Music Monday’s originated at The Tattooed Book Geek‘s fantastic blog and has shown up here and there since then.
(last holiday season song for a while)
Tag: Miscellany Page 47 of 173
When going through the posts, etc. I had collected for this week, it felt like this was going to be nothing but a list of lists. Which would’ve been fine, but strange, you know? I did eventually get mostly past the lists to some other things. But I’ll warn you now, if you are looking to keep your TBR from exploding, there are several things I linked to today that you’ll want to avoid.
On the other hand, if you’re wanting it to explode with goodness…
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:
If Not For Libraries: Authors on the Importance of Public Libraries—The New York Public Library put this together earlier this year, and I’m not sure how I missed it until this week.
Five years and 2m copies later, self-published author lands UK book deal—Granted, the overwhelming majority of self-pubbed authors won’t see this kind of success. But doesn’t it make your heart warm to see that some do?
A.I. : In the Age of the Absence of the Author
Why Readers Love Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire Series —this is a good overview of the series/good intro for those who’ve thought about dipping their toe in.
Before We Go Blog is always a reliable source of good material, but three of the posts the team put up this week caught my eye.
Top Urban Fantasy Series To Get You Hooked on the Genre—I enjoyed (the?) previous version(s?) of this, but this updated one makes me feel positively un-read in the genre.
Top Ten Fantasy Characters That Probably Listen to Taylor Swift—Kudos to them for even coming up with this idea. I’m not a Swiftie (at least not after her second album), but I enjoyed the post
Seven Favorite Cinnamon Rolls in SFF Novels—Is Cinnamon Roll a term I should already be familiar with? Either way, I’m adding it to my vocabulary.
Top 20 Most Recommended Audiobooks of All Time—according to Libro.fm
Another batch of Best of 2023 lists:
Top Five Most Dramatic Twists I Read In 2023—Steven Writes comes up with another good category
10 of My Favorite Reads in 2023—from Pages Unbound’s Krysta
Adam Holcombe provided “A handful of great books, given to you in the form of specialized awards”
FanFiAddict’s A.J. Calvin’s Top 10 Reads of 2023
Favorite Books in 2023—from A Literary Escape
Out of This World SFF’s My Top 10 Reads of 2023!!!
Most Memorable Reads of 2023—from Reading Ladies Book Club
Top 5 Books of 2023—Top 5? As I’m going to demonstrate next week there’s no way I could get things down to 5. My hat’s off to Books are 42 for pulling it off.
Tales from Absurdia’s The Best Books I Read in 2023
Esmay Rosalyne’s Best Surprises of 2023
What Makes a Story Comforting?—another good one from Molly Templeton. I’m also tempted to (somewhat reluctantly) rewatch Grimm.
How to Plan for Your 2024 Reading Challenge —some good advice from NetGalley’s We Are Bookish blog
Backlist Bingo 2024—it’s been a minute since Armed With a Book did a Bingo, this looks fun
Read What You Got—a month-long push to clear up your unread books
The 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge—the last two of these from Runalong the Shelves have proved helpful to me. I’m back for a third go-round.
The Project Backlist Reading Challenge—another good-looking challenge
Bookish Travel: Visiting The 50 US States 2023—what a great idea…
2024 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—a great tool for Bloggers and super-organized readers (or those wanting to be)
Quotables: Words that Stuck with me in 2023—I love this annual post (which inspired my monthly posts…that I will get back to!)
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Sundry Notes of Music: An Almost Memoir by Ian Shane—some of the bigger moments of Shane’s life are described through the filter of important (to him) songs. Humor, love, loss, and a lot of music. I talk a little more indepth about it here.
Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Little Reader, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.
This was supposed to be the 2nd or 3rd post of the day, but you know how things gang aft a-gley sometimes. Hopefully, I can eke out something else, too.
In the meantime, I’ll get to business with this and see you in 7.
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 Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri, Daniel Miyares (Illustrator)—a book I’m not even going to try to sum up in less than a couple of paragraphs. I’m listening to Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, Kristen Sieh (Narrator) on audiobook. I’m not so sure about the story as a whole—but it possibly includes the best description of someone becoming a werewolf that I’ve ever come across.
What did you recently finish reading?
I just finished Henry Brock’s Vicious Dogs, a clever PI novel, and the superlative The Curator by M.W. Craven, John Banks (Narrator) on audio.
What do you think you’ll read next?
My next book should be The Moonshine Messiah by Russell W. Johnson. Next, I’m going to try the audiobook of The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman—I’m not 100% I can devote the attention to it that it deserves in audio format, but I haven’t been able to find the time for the print version, so we’ll see how I do.
How are you closing out the year? Trying to squeeze in a few more books for whatever your goal was?
(I’ve got three more I hope to finish. Will get at least one of them done 🙂 )
Music Monday’s originated at The Tattooed Book Geek‘s fantastic blog and has shown up here and there since then.
