Tag: Miscellany Page 122 of 179

WWW Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Hey, it’s the middle of the week. Time for WWW Wednesday!

WWW Wednesday

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 Ink and Sigil by Kevin Hearne and am listening to Far from the Tree by Rob Parker, Warren Brown (Narrator).

Ink and SigilBlank SpaceFar from the Tree

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Neil Lancaster’s Going Back and A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones, Lorelei King (Narrator) on audio.

Going BackBlank SpaceA Bad Day for Sunshine

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be The Library Murders by M. R. Mackenzie and Persons of Interest by Peter Grainger, Gildart Jackson (Narrator) on audiobook.

The Library MurdersBlank SpacePersons of Interest

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

Saturday Miscellany—8/8/20

I got the most detailed and unexpected critique of my blog theme/graphics this week from someone–sandwiched in a very complimentary email. I think there’s a lot of merit to what this new reader had to say (although I didn’t understand most of what he said about the main site graphic). At the same time, it made me sort of defensive toward whoever designed the theme for WordPress and my friend who made the graphic (one comment he made has a lot of merit, and I’ll probably never be able to unsee, despite not catching it for years).

Beyond that, and only having limited time to read this week (am about 2.5 days behind my ideal schedule, 1.5 behind the realistic one), it’s been a good and largely productive week around here (self-discipline pays off). How’s August treating all of you?

Only one New Release for the first week of a month? Clearly, I missed a few–help me out, friends.

That’s a lot of blather, I’d better move on with things.

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 16 Ways to Celebrate National Book Lovers Day—Tomorrow is National Book Lovers Day here in the U. S., and NetGalley’s Bookish blog has compiled a list of ways to note it. I’ll be taking a pass on it this year for religious reasons, but honestly, who needs a label on the calendar to do any of these, I tend to tick off a lot of this list on a day that ends in “y”.
bullet Mental Illness Can Make It Hard to Read. Here’s Why — and What You Can Do
bullet What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language
bullet From Victorian demons to the Beijing night bus: why we tell each other urban legends
bullet The Evolution of Dennis Lehane—I’m not as taken with Lehane’s later work as many/most, but that’s largely taste and temperament (mine). But he’s forever near the top of my list for the Kenzie and Gennaro books, and when I do get around to reading something he’s written, it never fails to impress.
bullet The Last Lines From 19 of the Most Beautiful Books Ever Written—(Lashaan should probably avoid this piece, Gatsby and Old Man and the Sea warning)
bullet A Guide to Stanning Book Blogs // What Are Book Blogs, How & Why You Should Support Book Bloggers, & More
bullet You Are a Book Blogger and You Are a Reader.—the working title, “It Doesn’t Matter How Much You Blog, You Are a Blogger and It Doesn’t Matter How Much You Read, You Are a Reader” summarizes it best
bullet Should You Read the [SF/F] Classics?
bullet Wonderful and Whimsical Fantasy Worlds to Get Lost in This Summer—Yet another great list from The Orangutan Librarian.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
bullet The Worldshapers Episode 58: Faith Hunter—a great conversation Hunter shared on Facebook, after I listened to this, I’ve downloaded several other episodes (and listened to most of those), this is a pretty good podcast in a similar vein to The Once and Future Podcast and Author Stories, I also really appreciated Episode 47: Carrie Vaughn.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Heirs of Locksley by Carrie Vaughn—this novella checks in on Robin and Marian’s kids four years after the last one. Just fun books, as I wrote (especially compared to most modern Robin Hood stories).

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to ilaria.muzzi, bookshelflife, and angelicreader who followed the blog this week. Hope to see you around.

The Friday 56 for 8/7/20

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from page 56 of:
The Revelators

by Ace Atkins

(a rare lighter moment in this book)

“How you feeling, brother?” Donnie said.

“Might ask you the same.”

“Nobody’s been shooting at me,” Donnie said. “Not in a long while.”

