Tag: Miscellany Page 113 of 179

that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
March 25 was not a good day for the literary world, with the deaths of Beverly Cleary and Larry McMurtry. HarperCollins posted this about Cleary and the Washington Post had the first non-paywall McMurtry obituary that I found. I went through a McMurtry phase in college (while avoiding the much-hyped Lonesome Dove, which was probably stupid of me). And Cleary? Come on…who among us didn’t live vicariously through Ralph S. Mouse and his antics? She’s probably the author who taught me you could feel things other than thrills or laughs through books, actually.
12 Ways to Get Out of a Reading Slump: What to do when you just can’t seem to work up the motivation to read.
How to Know When it’s Time to Quit a Book
In Defense of Kvothe: A Candid Look at a Divisive Character—it’s odd that such a beloved character needs a defense, but, I think even the most ardent fans would admit that he’s a problematic character (like all of us). Here’s a good apologetic for the Kingkiller.
ruminations on my first year of blogging—pretty sure it took me several years to learn what this blogger picked up in one.
Making a Monster—Spells and Spaceships kicked off their Fantasy Monster Week with this post. This series of posts could do some real damage to your book buying budget, I should warn you.

That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Genrenauts: The Wasteland War by Michael R. Underwood—The Genrenauts are back and as grim as things looked at the end of the last novella, they’re worse now. I read this yesterday, it was so good to be back in this world. If you haven’t come across the Genrenauts yet, here’s my post about the Season One collection.
The Bounty by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton—Fox and O’Hare “race against time to uncover a buried train filled with Nazi gold” with the help of Fox’s father. This is probably my make-it-or-break-it book with this series. The fact that Steve Hamilton is on board gives me some hope.

Last weekend, I considered putting up a post saying that I was going to take the week off—we worked long shifts all week and had some family stuff going on, and I just knew it was going to be hard getting anything done. But I decided I’d power through and get some stuff accomplished. And ended up basically taking the week off—although the only thing I made a conscious decision not to do was last the Fridays with the Foundling post. All I have to show for my efforts this week are several mostly completed and utterly lifeless posts that I’ll have to do a major re-write on next week.

I did get some reading in, though—including my favorite book of the year so far. So, there’s that. Hope you enjoy this week’s collection:

that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
Why You Should Support Your Local Bookstore—In case you need the reminder
A Kansas Bookshop’s Fight with Amazon Is About More Than the Price of Books—worth the minor hassle of dealing with The New Yorker’s not-a-paywall hoops
I didn’t set out to go on an anti-Amazon rant, but, here we are: Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.—this one troubles me greatly.
Pre-ordering: show authors some love!—Yeah, this is focused on this particular press, but it applies to all the others. And you don’t even have to shop at That River Website to do it! I’m frequently (still, somehow) surprised how much this helps an author when I see them talk about this.
5 Reasons to Listen to Classics on Audio—There are some really good points here…I should do this. The accompanying playlist Classic Books to Try on Audio looks like a decent place to start. I think the narrator is key, for example—Ian McKellen reading The Odyssey or George Guidall reading Les Misérables? Sign me up.
Why So Many Novelists Write About Writers—This isn’t a definitive answer to the question I’ve asked a million times (I’m sure most readers have), but it’s a good one.
Why Are We Obsessed With Psychopaths?—some good stuff here, too.
When Is A Book Blogger Not A Book Blogger?—I’m not sure this rant was necessary (I don’t think the blogger is, either), but…yeah, I tend to agree.
The Importance of Knowing Your Own Taste: Ways to Avoid the HYPE and HATE Train—you’d like to think this is unneccesarry and self-evident. However, we’ve all been victim to this folly and need good reminders like this from The Orangutan Librarian.
That post was followed a couple of days later by some great examples of taking her own advice: Books I Read Thanks to Negative Reviews and Ended Up Loving (as an aside, I love the cover for My Lady Jane used there—does a better job of capturing the book than the one I saw when I read it)
To What Extent Should We Compare Books?—good discussion from Stephen Writes
How I Have Maintained A 300+ Day Post Streak!—Nope. Not jealous at all. Especially this week. Going to take some of this advice.
Typically, I’m not a fan of “you’re not a real fan/geek/X, if you don’t…” things, but you’d have a hard time convincing me that @BooksNest is wrong here.