I’m glad you stopped by for this today, but I really want you to read my earlier post of the day, I had more fun with it than I usually do. So take a moment if you haven’t to check out: The Grandcritter’s First Festivus.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the “serious business” of 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:
Reading print improves comprehension far more than looking at digital text, say researchers—Not the first time I’ve heard this, but I do find it interesting. Would you all prefer if I started mailing these so you can understand it more?
‘It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads?—pretty sure I’ve posted things like this before, too. One of these days, the death knell may truly ring.
Last week, I linked to the first 20 of these, and now we can read The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 30 to 11 The 10 Biggest Literary Stories of the Year—(at least according to LitHub). Some interesting things here…many of which I was previously unaware of. That’s how in-tune with the Big News I am.
Before We Go Blog brings Five Recommended Books for Winter Reading—(or other times of the year, too)
Announcing the Picture Prompt Book Bingo Challenge for 2024—It’s like Dixit or Mysterium mixed with a Reading Challenge.
It’s time for some more 2023 Best Of Lists.I agree with a lot of these (and added more than I should to the overburnded TBR)
The Ultimate Best Books of 2023 List—Lit Hub’s Emily Temple compiles results from 62 published lists to list the best of the best.
Top Five Character-Driven Books I Read In 2023—from Steven Writes
Operation 2023: Success! (Or Favorite Books From this Year)—Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub has some real winners (and you’ll never guess the 2nd book on this list!)
Favourite Series of 2023—from Novel Deelights
CrimeReads’ The Best Noir Fiction of 2023
The Best Books I Read in 2023—from Read Betwixt Worlds
Tiny Elf Arcanist Character Awards 2023
CrimeReads’ The Best Traditional Mysteries of 2023
Why Stories About Stories Bugs Me
This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan—should’ve been mentioned here last week. Moving on from lake monsters, cryptozoologist/bookstore owner Morgan Carter looks into Bigfoot.
Down The Well by Veronica King—this just sounds like a ball. Sentient lamp posts? You can never go wrong with lamp posts in fantasy, making them sentient is a heckuva bons.
Grimdwarf: A Magaine of Fantastic Tales edited by JCM Berne—1. It’s free. 2. It’s good. 3. It’s a quick read. 4. It’s good. I have no idea how/if I’ll be talking about this zine regularly, but for now, I’m just going to promote it when I have the opportunity.
(can’t like back to the creator, since I don’t know where it came from)
Shunning the commercialization of Christmas*/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Santaween/Chrismukkah, we’re again celebrating Festivus (for the rest of us) here at The Irresponsible Reader. But this time, we’re doing something extra special—my Grandcritter is joining us as I share with him the wonders of the day.
And no…this isn’t just an excuse for a proud grandparent to show you all pictures of this adorable guy. You’re just going to have to take my word for that.
Let’s begin our observance!
We start by setting up the Festivus pole. See how he’s taking in the very high strength-to-weight ratio (because it’s a mighty fine pole) and how he’s fascinated by it without any need for distracting tinsel. It’s very important to take in the simplicity.
And now, let the Airing of Grievances begin.
I initially assumed that I’d be handling this myself, the kid’s not even a year old. So, sure he has a gripe or two, but they can’t be book-related, can they? Turns out they can.
The Grandcritter’s Grievances
Board Books need to taste better! Sure, the texture is interesting and provides an interesting mouthfeel. But the taste is rather plain. Can’t we get something that tastes like food mixed into that coating on every page?
Related to that, try as I might, I cannot fit an entire book into my mouth at once. I don’t know if it’s a me problem or a publishing/book design problem, but I think it’s the latter. I don’t know why, but I think it would be really satisfying if I could just get one to fit the whole way, you know?
(Grandpappy’s original idea for my Feat of Strength was to get a picture of me trying to pull this off, but Mommy wouldn’t let him. Apparently, he’s supposed to discourage that, not try to get me to do it. I’d make this a Grievance, too. But Mommy probably knows best, and Grandpappy says I should wait at least 13 years before pushing back like that in public.)
I’ve got a beef with the people that make those “Indestructibles” books for people my age. Do they not understand how satisfying it is to rip a page in a book (and maybe to stuff it in your mouth)? That sound…that feeling of power…it’s so good. And then these mean grown-ups make it so my people can’t do that? It’s the worst. (also, Grandpappy says they’d do better selling multiple copies of books when adults replace the ones with missing pages)
Lastly, my TBR is too huge! I’m never going to catch up at this point. Never mind the books that Mommy and Daddy have picked out for me, or that I might be interested in—do you have any idea how long the list that my Grandpappy has for me is??? Talk about Irresponsible…
Grandpappy’s Grievances
(Yes, some of these are only slightly revised from previous Festivus posts. This is to be expected, it’s not like the entire universe fixed itself after I threw up a few posts. I’ve got to keep up the pressure.)
