Tag: Miscellany Page 131 of 181

Not much to say, I’m 604 miles away from home this weekend and haven’t been able to write more than three sentences so far, which is about two posts under my goal (have read more than a few, however). Thankfully, this post doesn’t require a lot of writing. It’s probably the elevation, because that’s a thing, right? (or maybe it’s just spending time with my wife and daughter…)

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 way we read now: The thrill is gone for lovers of fiction. Joseph Bottum on the strange death of the novel—Thought-provoking read.
• Did Amazon Throttle My Sales After I Criticized Them in the New York Times?: Danny Caine on the Transparency and Responsibility of the World’s Largest Bookstore—Things That Make You Go Hmmm…
• He Courted Me Through My Favorite Novel
• Toward a Philosophy on Book Collecting—A philosophy that’s more complicated than “As Many My Wife Will Let Into the House?” huh.
• Sleuthing With Spenser for Hire—some nice memories about Robert B. Parker
• Read like a champion: ‘Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time’ winner Ken Jennings shares his literary picks—think I’m going to pass on his recommendations, but it’s an interesting list
• Don Winslow Discusses His Latest Book, The Border
• Nick Hornby: Why a ‘High Fidelity’ Reboot Made Perfect Sense—Haven’t had a chance to watch any of this yet, but this makes me more inclined
• ‘Bosch’ Renewed for Seventh and Final Season by Amazon Studios—all good things… (Rats!)
• Speaking of which: The Difficult Art of Ending a Crime Fiction Series: Two authors—working from opposite ends of Florida—bring epic noir series to a close, and live to tell the tale.—Not authors I’ve read (yet), still interesting to see them talk about this.
• Things I Love: Book Recaps!—if only more authors gave them
• How Reading Has Improved My Mental Health—I’ve been there or can see the appeal
• Along those lines, Witty & Sarcastic Book Club has been posting about Mental Health in Literature this week, starting with: Mental Health in Literature: a Conversation
• Recommending Books I Didn’t Like
• Here be Dragons!—Spells and Spaceships has a great post about Dragons with a TBR-filling post of Dragon Recommendations!

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen to:
• The Once & Future Podcast, Ep. 204: Jeanine Cummins—Anton Strout talks to his old friend about American Dirt in an interview recorded before the controversy about the book (and promotion of it) got as big as it has. I had a suspicion that many of her critics didn’t know that much about Cummins/her work before I listened to this. Now I’m convinced.

I’m sure I missed some, but there weren’t any New Releases that caught my eye this week.

A lighter load after last week’s mega-list. This ended up being one of those weeks that I had no energy at all after work, and I ended up writing/surfing less than I’d expected to. There’s probably a link there. I’m not sure why so many things about kids and reading popped up on my feeds this week, but I always enjoy reading/sharing these articles.

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:

• Naming a Kid for a Fictional Character Is High Stakes: The Jolenes and Daeneryses of the world have some baggage to contend with.—I didn’t do this (Mrs. Irresponsible Reader wisely vetoed the idea), but I see the danger (and would’ve gone for something less trendy anyway). Glad I didn’t, the prospective Archie Goodwin Newton would turn out to be a very non-Archie kind of guy.
• How to raise a reader—In my not-so humble opinion, the last point is the key (and I know I could’ve done better with it myself)
• Why you shouldn’t censor your teen’s reading (even the sex and violence)—I’m not absolutely sold on the argument, but on the whole, it’s a good point.
• Book clinic: stories to captivate reluctant boys
• Interview with Joseph Finder—CrimeSpree Mag interviewed Finder about his new book, and more. Incidentally, I’m about 60% done with the book and it’s a solid thriller, am enjoying the heck out of it.
• The Great Los Angeles Crime Novel—And the Women Who Are Revitalizing It
• I Listened to an Audiobook and Here’s What Happened—I really enjoyed this post from Books, Bones & Buffy.
• A Day in the Life of a Book Blogger || Let’s Slay Some Misconceptions—The only point I’d demur from is her time estimates. “Neverending” for Bloghopping seems like a pretty significant underestimation.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Blight of Blackwings by Kevin Hearne—the second of the Seven Kennings trilogy. Sadly, it’s going to be a month or so before I can get to it (barring some calamity that makes me bedridden and unable to go to work for a month, I should say. If that happens, it’ll only be three weeks before I can get to it).
• Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn, Nicole Goux—a fresh take on Cassandra Cain. Looks spiffy to me.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to waytoofantasy, Betty, Matt Kaster and jellyfishentity for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

