Tag: Miscellany Page 94 of 175

2022 Plans and Challenges

Thanks to Facebook’s On This Day, today I was reminded of my 2014 New Year’s Reading Resolutions. Boy Howdy, did I do a lousy job with those. Of the 12 specific resolutions, I still need to accomplish at least 5 (there’s room for interpretation on a couple of them)—I still want to accomplish 4 of them. Maybe this reminder will help?*

* Yeah, I’m not counting on that, either. But it’s nice to dream.

So, I’m reticent to get into calling my shots, as it were, too much anymore—there’s a project from 2020 still hanging over my head, too. And a few others, too, I’m sure—I just don’t want to go spelunking through the archives to find more personal failures (minor, to be sure, but technically failures).

So, here’s what I’m going to shoot for around here in the next 12 months.
bullet Cut down on my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and the unread books that I own (a perennial project, but I made some strides last year)—one of the Book Challenges this year should be a fun way to help.
bullet I’m going to finish my Classic Spenser series and maybe find another Classic to do a project read-through. We’ll see about that. (I added this one after scheduling this post, but you know what? I’ve been kicking myself for ages for dropping this…)
bullet Be pickier in the Book Tours I participate in—I’ve already started this (Damp Pebbles Blog Tours ceasing operations helped, too—no slight intended to the Tour Organizers I still enjoy working with, but Emma was better at getting me to take risks). I still like Tours, they expose me to things I wouldn’t normally read—and I’m going to keep doing them. But I’m going to be pickier about them.
bullet Similarly, I’m doing fewer Book Challenges. I like the ones I’ve picked out—but they’re concrete things, no more of these “Read as Many of X as You Can” challenges. They don’t move the needle one bit for me as far as picking books—I read as many as I’m going to anyway, just with a count. But Challenges with specific targets can be fun. I’ll talk about those in a minute.
bullet Get better at proofreading—apparently, there’s a need.
bullet Try to interview more authors (maybe others, too?), and get better at that, too.
bulletThere are a few other ideas, but they’re harder to explain than to just do. You’ll know them if you see them.

2022 Book Challenges

12 Books
Perhaps you’ve seen this on everyone’s timeline this last week or so—12 months to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. This looked like a great way to read something out of my wheelhouse—and so far, it should be. Only 1 of the 9 recommended so far is something that I’d have really considered. I still need 3 more recommendations—so hit the comments, folks!
12 Books Challenge


2022 “Support Book Bloggers” Challenge
Support Book Bloggers Challenge
This just looks like fun, mostly things I should be doing anyway. Go check it out.


2022 While I was Reading
While I Was Reading
I’ve done this one for the last few years—and Ramona’s done a great job of stretching me. And will continue to do so—this year’s categories are more challenging than I’m used to (I have to figure out authors’ astrological signs?).


Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge

Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge
I dig the way this one is organized—if nothing else, my TBR should go down by 12. 🙂


I’ll also undoubtedly do the 20 Books of Summer Challenge…that’s been pretty fun.


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!


(Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay)

Saturday Miscellany—1/1/22

Happy New Year, readers!

I don’t have a lot to say this week—so let’s just get on with things, okay?

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 What’s the Best Book of the Past 125 Years? We Asked Readers to Decide.—From the NYT. I can’t argue with the results, I guess I could, but I won’t.
bullet The 36 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2021—Not your typical year-end post.
bullet Humor in Books, and Other Places, Too! An Interview with L.L. Stephens—another in Lockhaven’s series on humor.
bullet Building a fantasy world map using Adobe Illustrator—never read Jackson’s work, but this was fascinating
bullet Speaking of maps, this is impressive: Alex Verus Map Project—a valiant Alex Verus fan has created a google map of every location in the Verus novels.
bullet Alcoholic Drinks to Pair With Favorite Fantasy and Horror Books—I attempted a post like this a couple of years ago, this is the way to do it.
bullet The Simple Guide to Netgalley—A Handy Guide from Tales from Absurdia.
bullet Of the making of Year-End Posts There Is No End (well, it just seems that way—there probably will be an end in a couple of weeks). Here are a few more that I found interesting:
bullet The Best Reviewed Crime Novels of 2021—From CrimeReads
bullet The Fantasy Hive 2021 Year-End Awards
bullet FanFiAddict’s Justin’s Top 10 Reads of 2021
bullet Ben from Literature & Lofi’s Favorite Books From 2021
bullet Yearly Roundup & Favourite Books: 2021—from Spells & Spaceships
bullet Reader Voracious has released their 2022 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—if you’re looking for a tracker, you should give it a shot
bullet 2022 “Support Book Bloggers” Challenge—this seems like a really neat idea
bullet What Book Series Did I Finish Reading in 2021?—quite the feat.
bullet Out of Order Reading Methods—clearly, this is the work of a monster. This is not the kind of thing that should be normalized! (just kidding, this is a fun post)

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Beth Tabler who followed the blog this week.