AI’s takeover of publishing, from covers to audiobook narrations to writing and illustrating! It’s just too much. This is about human creativity, not close approximations of it. Also, you’d think that people who publish/sell/read dystopian fiction and SF would know better than to give the reins of anything to an AI.
I have a grievance with the book publishing/selling/marketing industry. It’s 2023, why are we still placing stickers on books? If we have to do that, why hasn’t Science come up with a sticker that doesn’t leave a gummy residue behind? C’mon, Science, if you can’t give us a cure for cancer, a pill so people with Celiac disease can eat bread, or an Oreo that will help me lose weight—at least you can give us stickers that don’t leave gunk on our books! Especially, especially when it covers the ISBN number for those of us trying to scan them.
What’s worse than stickers are those things that look like stickers, but aren’t. Just stupid, garish circles that have been printed on the cover and really only serve to obscure the image. What’s the point?
I have a grievance with Movie/TV covers on books. C’mon people, this is stupid. Sure, it may help sell more copies of the books—but has any book been improved by one of these covers? No! Knock it off! And especially, stop it with sticking pictures of actors on books in a series that haven’t been adapted, just because some have (yeah, I’m looking at you, Longmire).
Similarly, what’s up with publishers changing the look of series covers—and or the height of the books—in a series? I like when they match and I resent having to go buy second copies of the old ones to have a nice matching set. (which I generally avoid, but I think about doing it a lot).
Whether it’s from a mainstream publisher, indie press, or a self-pubbed book, we have the technology and (theoretically??) the education so there’s no reason for there to be missing/extra punctuation or misspelled words in books. We all understand human error, some are going to slip through, but…
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to book blog posts. No one paid for these.
I have a grievance with the Book Blogging Community. There are way too many good book bloggers out there to keep up with. Some of you need to write less often! Also, you make the rest of us look bad.
I’ve got a grievance with running out of places to put books and bookshelves that aren’t like a bag of holding or TARDIS and can’t take an increasing number of books. So…physics, I guess. Yeah, that’s right, Laws of the Physics, I’m calling you out. Get your act together!
And what’s more…I lost my train of thought. Still, I managed to get a little off my chest, and that felt good.
And now, the Feats of Strength…
This was tricky to capture in a photo, but I think you can make it out…The Grandcritter is lifting my The Lord of the Rings Illustrated hardcover. Yes, one corner is resting on (read: digging into) my arm, but he’s picked up the other end on his own. All 3.54 lbs. of it–with one hand, mind you.
Let’s see how the rest of you do with your feats.
I hope you enjoyed this bit of fluff and regardless of what holidays/festivals you may or may not celebrate that you have a happy one!
* I’ve gotten a little feedback about this—it’s pretty clear I’m a Christian. So why do I do a Festivus post instead of something about Christmas? While I do think that believers have the liberty to celebrate the Nativity if they desire to, I’m ambivalent toward the day, and hesitant to make a big deal out of it. So, I don’t. If you’re curious, I thought this episode of The Heidelcast did a decent job of articulating many of the issues (without getting nasty about it).
On the other hand, Festivus is just silly fun. Hope you don’t mind…
I almost didn’t get any reading done yesterday, a very uncommon event. I did find myself early to something, so I was able to read most of the inaugural issue of Grimdwarf Magazine, and I can see this becoming a regular part of my reading rotation.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that the other day as I was packing to go to work, I grabbed the Guards! Guards! and put it in my coat pocket. I can’t remember the last Mass Market Paperback I read. It’s so convenient! I love a good hardcover, and ebooks are so essential now. But wow…I miss MMPs. We need a resurgence of them.
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 Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, and am shaking my head at how I stopped reading this series years ago. My current audiobook is the haunting The Curator by by M.W. Craven, John Banks (Narrator) on audiobook.
What did you recently finish reading?
The last book I finished was Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire, I talked it up yesterday. The fascinating, entertaining, and often convincing, Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English by Valerie Fridland, narrated by the author and several others was my last audiobook.
What do you think you’ll read next?
My next book should be The Mayors of New York by S. J. Rozan (I am so looking forward to it) and my next audiobook should be Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison, Kristen Sieh (Narrator).
Are you reading anything that’s making this holiday season happy? Or are you preparing to air a grievance?
Music Monday’s originated at The Tattooed Book Geek‘s fantastic blog and has shown up here and there since then.
I’ve decided to postpone today’s post…I’d finish a paragraph and think of two or three more I needed to write. Which I think will prove to make me happier about the end result, but I have to get some sleep. So…let’s take another look at this, with a quick update at the end.
Last week, I asked for some advice on where I should start with Discworld books, since my attempts with reading The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic didn’t really leave me wanting more.
