Tag: Saturday Miscellany Page 17 of 62

Before we kick things off today, a quick announcement: due to the success of such things as my Grandpappy’s Corner series where I read picture books (and the like), I’m starting a new series this month—A Latter-Day Victorian Reads Erotica (logo forthcoming). It’ll kick off Monday with a deep dive into the works of E. L. James, and it’ll get racier from there.

And now on to our regularly scheduled offerings (a big thanks to Celeste’s A Literary Escape for all the help with this week’s offerings!):
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:
Welcome to Brandon Sanderson’s Fantasy Empire—Esquire‘s Adam Morgan didn’t set off as much controversy as his colleague at Wired did last week. I’m still Sanderson-agnostic, but it’s stuff like this that makes me not want to be.
Guinness names four-year-old boy world’s youngest author—Awwww
Literary baby names ranked from least to most cringey.—this is a handy list for prospective/expecting parents. Or just fun to read for whoever.
An Interview With Tao Wong!—K.R.R. Lockhaven chats “with Tao Wong about cozy fantasy, food in books, and Kickstarter projects”
Constructing Doom in Eli Cranor’s DON’T KNOW TOUGH—Paul J. Garth breaks down a pivotal scene (maybe the pivotal scene) in Cranor’s novel. If you’ve read the book, this is a rewarding look. If you haven’t—stay away from this post until you’ve corrected your mistake.
Crazy Jobs 5 Famous Female Authors Had Before Writing—(I’m a little jealous of Octavia Butler, I’m sure the reality doesn’t match the fantasy around that job title, but man…)
I don’t (often) talk about adaptations, but how do you not get excited about this announcement from Edgar Wright?
Let’s Talk Bookish – Do Genres Change Over Time?—As I usually do when it comes to Let’s Talk Bookish prompts, I ran out of time to scribble anything in response. I think it’d have looked like a less thoughtful version of Peat Long’s had I managed to.
The Absurd Infantilisation of Children’s Literature—The Orangutan Librarian starts with the hatchet job taken to Dahl’s works and moves on from there.
Why I disagree with the Bowdlerisation of Agatha Christie by HarperCollins—Mike Finn nails it
What I’ve learnt from reading fiction – part 9—as always, I love these posts.
Reading is a radical act
Five Science Fiction Book Recommendations for Beginners—a good starter list. Also a decent list of SF reads for people who aren’t beginners
How the Pandemic Changed My Reading Experience
Have Book Bloggers Been “Deinfluencers” All Along?
How To Work With Book Bloggers [Marketing Tips]—I can think of a few authors I’d like to send this post to if I could only figure out a way to do it without being/coming across as a twerp
On Story-Savvy Audiences and Obviousness—this is incredibly important for the Thriller/Mystery community (but holds for every genre)

A Little Help for Our Friend
Kickstarter: Mrs. Covington’s: A Cozy Fantasy Novel—It’s at 81 percent with 11 days to go, if you haven’t kicked in yet, why not do it today? Pretty please?

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Know Thy Enemy by Jeffery H. Haskell—Grimm and the crew of the Interceptor are back in death-defying action
Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey—”genre-defying story of humanity’s expansion across millions of dimensions—and the AI technology that might see it all come to an end.”
Strictly No Heroics by B.L. Radley—”a normal teen girl must navigate crushing on her best friend, starting a new summer job, and not being squashed during the next supervillain showdown in B.L. Radley’s young adult debut filled with humor and heart.”

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Hilarey, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.

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:
An Unstandardized, Decentralized Carnival Fire: How Rare Books Are Cataloged—something I’d never given a moment of thought to before, but now I kind of want to spend weeks studying (Morgan Freeman voice-over: He won’t).
Benedict Jacka’s new series officially announced—he’s been talking pretty vaguely about this for months, but now things are official enough that we get details.
I Was a Teenage Pop Culture Detective: Hector DeJean on the delights of discovering cultural offerings in the days before the internet.—this goes beyond books, but I still think it counts. Readers of a certain age will identify with a lot of this. Younger readers might grow in their appreciation for how good they have it.
Beyond the Wardrobe: A Commendation of the Wider Works of C.S. Lewis
Reading in a Fallow Month
How I plan my blog posts—Wait, what? You can plan these things?
The Big, Long List of Awesome Indie Books—Great idea. And one I wish I had years ago. I was inspired for about 3 minutes by this to come up with my own. Then I started thinking about all the work involved and opened Twitter instead.
Speaking of great ideas involving a lot of work…The Longest SFF Series by Word Count
Are Wild Adaptations of Your Work a Sign You’ve “Made It” As an Author?
Why Rereading Books is Worthwhile: Rediscovering Old Favourites

