Tag: Saturday Miscellany Page 38 of 62

So the lateness today is intentional, I had to take care of Main Bad Guy‘s post (which you should read, not because I think the post is so good, but the book I’m talking about is). Busy week around here — but good, on the whole. Hope yours is as well. Getting our first real snow of the season right now — odd for it to come so late, but I’m glad we finally got some (I’ll be less glad when I have to leave the house in a couple of hours, but . . . )

On with things — 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:

• There’s no shame in reading whatever books you want – literary snobs be damned — I find a lot of the argumentation here problematic, but it should be talked about. And I agree with her conclusion.
• Meet the Guardian of Grammar Who Wants to Help You Be a Better Writer — the subtitle alone sells me: “Benjamin Dreyer sees language the way an epicure sees food. And he finds sloppiness everywhere he looks.” I’m going to have to track down this book
• Advice to New Bookbloggers — Mrs Blogs the Average Reader has some uncommonly sage advice that even established bloggers might profit from.
• Blog Tours – The Basics — speaking of great blogging advice, this is a very useful post.
• Let’s talk Trigger Warnings. — because what week doesn’t need some controversy from The Tattooed Book Geek?
• Coincidentally enough, a couple of days before I read this, I’d not read but bookmarked this: It’s Official — Trigger Warnings Might Actually Be Harmful
• Black Summer: Cover Reveal! — I honestly don’t care what the cover looks like, as long as I get to spend more time with The Puppet Show‘s Poe and Tilly (one of my favorites from last year), but it is a cool cover — and the blurb is even better.
• The Top 15 Most Lethal Ladies in the Thriller Genre Right Now — very few of these would end up on my list, but this looks like a pretty good one.
• Brilliant Crime Fiction Detectives With Disabilities — A nifty idea for a piece from Novel Suspects, inspired by a longer (and even niftier) piece at Beyond Rivalry
• 50 Fictional Writers, Ranked: The Best and Worst from Literature, Film, & TV — I’m pretty sure I shared this last year when Lit Hub first posted it, but I was reminded of it this week, and its a fun one to go through again.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste — yeah, it was published last year, but the U. S. Edition is available for people who don’t like ordering books from the UK. Neat new cover, too. I talked about it here last year.
• Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond — The true story about what happened to Eleven’s mother. I had this in my hand and put it down today. I’m very curious, but not sure I want to try this. I’m going be looking for reviews on this one. Feel free to point me at some — especially your own!
• One Fatal Mistake by Tom Hunt — another one that I’m curious about, it could be really good. A mother and son cover up an accidental killing, and then things get out of control…

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Kara Skinner, Blood Rose Books, libarah and Matilde Mbulo for following the blog this week.

No intro today — no time for love, Doctor Jones — so let’s cut to it: 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:

• Don’t @ Me: Authors have a good case against people who bad-mouth their books on Twitter, then drag them into the conversation — how is this something we have to say again?
• For Sale: Letters and Illustrations From Dr. Seuss — a collection from 1957 — the year of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat. Now I can’t imagine anyone reading this will be in the market for things like this, but you might want to read about it.
• William Goldman’s Strange, Sad, Captivating Children’s Book About a Girl and Her Blanket — I know I haven’t read everything by Goldman, but I thought I’d heard of almost all of it. Not this one though, would be fun to read.
• How Elan Mastai time-warped his way to a debut novel — if you haven’t read All Our Wrong Todays yet, what is wrong with you? Go read this — maybe this will convince you.
• The Dark and Dreamy Noir of The Great Gatsby: A Crime Reading of Fitzgerald’s Classic — huh
• How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?
• The Evolution of Harry Bosch — another great Crime Reads piece
• Benedict Jacka has revealed the cover of Fallen, the 10th Alex Verus book. More colors than the first 9. I dig it.
• You Know Your Friends are Readers When… — BookRiot’s list is cute but too short.
• Steve Cavanagh talks about his new book on Ireland AM

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen — One of my favorite of 2019 (which isn’t saying much, I realize, as early as we are) — I can’t stop talking about this one, here’s how I started talking about it on the blog — and if you’re silly enough to talk to me in Real Life, you’ll hear a lot more about it.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to editorbtg and lollyrugs for following the blog this week.

I almost had this one up in time — but like two other nights this week, I woke up hours after I started a sentence to read utter gibberish on my screen. Maybe next week? (and yes, I’m probably the only one who cares about the time this posts, I realize.)