I received some good input, and thought I’d pass some of it along (if only so there’s a central location for me to come back to later for reference).
The overall consensus was that I picked a couple of bad ones to start with. But beyond that,
Mike Finn (you should read his blog, by the way), said (in part):
Here’s the best map I know of for showing the reading order of the various Discworld subgroups.
My favourites are the Watch novels and the Witches novels.
The Watch novels start with Guards! Guards!
The Witches novels start with Equal Rites.If you read those two and still don’t like Pratchett then he’s probably not for you.
K.R.R. Lockhaven (you should read his books, by the way) admitted:
I…um…have to admit that I haven’t actually read ALL of them. Most, though. I’m partial to the City Watch books, starting with Guards! Guards! Maybe Small Gods would be good, too. It’s a standalone.
Lockhaven also pointed me to Fiction Fans podcast’s “Bonus Episode: Which Discworld Book Should You Read First?” It was an interesting chat–the episode notes include:
They… don’t really give a straight answer. But they DO know which book you should NOT read first. You’re welcome.
Possible First Reads:
Wyrd Sisters (if you like witches)
Reaper Man (if you like Death)
Small Gods (if you want a good standalone with religious satire)
Hogfather (if you like Christmas)
Monstrous Regiment (if you want a good standalone with scathing social commentary)
Going Postal (if you like con artists)
wyrdsis (an account name that suggests they might know a thing or two about the series), chimed in with:
…I got really into it with the Witches (starting with Equal Rites), and Ankh Morpork City Watch (starting with Guards! Guards!), then Hogfather, Thief of Time, The Truth, the von Lipwig series….etc
David Frew sent me to
*or, why should I read this thing that everyone keeps going on about?
by Micah @rincewind.run (another account name that suggests they might know a thing or two about the series).
Gary Hayenga chipped in:
The first two novels are very different than the subsequent novels. As the previous commenter mentioned there are several sub-series set on the Discworld. Based on the other things you’ve posted about liking here I would recommend that you start with The Watch series, starting with Guards! Guards!. The second book in that series is even better.
I’m about 1/3 of my way through Guards! Guards! and I think I might be seeing what everyone else sees in Pratchett. Or maybe I’m seeing something else, maybe I’m still learning. Regardless, I am having a blast. I’m re-reading passages just for fun, or because I think I might have missed a joke because I was distracted by another. I know that I’ve read the passage where Carrot’s father tells him he’s not a dwarf more times than is necessary. But I kind of want to go read it again now that I’ve mentioned it.
Thank you all for your help, I think it’s paying off!
Late again…but I have a good excuse. I was meeting a prospective/probable new member of the household, a sweet lab/boxer mix. So…this takes a back seat.
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:
On the Difficulty of Giving Books as Gifts
The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2023—from BookMarks. I’m feeling much better about all my negative reviews.
The best book covers of 2023 are the ones you’ll never see: The most interesting book cover designs are often left on the cutting room floor.
10 Things We Learned in 20 Years of Writing Mysteries—from the writers behind “Cleo Coyle”
Ian [Rankin]’s end of year round-up: 2023
Kevin Hearne also posted a Year-end roundup
FALL BACK TO READING SERIES – Featuring Lee Goldberg—Goldberg shares Non-Fiction and Fiction recommendations
The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 50 to 31—(at least according to LitHub)
How about some more Year-End Best Of lists? (in no particular order). Several of my TBR reads are here and not enough things that I have read are, oh and the TBR has been made longer by these, too.
CrimeReads’ The Best Crime Novels of 2023—Some great ones here (and in the Honorable Mentions!)
The 139 Best Book Covers of 2023
My Ten Favourite Reads of 2023—from Grab This Book
FanFiAddict’s The Bookwyrm’s Best Reads of 2023
Also from CrimeReads, The Best Debut Novels of 2023
Also from FanFiAddict, Charlies Top Reads of 2023
Top Five Powerful Books I Read In 2023—Stephen continues his trend of categorizing his lists in the best way
And one more from FanFiAddict, Lord TBR’s Top Reads of 2023
Rethinking the End of Year Book List—What better way to follow those up than with a reconsideration of the idea?
How do You Measure a Year in Reading?—I’ve read this a couple of times now, and will probably do it a couple of more
Maybe the Greatest Fantasy Standalones Ever—Not content with just looking at 2023, Peat Long tackles the Entirety of Human History
Ideas For 2023 Book Gifts—for the second week in a row, I’m starting on the same topic I began on. I’d like to say I’m clever enough to keep this up, but we all know better.
A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Fully Booked Best Middle-Grade Books of 2023 with Zach Weinersmith—before digging into Kirkus Review’s Best Middle Grade books of the year, the episode features a chat with Weinersmith about Bea Wolf, Beowulf, and MG books in general. I really enjoyed this one