“Those Cartel boys got you pretty good,” Quinn said. “You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”

“Takes a lot more to kill ole Donnie Vamer,” he said, grinning. “You see that woman I was just talking to? That’s damn Rita Wright, Pat Wright’s little sister. She wasn’t nothing but a kid when I left. But damn, she ain’t a kid no more. That little yellow dress about busting at the seams.”

“You’re too old for Rita Wright,” Quinn said.“You forget we’re the exact same age.”

“Nope,” Donnie said. “I’m six months older. And six months smarter. I rode a bike, drove a car, and got nekkid with a woman long before you and Boom. Y’all can deny it all you want. But those are some braggin’ rights, son.”

WWW Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Technical difficulties (and lethargy) kept me from this post last week, but I’m back, online, and caffeinated, so let’s break out the WWW Wednesday!

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 Revelators by Ace Atkins and am listening to Deadly Assessments by Drew Hayes, Kirby Heyborne (Narrator).

The RevelatorsBlank SpaceDeadly Assessments

What did you recently finish reading?
I just finished Carrie Vaughn’s The Heirs of Locksley and The Answer Is . . .Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek, narrated by Ken Jennings and Alex Trebek on audio.

The Heirs of LocksleyBlank SpaceThe Answer Is

What do you think you’ll read next?
My next book should be the Iron Druid Chronicles spin-off, Ink and Sigil by Kevin Hearne and some sort of audiobook, I’m not sure what–we’ll see what the Library has to offer.

Ink and Sigil

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

Top 5 Tuesday – Top 5 books where something went wrong


Top 5 Tuesday has a new host, and a new slate of topics—I think I can have some fun with these next few.

This week’s topic is, “Top 5 books where something went wrong.” Now, really, what story doesn’t involve something going wrong?* At best, it’s a book about something that went wrong before it started and the protagonists are trying to set it right, or at least make things better. But pretty much every book focuses on things going wrong. It’s just a matter of how often and how wrong things go. Still, when you read the topic, you have a pretty good idea what’s meant, right?

This was a hard list to whittle down—a Top 15 would’ve been easier than Top 5, but I think I’ve got a good, eclectic, group. To make things a little more challenging for myself, I didn’t choose any book I’ve read this year (that also will prevent recency bias). Shall we see what I came up with?

* I’m tempted to make a theological point here, but I’ll restrain myself.

5 The Freedom Broker
The Freedom Broker by K. J. Howe

I’m not sure why, this one was the second title that jumped to mind when I started thinking about the topic. I remembered few of the details without my post to jog my memory. But it works pretty well, Thea Paris is in private security, with a specialty in K&R (Kidnapping and Ransom)—both the negotiation side, and (when that fails) the rescue teams. She’s one of the best around.

Until her super-rich father is kidnapped, and everything starts going wrong. I described Howe’s writing as: an “everything including the kitchen sink” approach to story telling—the number of things that go wrong during Thea’s search for her father, and the number of opponents and obstacles in her way is seemingly endless. I love it, every time you think she’s on a roll and things are going to start going her way, a problem that the reader should’ve seen coming (but almost never does) shows up to derail things again.

4 All Our Wrong Todays
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

Since I read this book, it may be the one I’ve most frequently recommended to people who ask for a recommendation. 2016 is the future that 1950’s Sci-Fi promised, peace, prosperity, flying cars, all that. Until the day the first time machine was turned on and something went wrong. History was re-written and what resulted is the (relative) dystopia that was 2016 (who knows what Mastai would’ve had his protagonist think of 2020). The only person that knew this was the first time traveler.

What happens next is a series of attempts—and failures, so, so many failures—to restore the timeline. It’s such a great read. I should probably schedule a re-read, come to think of it.

(My original post about the book)

3 Mechanical Failure
Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja

It’s right there in the title, right? Any of the Epic Failure trilogy would’ve fit, but the first seems to feature more failures—from the Droid who can’t swear to the retired engineer who tried to be a pirate—and his failure ended up getting him re-enlisted and promoted, and promoted and promoted again after repeated failures. People are assigned to the wrong stations on board the (appropriately named) Flagship, every device malfunctions, battle droids don’t function appropriately, and so on.