WWW Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Time for the final WWW Wednesday of 2021! It’s been quite a year, right?

 

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 finally reading Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck and am listening to Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton (Narrator) on audiobook—it’s as fun as I remember when I read it a decade or so ago.

AnonymousBlank SpaceAgent to the Stars

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished the very odd The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux and Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant on audio.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás CubasBlank SpaceStuff You Should Know

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be Family Business by S.J. Rozan (been waiting for this one!) and my next audiobook should be another trip to Amish country in Gone Missing by Linda Castillo, Kathleen McInerney (Narrator).

Family BusinessBlank SpaceGone Missing

How are you all wrapping up the year?

2021 While I Was Reading Challenge

2021 While I Was Reading Challenge

Earlier today, I finished my fourth annual While I Was Reading Challenge. Well, I thought I did, anyway. As I was putting this list together, I realized that the entry I’d pencilled in for “An essay or short story collection” was published last Fall. In fact, every short story collection I thought of as “recent” was from 2020. I somehow managed to make it through this year without a single short story collection, same with most of the essay collections I could think of. I guess this is why I keep a reading log, I just need to pay more attention to it.

Oh, well the important thing is, that it’s done, right?

2021 Reading Challenge Categories

  1. A book published before 2000: The Case of the One-Eyed Witness by Earle Stanley Gardner
  2. An essay or short story collection: Nothing Like I Imagined (Except for Sometimes) by Mindy Kaling
  3. A book you’ve been looking forward to: Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby
  4. A book you’ve been avoiding: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux
  5. A book of magical realism: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
  6. A book with alliteration in the title: Headphones and Heartaches by Wesley Parker
  7. A book with food or drink on the cover: Love by Roddy Doyle
  8. A cozy mystery: The Curious Dispatch of Daniel Costello by Chris McDonald
  9. A book with a dog on the cover: The Keepers by Jeffrey B. Burton
  10. A memoir: A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons by Ben Folds
  11. A book by an author who has written more than 10 books: Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg
  12. A debut novel: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Saturday Miscellany—12/25/21

I cannot believe anyone’s actually reading this today, but stranger things have happened, I guess.

Eh, maybe you need a break from the festivities, here’s a little to occupy your mind. It’s not much, I think everyone was lightening up on content this week.

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 Libraries enlist states in fight over ebook rules
bullet The Most Popular Books and Audiobooks on NetGalley in 2021
bullet The most popular US library books of 2021
bullet 2022 Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template—2022 will be my third year using this template from Reader Voracious—I still don’t use all the features, but those that I do are more than worth it. Even if I wasn’t blogging, I think I’d prefer this to what I came up with on my own.
bullet It was the last week for The #R3COMM3ND3D2021 series over at Damp Pebbles. The posts over the last week were by:
bullet Podcast Audiobookish
bullet BookBlogger Karen Cole
bullet BookBlogger Rae
bullet Author Joy Kluver
bullet BookBlogger Emma—the proprieter of Damppebbles herself chimes in to wrap up the series
bullet A few more installments of this year’s Best Of Lists…
bullet 12 Authors Share the Best Books They Read in 2021—from the We Are Bookish blog
bullet from FanFiAddict: Tom’s Top 10 Reads of 2021
bullet Witty and Sarcastic Book Club declares the year a win: Operation 2021: Success! (or Favorite Books from this Year)
bullet Why I’m not seeing a numbered reading goal for 2022…
bullet Blogging VS. Social Media: why having a book blog still matters—I’ve seen a little of this conversation online, but this is a pretty full response to the idea that book blogs are obsolete.
bullet Why Book Blogs are Relevant & Valuable Marketing Tools—okay, the above was a full response, this is…um…fuller I guess.
bullet The Die Hard Book Tag—a holiday-season Book Tag I can get behind.

The Friday 56 for 12/24/21: A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds

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:
A Dream About Lightning Bugs

A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons by Ben Folds

A few years ago, I volunteered to be a substitute teacher for my kids’ seventh-grade music class. Just for a day. That’s all I had to do. I knew most of the kids in the class anyway. It should have been a breeze.

It wasn’t.

If I didn’t fully appreciate the public school music teachers of my youth before 11 a.m. that day, by noon I damn well did. As I stood before the class, a lifetime of experience performing in front of people went straight out the window. The forty-five-minute affair was absolutely exhausting. Kids, 1—Folds, 0. Animals, every one of them! I am no music teacher and I bow to each and every man and woman who is. I especially bow to the ones who can see that these children are not animals and recognize which ones could use a push, or a hand, like I did when I was younger.