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Fiction Fans Author Interview: The Hero Interviews by Andi Ewington—since I finally got around to writing about the book this week, I could let myself listen to this. A good chat about a good book—brought up a lot of stuff I forgot to say, too.
Fiction Fans Author Interview: Mrs. Covington’s by K.R.R. Lockhaven—Sara and Lily talk to Lockhaven about the Kickstarter for his new novel.

A Little Help for Our Friend
Kickstarter: Mrs. Covington’s: A Cozy Fantasy Novel—It’s almost at 40 percent after 4 days, if you haven’t kicked in yet, why not do it today?

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto—a delightful mystery about tea, found family, loneliness, and (sure) a murder. I tried to express how happy it made me earlier this week
Good Dog, Bad Cop by David Rosenfelt—It really feels like The K Team series is coming into its own with this one. I talked a bit about it recently.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to SHANNON K SEXTON, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.

I’m still dealing with the Tiki Idol necklace I mentioned on Wednesday, but at least I’ve been able to escape into a few good books this week–hopefully, I can find the time to talk about them soon.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at this week’s Miscellany.

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:
Former resident born in library returns to celebrate 94th birthday—Enjoy a moment of “Awwwwww…”
Bookstores enjoy a renaissance as readers embace [sic] real books
How to organize your books, according to people with thousands of them
Judy Blume Forever – Official Trailer
Top 11 Funniest Mistakes in Popular Books—Maybe not funny ha-ha but funny weird.
The series Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical series continued this week at Witty & Sarcastic Book Club with:
…Featuring JCM Berne
An Interview with Joyce Reynolds-Ward
An Interview with Michael Lortz
An Interview with Beth Tabler
Amazon vs. Piracy: Who’s winning, and why?—one author’s perspective and experience
The best and worst publishing trends—N.S. Ford has a few opinions on publishing trends
Everything is Fantasy—Hiu Gregg has some thoughts on the wideness of the Fantasy genre

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Acknowledgements “The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True” by Sean Gibson – Episode 2—1. The idea behind this podcast is ingenious. 2. This particular episode is great–I laughed multiple times and enjoyed learning a bit more about the novel, too.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Fox Spirit by Allyson Johnson—I intended to talk about this last week, but slipped up. This is an online novel being posted twice a week, the link’ll take you to the intro post. Johnson knows her stuff when it comes to books, I can only imagine that’ll shine through in her writing.
Backpacking through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire—The latest InCryptid novel finds Alice and Thomas trying to get used to life on Earth again—just when the Covenant of St. George launches an attack. This looks fun.
Teen Titans: Robin by Kami Garcia, Gabriel Picolo (Art)—the new graphic novel in this series focuses on Dick Grayson and Damian.
But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films by Kristen Lopez—”Turner Classic Movies offers an endlessly fascinating look at 52 beloved screen adaptations and the great reads that inspired them.” This looks like a fun look at what makes for a good adaptation—either a faithful one or one that isn’t.
Instinct edited by L. J. Hachmeister—UF stories about animal companions of some of our favorite characters (and some brand new), with profits donated to a puppy rescue. What more could you want?

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to hikingtheup who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.

One of the best things about what I’ve been reading/blogging about lately is that I can walk away from not being able to write about a book featuring bent and broken cops to do a quick write-up about a children’s D&D book. I mean, those cops are still weighing on my mind, like they have been for two weeks—but at least I produced something.

It feels like I’m on the verge of a long ramble, but today is an oddly busy Saturday, so I’m going to shut up and move on with the Miscellany…

This is another week without any new releases catching my eye—is it me or is there something going on in the publishing world? It seems like we’ve had more of those this year than I’m used to. I will say the next two weeks will not find me saying that, however.