Okay, I’m back with a mega-list that comes from two weeks of saving ideas. Lots of good stuff to be read in these odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Your 2020 Literary Events Calendar: For All Your Literary Planning Needs—granted, this would’ve been more useful a month ago, but it still may be of interest.
• Lee Child letting go of his creation is a tale told by other bestsellers—more reaction to the Child announcement (and why others won’t follow suit)
• The Power of Books to Help Us Cope in Our Darkest Times—who hasn’t been there?
• In 2019, more Americans went to the library than to the movies. Yes, really.—I wonder if that has more to do with less of us going to the movies…but hey, it’s a fun stat.
• My Lifelong Love Affair with Libraries</
• 8 Comfy And Cozy Idaho Book Shops To Get Lost In On A Snowy Day—of little use to anyone who doesn’t live in/near Idaho, but it’s a fun list. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never been in the one in my own city, but I’ve visited a couple of the others.
• 5 Tips for Tackling a Long Book—should have read this before starting Tom Jones, but I think I’m doing a lot of this anyway.
• Rediscovering the Lost Power
  of Reading Aloud—longer read, but worth it.
• Raising Strong Readers: Strategies for parents and educators to encourage children to read — from infancy to high school
• Writing Tips From the Don Winslow Universe—also serves as a “Features of Winslow’s Writing that Should Make You Interested in Reading Him”
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Be Reading Seanan McGuire—My list would differ and I’m indifferent to some of these, but it’s a good read anyway.
• I enjoyed Chuck Wendig’s tweets about Prequels—as well as the replies from MattOK, Kyoko M., and Dennis R Longo Jr³³º¹.
• One Man Reviews and Discoverability—Harry Connolly looks back on the first month of One Man sales and reviews. My goal had been to read this in January, didn’t happen. February will be tough, but I’m going to try.
• How to Pick What to Read Next: 5 ways to find your next favorite book—for those who don’t have their next 20 reads picked.
• A Beginner’s Guide to Audiobooks
• Paperback Protectors: Book Sleeve Gift Guide—On the one hand, the last thing I need is another accessory to my books. But some of these look really cool. (also, I wouldn’t have torn my The Cartel cover in my desk drawer if I’d had one, I just realized)
• Finding time to read—one blogger’s approach to the problem
• Tricks to Make Time for Reading—this post from Netgalley’s new Bookish blog shares some of the above and adds a couple others.
• 5 Reasons Why Your Reading Goals Don’t Really Matter: Hey, you. Stop worrying so much about how many books you’re reading in a year.—Yes, but…
• Why I’m Not Doing A 2020 Reading Challenge—I totally get this…
• My TBR Monster Is Wounded But Still Alive—I love the strategy here.
• The thing about ‘must read’ lists—Most/all of this seems self-evident, but many of us still need to hear it anyway.
• Four Things I’d Like to See More of in SFF—Good ideas.
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Approaching Book Bloggers with Review Requests—yes.
• People Don’t Have to Read Your Book to Support It—How nice of Publishers Weekly to say this
• I’m Just Going to Leave This Here..—I can relate to so much of this.
• It’s OK to Take a Break.—Hear, hear. (still, not reading for more than a few hours gives me the willies, but I get his point)
• Wrapping up this monster list with a bit of silliness from BookRiot: The Best Bookish Versions of the Dolly Parton Challenge

Some Book-ish Related Podcast Episodes you might want to give a listen to:
• Authors on a Podcast Talking Books Ep. 11 – Marc Thompson—I don’t think I’ve heard an audiobook by him before, but I enjoyed hearing about his process and career. Also, listening to Daria’s Mr. DeMartino reading an Amazon review was wonderful, could just that be a half-hour bi-weekly podcast?
• The Author Stories Podcast Episode 793 | Mike Chen Interview—a great chat with Chen, I particularly enjoyed his Hornby discussion.
• Authors on a Podcast Talking Books Ep. 12 – Mike Chen—much of the same territory as the previous link, but they’re both worth listening to. A lot of bonus Star Wars discussion.