(My original post about the book)

2 The Cartel
The Cartel by Don Winslow

What doesn’t go wrong in this book? You’ve got a prisonbreak, freeing the head of the biggest Cartel in Mexico—if only so he can wage war to stay the largest. You’ve got corruption at every level of the War on Drugs (on both sides of the border). You have new gangs rising to prominence, mostly due to bloodshed. You have more and more money coming into the cartels and more competition for that money. You have journalists, politicians, doctors, cops trying to do the right thing and being hunted, shot, and/or killed for it. I can’t think of anything that goes right in this book—at least not for very long.

1 The Martian
The Martian by Andy Weir

Mark Watney finds ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time after time. The strength of this book is that it’s about problem-solving your way out of those defeats, but from the first page (moments before the first page, technically) until the very end—things go wrong for Watney, giving him plenty of opportunities to exercise his problem-solving ability.

This is the first book I thought of when I saw the prompt, and it’s probably the best example on my shelves of it.

(My original post about the book)

Saturday Miscellany—8/1/20

I had a potential of 14 things I was going to post this week–it was ambitious, and I didn’t think I’d actually get all of it accomplished, but it was something I actually thought I might accomplish. I got 6 things posted. One was a repost, four of them I wrote last Saturday. So, yeah, I composed 2 posts this week. Every day this week after work, I sat down to do something and then I ended up closing the laptop with only a paragraph or two written (or re-written, if I’d tried to finish my abandoned post from the day before). I slept a little more than usual, but mostly I just stared at my screen not accomplishing anything (including finding things for this post). In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal–but man, it was really demoralizing.

But, tomorrow is another day. fiddle-dee-dee, and all that. (Also, it’ll shave a couple of minutes off of compiling my July report later today)

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 Trouble with Reading Multiple Books at Once—I can juggle a few at once, but rarely want to anymore. Anyone out there enjoy doing this?
bullet Making the most of your reading time—Nothing new here, but good advice.
bullet ‘Kingkiller Chronicle’ Editor Believes Author Hasn’t Written Anything for Years—I haven’t seen if Rothfuss has responded to this (and looked a little bit), and am fairly surprised at how little attention it received on Twitter, etc.
bullet THE LAST OF US PART II, COWBOY BEBOP, and Letting Go of the Past—I’ve never played the game or watched the series, but what it says about the end of a series is something that we can all appreciate.
bullet The Name’s Wolfe, Nero Wolfe: Rex Stout’s Influence on Ian Fleming—you know me, I’ll drop a link to a Stout/Nero Wolfe piece any day. It’s easier when they’re as fun as this.
bullet Guest Post: Which Generation Reads the Most Infographic by Best By the Numbers.—I’m also always a sucker for an infographic, this guest post at The Tattooed Book Geek is a good one.
bullet Discussion – What Book Bloggers Love To Talk About—yeah, pretty much.

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter—Nell and PsyLED face off against a magical virus. I really dug this one.
bullet Chaos Vector by Megan E. O’Keefe—one of the things I didn’t write about this week was the first book in this series (I didn’t realize it was going to be a series when I started it, nor that the second one was coming so soon). Space battles, an AI with an agenda, and some scrappy heroes. Can’t wait to find out what happens next.
bullet Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection by Ben Aaronovitch—I had completely forgotten that this collection was coming out until it appeared on my Kindle yesterday, what a pleasant surprise!

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Tannie LowA.C. Stark, and Mike Finn who followed the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you (assuming it’s working, which it may not be)?

20 Books of Summer 2020: July Check-In

20 Books of Summer
So, I did a lousy job of taking into account new releases, review copies, and life when I made the original list. I only read 4 of the remaining 13 books in July, which doesn’t bode well for August. I think I can still pull this off, but I’m going to have to make a couple of more substitutions, based on how long it took me to read Winslow’s The Cartel and Hearne’s A Plague of Giants, I’m not going to be able to tackle their follow-ups in August (which annoys me greatly, I was counting on this challenge to help force my hand with these). So I’m substituting Hearne’s next book, the launch of a new series, Ink & Sigil (there’s a balance to that) and The Revelators by Ace Atkins (not as epic in scope as Winslow, but … it’s the best I can realistically do).