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:
Bryant & May novelist Christopher Fowler has died aged 69—I didn’t read as much Bryant & May as I intended to, but any time I spent with Fowler was a reward.
Roald Dahl is the last thing we should worry about on World Book Day—great perspective
Autism can be a huge publishing strength—and challenge—really glad I read this
The Indie Fantasy Fund—what a great idea, definitely worth throwing a couple of bucks at
How Two Jewish Kids in 1930s Cleveland Altered the Course of American Pop Culture: On Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and the Birth of Superman—I don’t know that I want to take the time to read the whole book, but I really liked this excerpt
Suspiciously Suspect: Who Is—and Isn’t—an Unreliable Narrator?—I don’t spend much time doing it, but I do appreciate chewing on the idea of what makes an unreliable narrator—and what supposedly doesn’t.
Why You Shouldn’t Write to Market: Book Berne-ing ep 002—Even if you ignore what he says about The Irresponsible Reader, this discussion about the relationship between authors and readers is well worth your time. Berne hits on things that I think we’re prone to ignore. The fact that my friend includes a shout-out to this here website was a pleasant surprise and a bonus.
Witty and Sarcastic Book Club is in the middle of another great series. These Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical are my favorite non-book reads of the week.
…Featuring Dorian Hart
An Interview with DH Willison
…Featuring Ricardo Victora
An Interview with Raina Nightingale
Why is every character suddenly an ‘antihero’ now? What happens when no one can call a villain a villain—The author has some strange ideas about “suddenly.” And honestly, I think a lot of what he says/concludes is flawed. But I did enjoy the piece…any thoughts?
World Book Day 2023: Books That Are Special To Us—to commemorate Wold Book Day, “the FanFiAddict team wanted to share some of the books that are special to us, whether it be an old favourite from our childhoods or a new found love.” If this post doesn’t cause your heart to grow three sizes, something’s wrong with you. At the same time, if your heart does grow three sizes…you should consult a physician immediately, something really could be wrong with you.
The Slow Horses, but Muppets—Spy Write’s bringing the grins lately, this casting of Herron’s Slow Horses with the Muppets made me chuckle—and some of the pictures sealed it (Kermit’s in particular). I’m not sure I was prepared for Scooter’s picture though, some things are still too fresh…

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Mike Finn, who followed the blog this week. I hope you enjoy the content and keep coming back.

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:
AI-generated fiction is flooding literary magazines — but not fooling anyone—Am sure you’ve all seen headlines about this already…
Literary giants have thoughts on the new edits to Roald Dahl’s works.—this is a bit (just a bit) moot thanks to the news yesterday that Roald Dahl’s publisher responds to backlash by keeping ‘classic’ texts in print—which makes a the voice inside my head that wears a spiffy tinfoil chapeau wonder if the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
The rise and fall — and rise again — of Barnes & Noble
What Is It That Makes Used Bookstores So Wonderful?: Used bookstores are more than just stores with books—Yes.
The Importance of Duality of Plot in Space Operas
The Importance of Rom Coms!
From the Pages of Slough House: Leadership Tips from Jackson Lamb, The Perfect Boss—yes, I’m critical of ChatGPT things, but when used the way that Jeff at Spy Write does here, it produces some fun content. I’m going to remember some of these tips for my next job interview…

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
The Chronscast E15 – Introducing Peat Long—Peat Long joins the team over at Chronscast and gets introduced here, if you’ve ever wondered about the voice behind the provocative blog posts, here’s your chance. (also, listen to their exit music at 1.0…I might make this podcast a regular listen for it alone)
The Professional Noticer An Accidental Death…with Peter Grainger—an incredibly rare audio appearance by the great Peter Grainger

Heavy on the book blogger posts this week—some great stuff, IMHO. The one news story is likely going to my favorite (or in the top 3) of the year.