Festivus 2021: For the Rest of Us

Shunning the commercialization of Christmas*/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Santaween/Chrismukkah, we’re again celebrating Festivus (for the rest of us) here at The Irresponsible Reader.

Let’s begin our observance!

Festivus PoleHere I am with my Festivus pole. I really appreciate the very high strength to weight ratio, it’s a mighty fine pole.

Note the lack of distracting tinsel. It’s very important.

And now, let the Airing of Grievances begin.

Airing of Grievances
Yes, some of these are only slightly revised from previous Festivus posts. Which is to be expected, it’s not like the entire universe fixed itself after I posted one lil’ post. It’s going to take at least three, right?

bullet I’m seriously disappointed that Ace Atkins is leaving the Spenser series. Sure, it’s best for him and his career to go off and work on his own projects, which will undoubtedly be great. But speaking selfishly (which is the point of grievances, right?), I don’t want him to go!

bullet Publishers are starting to use AI readers instead of humans for audiobooks! This is madness—we don’t need to make things easier for our new computer overlords by letting them lull us into letting our defenses down by reading our stories to us. Also, they don’t do a good job of it.

bullet I have a grievance with the book publishing/selling/marketing industry. It’s 2021, 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.

bullet 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.

bullet I have a grievance with Movie/TV covers on books. C’mon people, this is stupid. Sure, it maybe helps 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).

bullet Similarly, what’s up with publishers changing the look of series covers? 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).

bullet It’s another year without the next installment from Rothfuss/Martin. No, my grievance isn’t with them, it’s with the entitled “fan” of the work, whinging at every conceivable moment about how long it’s taking them. Because there’s nothing else around to read? Let ’em get it right and use that energy to support someone whose books could use it.

(still—Martin, Rothfuss, Lynch…c’mon…)

bullet 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.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to book blog posts. No one paid for these.

bullet 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.

bullet 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!

bullet I’ve got a grievance with myself for putting off planning this post so long. I’m having a hard time coming up with Feats of Strength. I really need to start brainstorming earlier in the year…

bullet And what’s more…I lost my train of thought. Still, I managed to get a little off my chest, that felt good.

And now, the Feats of Strength

Time for Feats of Strength
In 2019, for my Feat of Strength, I held my TBR above my head, which I thought was pretty impressive. Then last year, I did something even harder—I signed out of Netgalley without requesting a single book. This year…

2021 Feat of Strength
Yes, that’s me lifting an entire bookshop. If that’s not a Feat of Strength, I don’t know what is. Okay, sure, it may be miniature, but it’s really hard to hold that steady without any of those teeny-tiny books falling off the shelf…

Let’s see how the rest of you do with your feats.

* 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…

Happy Festivus

WWW Wednesday, December 22, 2021

I’m feeling very distracted this week–I’m having a lot of trouble focusing on anything for more than 15 minutes at a time, thankfully I’m reading a couple of books that are built for short-term-focus (am pretty sure that was the order, it’s entirely possible that they induced it). But the end of the year is nigh, I can take the foot off the gas a little bit, right?

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 finishing off a reading challenge by reading A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons by Ben Folds and The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux. I’m listening to My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows and narrated by Fiona Hardingham on audiobook, partially inspired by my recent Down theTBR Post.

A Dream About Lightning BugsBlank SpaceThe Posthumous Memoirs of Brás CubasBlank SpaceMy Contrary Mary

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker (in an effort to inject a little holiday cheer) and Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Hartford, Nicholas Guy Smith (Narrator) on audio.

The NutcrackerBlank SpaceMessy

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck (after spending over a month on my “On Deck” list–a testament to shoddy planning) and my next audiobook should be The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz, Rory Kinnear (Narrator).

AnonymousBlank SpaceThe Sentence Is Death

How are you spending the week?

Top 5 Tuesday – Top 5 New Authors of 2021


Tell us all about your favourite new authors. Either debut authors from 2021, or new-to-you this year.

2021 was a good year for new-to-me authors (a pretty good year for old-to-me authors, too), I made the acquaintance of several authors I expect to read for a long time to come. But a Top 5 was a little tricky–four of these names jumped right to me, and then six names competed for that last slot–which means a Top 10 list would’ve been a great thing for me to do today, I guess. When it comes to these five authors, they really stood out to me this year, and I bet I’ll be reading them for years (assuming they keep producing…). Two of them have backlists for me to work off of, too.