✔ 1. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why by Alexandra Petri
2. The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold
3. Screamcatcher: Dream Chasers by Christy J. Breedlove
✔ 4. The Finders by Jeffrey B. Burton
✔ 5. Fair Warning by Michael Connelly
✔ 6. One Man by Harry Connolly
✔ 7. The Curator by M. W. Craven
8. The Ninja Daughter by Tori Eldridge
9. The Rome of Fall by Chad Alan Gibbs
✔ 10. American Demon by Kim Harrison
11. Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne
12. Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
✔ 13. Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire
14. Curse the Day by Judith O’Reilly
✔ 15. Of Mutts and Men by Spencer Quinn
16. Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin
✔ 17. Muzzled by David Rosenfelt
18. Bad Turn by Zoë Sharp
✔ 19. The Silence by Luca Veste
20. The Revelators by Ace Atkins

20 Books of Summer Chart July

The Friday 56 for 7/31/20

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from page 56 of:
Coffee and Condolences

by Wesley Parker

“Think fast,” a voice calls from behind me and, before I can fully turn my head, a red, rubber ball bounces off my head and sends me sprawling into a rack of shirts. In an attempt to break my fall, I grab for a shelf only to find out it’s not fastened into the wall tight enough, and I bring down the entire supply of skinny jeans on top of me. I can hear the gasps and footsteps of people coming to dig me out of the pile of hipster rubble. As I get to my feet, I hear Lily scolding a worker for not securing the shelves to the wall—as if they were the catalyst for what just happened.

“Lily, what the fuck?”

“My bad! I thought having kids gave you better instincts.”

“Yeah, for falls and spills. It didn’t give me spider sense.”

Saturday Miscellany—7/25/20

How’re we already on the brink of the last week of July? Who’s ready for that?

I really don’t have anything to say here, I guess, on with the links.

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 New Era of Book Launches—Social Distancing Edition
bullet Growing Up Surrounded by Books Could Have Powerful, Lasting Effect on the Mind: A new study suggests that exposure to large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency in three key areas
bullet What 100 Writers Have Been Reading During Quarantine—interesting mix of writers and books
bullet There Have Always been Fantasy Novels For Adults – Article by Author Ryan Howse—I saw so many tweet reactions to this stupid article, “Finally: A Grown-up Fantasy”, and figured there’d be at least one good longer response. Howse knocks it out of the park (others may have, too, but I only saw this one—and it’s enough)
bullet 5 Things I’ve Learned in 5 Years of Blogging—Bookidote’s Lashaan has been blogging for 5 years now, and drops some wisdom (and Looney Tunes .gifs) to celebrate.
bullet Glossary for the Bibliophile—”a nifty list of words for all you book lovers out there”

This Week's New Releases That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet Annihilation Aria by Michael R. Underwood—It’s been two years since I’ve had anything from Underwood to talk about. He’s back with the first book in a Space Opera series, “an adventure of galactic subterfuge, ancient alien lore, a secret resistance force, lost civilizations, and giant space turtles.” Here’s his Big Idea about it.
bullet The Sin in the Steel by Ryan Van Loan—This looks like a lot of fun, a fantasy about “dead gods, a pirate queen, shapeshifting mages, and a Sherlockian teenager determined to upend her society.”

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

The Friday 56 for 7/24/20

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from 56% of:
Legends Rise

Venators: Legends Rise by Devri Walls

…the vampire grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him forward, roughly sinking his teeth into his neck and pulling blood in long, painful jerks. He’d heard vampires could make this process enjoyable. This one didn’t bother.

The instructions had been to leave him on the verge of death, with just enough blood to keep his heart pumping. He hadn’t stopped to think of one thing: What would stop the vampire from finishing him off?

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