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:
Calvin & Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Is Back With “A Fable For Grown Ups” Called The Mysteries—For me, all I needed to read/link to this week is this post. And yes, I’ve placed my order.
Although, I thought LitHub’s version of the announcement was more amusing.
What “The Last Unicorn” Means to Us Today: A metaphor for our search for belonging.—eh, sure, this is about the movie, not the novel. Close enough, I guess. (I do like the idea of Geek Therapy, and will have to look at more of this author’s work)
Adult Consolations: Tolkien on Fantasy—loved this
A draft examination of the direct influences of fantasy authors pre-2000 part one: Preliminaries and Overview—The title says it all—a great post from Peat Long (who should probably share the byline on my Miscellanies lately), the work on this one post has to roughly equal the work I’ve done on this whole blog over the years.
Celebrating Love Stories #RespectRomFic—In honor of that holiday earlier in the week
In the same vein: You can read it in the time it takes to have a one night stand’: authors on their favourite romcom books—this is an interesting list from The Guardian. Worth checking out if only for Mike Gayle’s entry, he suggests the last author I’d have imagined on a list like this.
Negative Book Reviews Are Necessary—yup
Songs that fit book characters—this is a fun idea
The Audience for Book Reviews

A Book-ish Related Podcast episode (or two) you might want to give a listen to:
Roughneck Dispatch: Jo Perry—Matt Phillips has started a new podcast about storytelling, this episode features a conversation with the great Jo Perry. I’m only halfway through the episode, but it’s so good that I didn’t want to risk forgetting to post the link.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel—A story of some twins struggling to make it in a small Ohio city (which is a lousy description, but you try to sum up this book in a pithy sentence). It’s from McDaniel, it’s beautiful, it’s tragic. Here’s my inadequate take on it from a couple of weeks ago.
Black Wolf by Kathleen Kent—An undercover CIA agent in Belarus during the crumbling of the USSR trying to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands, maybe discovers a serial killer (or something worse)

I didn’t have a lot of time on the InterWebs this week, which leads to a small miscellany. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ C’est la vie. But I did enjoy these pieces and think you will, too.

No New Releases caught my eye this week, which is good—I am literally 2+ weeks behind this year (and it’s the second week of February!!!), I don’t need the temptation.

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:
Banning books in the land of the free
What books hate most in readers.—I can’t read the story this is in response to (but the headline and subtitle make me think I’d have enjoyed it), but this is a fun post.
Can Detective Novels Withstand the Moonlighting Curse?—Seasonally appropriate, even if I dispute the existence of said curse.
The Many Levels of Mystery: ‘Whodunnit?’ to ‘Whydunnit?’ and Beyond (this is about much more than mystery or crime writing)
Reading Ireland Month is Coming—If I’ve heard of this before, I’ve completely forgotten it. Sounds like a fun idea. Head on over to 746 Books to check it out.
For the love of wild romance—Outside of the lack of Eames-appreciation, the only things wrong with this post is that it isn’t longer and published somewhere more eyeballs won’t land on it.
Let people enjoy their books how they see fit—it’s truly ridiculous that this needs to be said. But since it does (repeatedly), at least it’s said well.
5 Misconceptions About YA

The kind of activity by a Publisher (Indie or not, but an Indie has more freedom to do) that deserves attention:
We don’t want your money honey. Seriously, we don’t.—Fahrenheit Press points to some great charities to help earthquake victims in Syria & Turkey and will be donating all profits from their store this weekend, too.

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:
A New Way to Read Gatsby—huh…
The art of exclamation marks!—Huh!!
For a Mystery Novel, How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex?—I think this is a pretty good way to think of it from the author’s POV. From the reader’s, too.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Anyone’s Personal Library—even without the response to a certain link I shared last week (the one Peat described as “incredibly smugly middle-class”), this is a good read.
Best of the Best: 2015 to 2022—Like the Stephen Writes I linked to recently, I’m impressed that anyone is capable of compiling a list like this.
Why I Believe It’s Important to Clearly Indicate the Age Category of Books
Why Adults Love Young Adult Fiction
So, You Own a Tiny Human. How About Some Book Recs?—I could go broke from this post alone…95+% of these look great
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie- A Mom/Son review—I love the idea behind this!
I don’t know why I’ve never thought of doing something like this, but I might have to in ’24: Authors I wanna give a second chance to in 2023 and Try Again Authors for 2023

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen—I have no idea what this book is about, and want to go into it blind. I just assume it has something to do with Vampires. Probably some family drama, too. It’s from Mike Chen, that’s enough to put it at the top of the TBR.
Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano—single mom, novelist, and definitely-not-an-assassin Finlay Donovan gets into more hijinks involving a killer, the Russian mob, and her nanny.