This week’s list is light on news-y posts and primarily features authors I greatly appreciate sounding off about interesting topics and updates for their fans/readers/etc. Honestly, I prefer weeks like this — a lot of stuff to think about/debate. Some good 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:

• Book clinic: what contemporary literary fiction is uplifting? — on the one hand, I’m not sure I need my literature to be “uplifting” — but I do like the idea of it. Regardless, some interesting looking reads here.
• The Pressure to Continue the Story After the Story — some good stuff from typical font of good stuff, Harry Connolly
• I Write Fiction About Border Crime, But Unlike Trump I Tell the Truth. — The political stuff in this piece by Don Winslow is easy to ignore (I’m not suggesting you should ignore it, but for the purposes of this blog, we’re going to focus on other bits).
• While reading the above, I saw this: If I Hate Violence So Much, Why Do I Love Writing About It? by Adam Sternbergh. I’ve loved his novels — which do feature a lot of violence, so I had to read this (although I could’ve guessed almost everything he said about himself — but still, the “why” is intriguing).
• Lots of Lee Coming Your Way — some updates from one of the favorites around here, Lee Goldberg.
• Exciting news to share on publication day! — M. W. Craven, a new favorite since last summer, has a lot of good news to share on the day his The Puppet Show (which featured prominently on my 2018 wrap up posts) came out in paperback (at least in the UK).
• Ranking Jonathan Tropper’s Novels — Matthew Hanover discusses and ranks Jonathan Tropper’s novels. I could feel Tropper’s influence in Hanover’s work, so this was in my sweet spot (am hoping to do a Tropper re-read later this year, btw). I’d argue about #4’s place on the list, but I think Hanover could convince me to keep it that high. However, he’s dead wrong about #1 and #2 and should flip them after publicly repenting. No sackcloth and ashes required, but . . .

Somehow no books were published this week that piqued my interest. At least not that I saw. Good. Catch up time.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to allmyheroesareweirdos, ladolceamara, William J. Fulton, Shawn P. B. Robinson, Davida Chazan, wanderingminds2019 and Elle for following the blog this week (I think this is my biggest week ever — thanks, guys & gals!).

Remember when this was posted at about the same time every week? Yeah, me neither. On the other hand, I slept well last night. Even if that started well before I was ready/aware of it.

Oh, btw, the whole “Block Editor” thing that WordPress is trying to get me to use — I don’t see the point and man, there’d better be a whole lotta very accessible help files ready to go when they impose this on us w/o the option to go back to the Classic Editor.

With no further ado or delay, 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:

• 7 Reasons Why Reading as a Kid Was the Best: Adult-free reading nooks, never-ending series, school book fairs. What could be better? — this made me think of a comment I saw on a recent post where someone said that as a kid they’d read “all the books in X series” several times as a kid. I couldn’t help thinking — that series started in the 50’s, was still being published in the 80’s (when I “grew out of” them). Yeah, you may have read several — but not the whole series. Kinda miss those kind of series (he says, until he whines about Stephanie Plum again . . . )
• Book Sales Are Soaring—And Not Just the Digital Kind
• The Villainous Bitch Has Become the Most Boring Trend in Literature — I think this has a lot of good things to say, but I don’t quite buy it. What do you think?
• Do you trust bloggers who don’t post negative reviews? — the topic that never dies
• Staying Quirky With Quirk Books — a nice profile of the niche-y publisher
• The Edgar Awards Revisited: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (Best Novel; 1955) — I’ve mentioned Criminal Element’s new series recently — this is a great example of the value of the series (even if this particular author wasn’t quite as enamored of the book as he “should” have been).
• Michael Connelly’s Five Favorite Crime Novels of All Time — I honestly forgot that Connelly mentioned The Long Goodbye until this moment. A good list, regardless.
• Five Favourite Finished Fantasy Series — good grief — another post from The Tattooed Book Geek this week?
• Friday Favorite Five: Urban Fantasy Series
• 19 Kinds of Reading I’ve Done (that You’ve Done, Too) — blah

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Back Door To Hell by Paul Gadsby — a couple of amateurs try to steal from a crime lord to start their lives. Am thinking the title gives a hint about how that goes.
• Marked by S Andrew Swann– what a fantastic premise — click the link to read it. A detective, magic, time travel and extra-dimensional bad guys.
• Tear It Down by Nick Petrie — my goal of catching up on the Peter Ash series this year just got 384 pages harder.
• Night School: A Reader for Grownups by Zsófia Bán — Click the link to read the description, I can’t do it justice. I’ve only heard good things about this and can easily see it living up to the hype.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Dalindcy Koolhoven and ailishsinclair for following the blog this week.