New Releases from the Last Two Weeks that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Slow Bear by Anthony Neil Smith—Noir on an North Dakota reservation, looks brutal, intense and good.
• When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald—A nice little coming-of-age story. I talked about it some in December.
• High Fire by Eoin Colfer—I typically enjoy Colfer’s stuff and I only needed to read “high-octane adventure about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who’s been hiding out from the world – and potential torch-carrying mobs – in a Louisiana bayou” to grab it. I’ve yet to read a review, but they seem positive.
• House on Fire by Joseph Finder—The New Nick Heller novel has him taking on one corner of the opiate crisis. Gonna be good.
• Hi Five by Joe Ide—Isaiah Quintabe is back, which is all i need to know. If you want more, Lashaan at Bookidote has a few things to say.
• Buzz Kill by David Sosnowski—a couple of teenage hackers unleash an AI on the world.
• The Bard’s Blade by Brian D. Anderson—a promising looking epic fantasy that I’m trying hard to find time for soon.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to travelingcloak, clareblanchardbooks (no URL, can’t follow-back), Store Of Unicorns, jamesdeeclayton and fluffyluggage for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?

I’ve been knocked out by a nasty cold this week (which seems to be returning) and couldn’t focus enough to read anything for a horrible three days. I don’t think anything I posted suffered from lack of focus (but I had to do a lot of re-writing to make them coherent). Thankfully, I recuperated enough that I could focus on the best thing that Steph Broadribb has written (see this space on Monday…I think).

While I couldn’t read, I could surf a bit and this ended up as one of the longest entries in this series that I’ve compiled (I believe). But there was a moment today when I thought this would be my shortest post yet–my browser and Pocket decided to stop cooperating (as they’re under the same corporate roof, this is doubly problematic). I prevailed, sort of, but I’m beginning to wonder if I need to find an alternative. Suggestions to replace Pocket, anyone?

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:

• Jack Reacher series author Lee Child ‘quits and lets brother step in’—I actually read (and enjoyed) Andrew Grant before I tried Lee Child, and hope this move works out for both of them (and expect it will). But I have to say, this is the saddest headline I’ve read in a long time.
• People who read books are nicer than those who don’t, study finds.
• The New York Public Library Has Calculated Its Most Checked-Out Books Of All Time
• Take a look behind the ‘small doors to imaginary spaces’ within bookshelves
• Is this the most powerful word in the English language?: The most commonly-used word in English might only have three letters – but it packs a punch.—A whole lotta words about “the”
• 20 Things Overheard In Bookshops—I enjoyed this one enough that it almost makes up for the trauma of the first item.
• ‘Nobody in Tesco buys spy books by women’: how female authors took on the genre
• “As an author, I hate and fear Goodreads. As a reader, I just hate it.”—a thread from Seanan McGuire.
• Are Crime Writers as Twisted as Our Characters?: Authors Weigh In On Their Creepy Creations
• William Gibson: ‘I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was’—A good interview/profile with the SF master.
• A Narrator In Every Port—Harry Connolly talks about Narrator Voice, one of those things you never think about that is so important for the reading experience.
• My Rules For Writing A Novel—Matthew Hanover shares his rules for writing.
• To My Friends With Reading Tastes Opposite from Mine—I’ll second this one.
• The 16 Best Science Fiction Books of All Time by Global English Editing—The Tattooed Book Geek posted this snazzy infographic in a guest post this week.
• What determines reading speed?—asks Paul’s Picks
• TTBG’s Fifteen Blogging Tips.—I’m reasonably certain that I’ve linked to this before. But we could all probably use a reminder.
• Short Series vs Long Series: Which Do I Prefer?—I don’t know that I’d thought about things in this way before, and may end up posting my take on this soon. Fun to think about anyway.
• Bookworm Problems #1—should make you grin
• I typically try to close with a laugh, or something unusual, but today calls for something else. I’ll just steal Ace Atkins Facebook post from this morning

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• A Beginning At The End by Mike Chen—A SF Family Drama set 6 years after a global pandemic changes everything.
• The Wild One by Nick Petrie—Peter Ash brings his brand of action to Iceland. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever read anything that takes place there, this should be a great way to fix that.
• Burn the Dark by S. A. Hunt—I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’ll have time to get to this, but it’s a fun concept: “a YouTube celebrity gone-viral with her intensely-realistic witch hunter series. But even her millions of followers don’t know the truth: her series isn’t fiction.”

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to aloysius5, writingeatingwalking, Dora , Hâf, Susan, and Shell-Shell’s for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?