This is a shorter and very eclectic collection for you this week. Hope you enjoy.

I didn’t see any New Releases to tempt you with this week—you’ll have to find someone else to add to your TBR pile–did I miss something I should’ve listed here?

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 is precious – which is why I’ve been giving away my books—I appreciate where Cosslet is coming from, but I’m not that good of a person
Adventures in Not-Writing—one writer’s journey through not-writing
Real Shit and Book Shit with K.R.R. Lockhaven—a great interview with friend-of-the-blog K.R.R. Lockhaven
The Enduring Appeal of the Teen Detective: From books to TV, why we keep going back for more young gumshoes
Asian Sleuths—Slueths & Sidekicks (a site I need to spend more time on) has a nifty list of Asian Detectives/Detective-type Characters. I’d read a decent percentage of this list, which surprised me—also it’s probably a sign that we need more Asian Detective stories.
Crime Fiction Heroes: To Age or Forever Young?—Not surprisingly, Paul Levine comes down on the “To Age” side (I do, too, and have thought of a piece like this for forever…maybe I don’t need to now)
Molly Templeton asks (and offers some answers), What Makes a Story Comforting?
Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist—I’m not sure I buy all of Duke’s conclusions and reasoning. But I appreciated this piece and will probably keep chewing on it.
The Chronicles of Prydain Overview by Jason Dodge—I will read about Prydain any day, and I liked this overview enough that I wish it was 2-3 times longer.
My A-Z Of Books – A—Steven Writes commemorates their 5 year anniversary by kicking off a series of “all of the most significant things for each letter, such as the authors and books I have read; the most memorable characters I have come across, and the most captivating settings” from A to Z. Daunting project that will result in some great reading for those of us who don’t have to compose it.
Our Engagement With Book Reviews—this is why I don’t look at individual post engagement 🙂
On Good and Bad Books—Peat Long takes an interesting route to defining a good book (I think I agree, too, for what it’s worth)

Let’s start with a question that I’ve been meaning to ask for a bit–can any of you readers suggest US-based book bloggers who focus on (to some degree or another) on Crime Fiction? I was recently asked for some suggestions but both attrition and time have whittled down those that I follow to be almost entirely UK-based bloggers. (nothing wrong with that, but it skews 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:
American book reading statistics for 2022 and 2023 (complete USA survey data)—I was pretty surprised by some of these stats (and wonder about the truthfulness of some of the self-reporting, but I usually do). Big thanks to David Leonhardt for dropping by to share this with me.
I wish Amazon had been honest about why it’s sunsetting AmazonSmile—it’s not technically about reading, but…it’s close enough. I’m with this writer, when I got this email, I smelled something.
Mystery Writers of America Announces 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominations—I haven’t read nearly enough of these
Does Historical Accuracy Matter in Historical Fiction?: With fiction, the answers are never quite so simple.
TBRCon2023—the all-virtual sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention, streams live from Jan. 22-29, 2023. There’s some really appetizing programming coming up (and the early panel that went up Wednesday is one I definitely have to check out)
2023 Blogging Goals: The Year of Playing Catch Up—this is probably the smartest list of blogging/reading goals I’ve read for this year. I need to remember to steal this next year.
Speaking of smart things I need to steal, Peat Long continues to think and write well about genre. The most examples are this week’s On Sci-Fantasy and Approaching Genre and Horizontal and Vertical Genres: A Concept
Book Reviews vs. Beta Reading
Let’s Talk Bookish: Collecting Books
Five Year Blogging Anniversary – Top 10 Books—5 Years is a good milestone, but I’m more impressed by the fact that Stephen Writes was able to come up with a Top 10 over that timeframe.
I really appreciate this thread from John Palladino about liking things from “bad” people. I’ve tried to write something like this before, but ended up messing it up.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
Killer Story by Matt Witten—Theoretically, a story about a journalist launching a podcast to solve the murder of an estranged friend (and save her journalistic career). But it ends up being more than that—including becoming one of the best Crime Fiction novels I read last year. Here’s my take on the book.
Lie to Her by Melinda Leigh—Sherriff Bree Taggart has to deal with more murder and shenanigans. This time involving an internet dating site.
Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart by Jen Sookfong Lee—a “memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman’s life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage.”