to get going deeper.

Well, I remember why Butcher is officially dead to me. Which is not to suggest that I’m not casting aside eerything else that I’m doing when the Twelve Months comes out next week. But I’m not sure I’ll forgive him for one of the events of this book.

What did you recently finish reading?


The Hunted by Steven Max Russo	Peace Talks by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters

You can always count on Russo for a rousing Thriller–great story.

Just couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom with Peace Talks (and just wished Dresden took two opportunities to just talk to people and spare himself a lot of grief).

What do you think you’ll read next?


Lit by Tim Sandlin	Everyone in the Group Chat Dies by L.M. Chilton, read by Kimberly Capero

champing at the bit to get at it since I first read about it last Fall.

I liked Chilton’s Swiped, and wonder what she does with this Thriller about a “TikTok true crime investigator, a ’90s serial killer that may not be as dead as everyone would like, a text thread from hell, and long buried secrets that just won’t stay in the grave where they belong.”

What’s on your nightstands/side tables/eReader/etc.?

MUSIC MONDAY: “End of You” by Poppy, Amy Lee, Courtney LaPlante

By HCNewton

On January 12, 2026

In News/Misc.

The Irresponsible Reader's Music Monday logo

Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.

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Fantasy with Friends: What Are Your Favorite Depictions of Fae?

By HCNewton

On January 12, 2026

In Books, Fantasy with Friends, News/Misc.

Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.

This week’s prompt is:

Fae have been popular in fantasy the past couple years. Do you have a favorite portrayal of Fae? What aspects do you think are important to Fae characterization? Do you prefer traditional representations or unique takes?

As with many things, my favorite is the one I’m reading or most recently read. I’ve read so many Dresden Files recently that that’s my answer for now. The Fae Courts that Harry has to navigate (and now represents one of) are a great setup, ripe with drama; to learn (as we do in drips and drabs) what the Courts are up to—and aren’t telling people about—and the details about their inner-workings are just delicious.

But I have a large soft-spot for Toby McGuire’s world, too. And the…oh, wait, the prompt says favorite, not favorites.

What aspects of the Fae are important in a depiction? The impossible beauty, the power (obviously), the inability to lie (and the ever-so-fun ways they devise to deceive with the truth, or carefully selected portions of it), and the danger of iron.

It’s tough to say if I prefer “traditional representations” or something unique. Because I honestly don’t know anymore what’s a “traditional” representation anymore. Everything I can think of falls into unique.* But I’d probably say something unique anyway. That’s the fun thing, isn’t it? Butcher’s take on Wizards, Fae, Vampires, Werewolves, etc. are different than Faith Hunter’s, Drew Hayes’ or Patricia Briggs’. Or, let’s focus on fae: Seanan McGuire’s, Patrick Rothfuss’, and Heather Fawcett’s couldn’t be more different—throw in George MacDonald and you might as well be talking completely different species. It’s great to see the commonalities that all of these share, and the distinctives, too. The idiosyncrasies of each depiction are where the magic lays. You take the “traditional” approach, shave off those aspects you aren’t interested in (or don’t help the story you’re trying to tell), add whatever bits of contemporary feel you want…and bang. You’ve got yourself a wonderful world for story telling.

* This means, as soon as I hit “Schedule” on this post—or, at best, within 24 hours of this posting, I’ll think of at least a half-dozen things I should’ve said here about traditional representations.