In alphabetical order, because I’m not doing that to myself.

1 Stephen Mack Jones Stephen Mack Jones

I read the first book in his series, August Snow, this summer–and I just clicked with it within a couple of pages. The voice was just perfect, his characters felt like good friends already–just ones I needed to get to know better. He also had a real gift for setting–I could see some of the locations clearly, and the food? I’m getting hungry right now. I’ll be returning to Jones and Snow early next year, and I can’t wait.

In case you’re curious about what I said about the book that put him on the list, click here.

2 Nadine Matheson Nadine Matheson

Matheson infuses her fiction with her experience and knowledge–one of the murders takes place near her home, which helps her bring that part of London to life in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before. Also, she’s a Criminal Soliciter, bringing an authenticity to the book that you don’t always get. I’m starting to get carried away and I have 3 other people to talk about so I’m going to shut up.

In case you’re curious about what I said about the book that put her on the list, click here.

3 Chris McDonald Chris McDonald

I’ve only read one of McDonald’s two series to date (I plan on changing that soon), and it certainly appears that the two are pretty different in style and tone. But you can’t read five books in a year by one author without it leaving a pretty strong impression on you. The Stonebridge Mysteries had strong charactes, clever mysteries, and a humourous touch (without being comedies), a consisten source of entertainment throughout 2021.

In case you’re curious about what I said about the series that put him on the list, click here.

4 Fabian Nicieza Fabian Nicieza

In researching this post, I realized I’d actually met Nicieza in 1987 in Psi Force #9 from Marvel Comics. But I’m still counting this because: 1. I’d forgotten about him completely, and 2. I’m going with new-to-me-novelists. He’s written a lot of other comics in the meantime–including creating Deadpool. But now he’s turned to novel writing–his first novel was laugh-out-loud funny, with the kind of tension that seasoned pros struggle with, great characters, and some social commentary, too. Oh, yeah, and a great mystery!

In case you’re curious about what I said about the book that put him/her, click here.

5 Richard Osman Richard Osman

Osman has a long résumé in all sorts of fields–none of which I was exposed to here in the U.S. But his first novel was a great way to be introduced–a great mix of meditation on grief and aging, comedy, and mystery. He writes like a seasoned pro, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

In case you’re curious about what I said about the books that put him on this list, click here.

Who were some of your new favorites of 2021?

Saturday Miscellany—12/18/21

We’re nearing the end of the year, which means a couple of things for these posts: almost no new releases on the horizon and lots of year-end Best-Of lists. Which I’ll now demonstrate:

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 ‘Interview with a Vampire’ Author Anne Rice Dies at Age 80—I’m not a Rice fan, but it’s more-than-easy to see the giant impact she had on fiction. I read Interview back in college and loved it. At the same time, I didn’t think I needed to read another work by her.
bullet Yanking Books From School Libraries: What the Supreme Court Has Said, and Why It’s Murky—I don’t see my shutting up about this any time soon…
bullet So my Saturday night was ruined last week when I saw Ace Atkins’ tweet about next month’s Spenser being his last. I’ll probably say something in a couple of days about this, but in the meantime:
bullet Publisher’s Weekly tweeted some details about the next Parker series novels.
bullet Blogger/Parker aficionado Gerald So posted a professional take on the news and a personal one.
bullet What’s So Great About Great-Books Courses?—Some thoughts about the state of humanities in universities. (I’ve always wanted to take one a Great Books course)
bullet I’ve put this off as long as I could, but it’s time to start looking at Best Of lists…
bullet I’m not sure that David Rosenfelt’s list was all that impartial. But it was probably the most enjoyable to read.
bullet Over at FanFiAddict, Lord TBR’s Top Reads of 2021 could easily occupy my first quarter of 2022
bullet Kevin Burton Smith‘s list is pretty impressive, too.
bullet The Best Crime Novels of 2021 from Crime Reads
bullet My Top 10 Reads of 2021!from Out of This World SFF
bullet It was the penultimate week for The #R3COMM3ND3D2021 series over at Damp Pebbles. The posts over the last week were:
bullet Book Blogger Catherine Friess
bullet BookBlogger Eva
bullet Book Blogger Ally
bullet Author Jon Ford
bullet BookBlogger Richard Fernandez
bullet Book Blogger Julie Morris
bullet How Many Books Make a Book Blogger?—I didn’t realize this was a thing, but now that I’ve read this, I can see it. Like so many “you have to do X to be Y” in fandoms, the notion that you have to have a number of physical books to qualify is pretty silly. And I say that as someone who’s waiting for his youngest to move out so I can have more room for my collection…

Lastly I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to sang, who followed the blog this week. Please don’t be a stranger!

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