That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Drop the Mikes by Duncan MacMaster—The Kirby Baxter series is about the most reliably entertaining series I’ve read in the last few years, and I can’t imagine this is going to be the exception. Kirby ends up vacationing next to a Fyre Festival-type thing and stumbles on to a murder (of course).
Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs—Anna and Charles investigate the disappearnce of a small community. I’m around 60% through with this, it’s Briggs’s best in years (so far, anyway)
What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch—Peter’s cousin Abigail gets the spotlight in this fun novella. I talked about it a bit here recently.
Firefly: Life Signs by James Lovegrove—hey, look, another in this Firefly series for me to have on my TBR Shelf and not get around to reading for months (I did read the first one…). Thankfully, the hardcovers look nice sitting there.

Another short one, guess that’s where my attention span is lately. I didn’t get a lot posted this week, either—but I got some good sleep in (not always intentionally), and honestly, I didn’t like a single one of those posts. They felt lifeless to me, but that’s what I was capable of, and I didn’t think that a few more days of percolating was going to improve things, either. Hopefully next week will be better.

In the meantime—all of these below are worth your clicks.

that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
I tried to write a Norton Juster tribute after I heard about his death on this week, but it just didn’t work out. But it’s one of those deaths that hit me. The Phantom Tollbooth was formative for me in many ways, and I could (and have) pick it up and be completely satisified at point in my life. It’s like one of those movies you see flipping through the channels and you have to stop and watch.
Obituary: Norton Juster—from Publisher’s Weekly
Berkeley Breathed’s Tribute—I should’ve realized the links between Tollbooth and Bloom County
My favourite book as a kid: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster—was written last Spring, but it works really well this week.
The Phantom Tollbooth: Beyond Expectations—a nice little documentary about the book, Juster and Jules Feiffer. (I contributed to the Kickstarter years back)
What Are Cozy Mysteries?—Ramona Mead’s overview of the sub-genre
Must be something in the water, because this popped up on a feed this week, too: Murder, but gentler: ‘Cozy’ mysteries a pandemic-era balm—worth it just for the first few paragraphs.
50 Very Bad Book Covers for Literary Classics—Wow. “Very bad” hardly begins to describe it. I was going to name a highlight (lowlight?) or two, but I wouldn’t have known where to stop. (thanks—kind of?—Themis Athena for drawing my attention to it)
“We Didn’t Start the Thriller”—Robert Crais has posted a link to this silly and fun parody a couple of times this week, I can see why.
Goodreads vs. The StoryGraph – The New Dilemma of Reading Trackers and the Book Community—I’m with Bec & Books on this. I’ve been dabbling with The Story Graph for a few months, but it feels like I’m shouting (mumbling?) into the wind. Is there anyone actually out there?

I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to josbees who followed the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger!

I’ve had slow weeks for this post before, but this seems like one of the slowest. Looking over the links I gathered for the week, I can’t help but wonder what I read online this week—was I even online? I almost skipped this week, but I do have a couple of things to share, and it’s been years since I missed a week, and I’d hate to break the only consistent streak in my life…

that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
The 15 Best Book Covers of February: So Many Covers, So Little Time—There’s only one on this list I’m halfway interested in reading, but I doubt I’d want to buy it. But had I the money, I’d buy at least 14 of these for the cover.
Matthew Yglesias (a name I see here and there on twitter, but know almost nothing about) set a small fire this week about books entering public domain—with a pretty dumb take, in my opinion, but I don’t know that much about it. Several people took issue with him (most of whom know a lot more about this than I do), including:
Christopher Moore
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Scott Lynch
‘Bosch’ Spinoff a Go at Amazon’s IMDb TV—this is good news in general. But also it plays into the above—The Black Echo is just shy of 30. Thinking that Connelly should lose control of that work next year is mind-boggling.
I want to talk to you about Seraphina’s Lament—Sarah Chorn talks about what derailed her first series. Authors have to deal with this kind of thing regularly—I imagine female authors in Speculative Fiction get it worse—how anyone can write with this kind of thing in their head boggles my mind. Some of what this person objected to is what made Seraphina’s Lament one of my favorite novels of the year, by the way. (her follow up post on Gaslighting is also worth a read)

That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
A War of Wizards by Layton Green—The Blackwood Saga concludes here in Book 5. I’d say I’d dive in next week, but, I still haven’t read book four. Maybe I can squeeze that in next week..hmm….

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