Saturday Miscellany—1/10/26

By HCNewton

On January 10, 2026

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 The Lost Art of Reading an Actual Book: What happens when people stop reading books? We’re starting to see what a postliterate society looks like—and it’s very lame.—worth the read just for the metaphor about eating your kids’ Halloween candy.
bullet 9 Classic Crime Stories That Have Just Entered the Public Domain in 2026—CrimeReads talks about some BIG titles that are now Public Domain.
bullet Mort Walker, Beetle Bailey, and the decline and fall of newspaper comics
bullet 100 Years of ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’: Adrian McKinty celebrates the centenary of Agatha Christie’s groundbreaking detective novel.
bullet Is Fantasy Still Not Taken “Seriously” in Some Circles?—this week’s Fantasy with Friends had a lot of good input, (as I predicted). Go read the participants.
bullet Let’s talk about “grimdark”—some good musings on Grimdark (which is being applied to broadly lately)
bullet Letting Stories Linger—yes.
bullet From Service to Storytelling: Local Vet Publishes Fantasy Novels—a nice little story about a local writer that I hope to make the acquaintance of soon. (at least in print)
bullet 26 Short Classics to Meet Your Goal of Reading More Classics in 2026—This could be a handy list
bullet It’s all Your Fault: Book Reviewers who Influence My Reading—The gloves come off, and Jodie calls out book reviewers who deliberately destroy TBR pile progress. Vile folks that you should check out.
bullet Speaking of destroying TBR progress, these Best of ’25 lists should set yours back a bit:
bullet Sifa Elisabeth’s Best Books of 2025
bullet Ganesh’s (Pippin Took) top reads of 2025 (his reasoning behind The Kaiju Preservation Society is very sound)
bullet Jo Linsdell’sBest Reads of 2025
bullet Celeste’s Favorite Books Published in 2025 and Favorite Backlist Books of 2025 show some great taste and burden me with some new titles
bullet My Top 5: Books Read In 2025—For Books Sake pulls of the Herculean task of limiting it to 5!
bullet TCL’s Best of the Best List for 2013-2025!—this is something I could never do…and props to Davida for pulling it off. And the madness is spreading, as Carol takes a stab at it: Best of the Best: 2015 to 2025

My favorite sentence/passage/phrase (or two) that I read this week :
bullet “The Governor was obviously the kind of person who received as much spiritual contentment from berating others as a cold man does from a bowl of soup.”—She Who Became the Sun by SHelley Parker-Chan (so, so much is said in that one sentence)

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago This Week?
Somehow, these posts didn’t make the transfer to the new domain, so they look a little strange.
bullet The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison
bullet The Absconded Ambassador by Michael R. Underwood
bullet And I mentioned the releases of: The Last Dream Keeper by Amber Benson and Steal the Sky by Megan E. O’Keefe

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire—Nancy returns to Eleanor West’s school on a mission–the world behind her Door is in peril, and her friends may be their last hope. Like just about every book in this series, this one blew me away, as I noted recently.
bullet Fairest Hunter by M.K. Felix—a retelling of Snow White and Robin Hood. Should be a fun mashup.
bullet The Charmed Library by Jennifer Moorman—”A cozy, Hallmark-esque rom-com, The Charmed Library invites readers to escape to a world where words come alive and book boyfriends leap off the page.” Go read what the Witty & Sarcastic Book Club had to say about it.
bullet Ms. Marvel: Remnants of the Past by Saadia Faruqi—Kamala Khan is off to Pakistan on a hunt for a magical artifact. ‘Nuff said.

WWW Wednesday—January 7, 2026

By HCNewton

On January 7, 2026

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

Welcome to another year of WWW Wednesdays, where I can assemble a mid-week post in 20 minutes or less and at least have fresh content if I’m not capable of finishing anything else.

Functionally, that’s true–but I actually do enjoy these and the comments, too. We’re starting off on a high-point this week:

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?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?


Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Ace Atkins	Skin Game by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters

80s Cold War Spy Thriller with a twisted sense of humor. Sort of FX’s The Americans as if told by Elmore Leonard. It’s just delicously good.

If Skin Game isn’t my favorite Dresden File, it’s close. I’m having a blast with this.

What did you recently finish reading?


All the Best Dogs Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Manuel Preitano	Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, read by Robertson Dean

Okay, see how cute the cover for All the Best Dogs is? That’s how adorable and sweet the content is. Was a fantastic palate-cleanser.

The first line of the description of Dear Committee Members encapsulates it the Dog cover did, “Finally a novel that puts the ‘pissed’ back into ‘epistolary.'” Academic satire, told from the arrogant, garrulous, pedantic point of view of an older English Professor. I don’t know that I have it in me to plunge into the sequel right away, but it was pretty delicious.

What do you think you’ll read next?


She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan	Peace Talks by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters

Like I said last week, She Who Became the Sun is the selection for my Fantasy Book club, I know nothing about it, but it looks promising. Celeste saying that it’s “quite good” is a real help.

Strange work schedules and sick leave messed up my schedule for the Dresden-relisten. So I’ve got to marathon these so I can be finished by the 20th. Yeah, it’s overkill, but I think I’ll survive.

How’s 2026’s reading starting out for you?

MUSIC MONDAY: “Folsom Prison Blues” by Sawyer Hill

By HCNewton

On January 5, 2026

In News/Misc.

The Irresponsible Reader's Music Monday logo

Music Monday's originated at The Tattooed Book Geek's fantastic blog and has shown up hither, thither, and yon since then.

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