Just a few 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:

• Lin-Manuel Miranda buys bookshop to save it from closure — sweet little story.
• The Art of the Pan: What’s the Point of a Bad Review in 2019? — Not technically about books/reading — but anyone looking at this space thinks about reviews in general at least a little bit.
• I somehow at various points of the week stumbled onto a theme. We’ll start with: On the Heartbreaking Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books: Summer Brennan Attempts Marie Kondo’s Approach to Tidying Up Her Library — I may have actually shared this back in 2016, I’m too lazy to check.
• What we gain from keeping books – and why it doesn’t need to be ‘joy’ — Anakana Schofield had a very different reaction to Kondo’s advice.
• And finally — try not to get jealous at some of these pics: 10 Famous Book Hoarders — another one I might have shared before, but I ran across it this week again.
• Seanan McGuire‏ prompted fans to hit her up with Toby Daye characters brought to life by memes from The Good Place, which was very fun.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire — the 4th Wayward Children novella, a wonderful story about a very serious girl. I gushed about it a little earlier this week.
• The Burglar by Thomas Perry — a young burglar stumbles onto a murder scene and ends up running for her life. A heckuva thrill-ride. I talked about it last fall a bit.
• The Fall of Io by Wesley Chu — we finally get to return to the war between Prophus and Genjix via Ella and Io. I need to find time to read this soon.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Hannah, workwithlapo and salmanalfarisi for following the blog this week.

I seem to be having one of those weeks: I’m reading a fantastic book and — to make deadlines — a pretty good book and one I haven’t decided about yet. And I feel like I’m getting nowhere with any of them (the bookmarks keep moving, so I know that’s not the case). It’s pretty frustrating. Especially with library due dates and other deadlines looming. I tell ya, the reader’s life is hard, yo.

Anyway, I haven’t spent that much time web/social media surfing this week. But I do have a small list of odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye to share with you. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Audiobooks, inclusivity and #MeToo … how books changed in 2018 — I’d differ a bit with some of the analysis in this piece from The Guardian, but I still liked the overview as a whole
• A Massive Number of Iconic Works Will Enter the Public Domain on New Year’s Eve — I’m not convinced it’ll be all that good for creativity, but it’ll be handy for ease of access.
• Old favorites, outdated attitudes: Can entertainment expire? — I’m not sure Antony gets anywhere with this question, but it’s something I keep running into.
• How to Read Even More in 2019: 12 Tips on How to Maximize Your Reading This Year — I’ve seen this shared a lot. Unlike most years where I see a variety on the same theme, it’s like everyone just decided to use this from Strand Bookstore.
• 25 Books Hitting the Screen in 2019 — Some items on this list seem like a bad idea, few really excite me. What about you?
• The Real Book Spy’s 2019 Reading Guide: Every Thriller We Know About So Far
• Starting yesterday, “and continuing every Friday moving forward,” Criminal Element “will be revisiting every Edgar Award winner for Best Novel.” — Which looks like a dynamite series.
• Raymond Chandler and a Meditation on Nero Wolfe and His Orchids

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Asha Seth, rosemikeals42, nikkit321, andrayachristine and Solid lover of poetry for following the blog this week.

Sure, local/state governments had problems, small businesses were hurt, 911 centers weren’t able to operate, but the real victim of the CenturyLink outage was my blogging plans for the week. Well, okay, maybe not. But it sure seemed terribly inconvenient at the time. While it was a slow posting week, I did get a lot of reading done — I should wrap up work on my last reading challenge for 2018 today (knocked off another one yesterday), and nailed down a lot of plans for the next few weeks (I somehow have found myself committed to 8 books in January. Which isn’t that many, really, but it seems daunting). Hope your [insert preferred holiday name] week was good in whatever way you spent it.

Here’s the smattering of 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:

• Instagram is helping save the indie bookstore
• Best Reads of 2018: Speculative Fiction — the third (and final, I think) installment of Paul’s Picks Best of 2018 — added one from this to my TBR pile (maybe will come back for more).
• Favorite Crime Fiction of 2018 — The Rap Sheet’s produced (and tracked) a few lists — I think I’ve link one of these, but I’m not sure. Here’s a link to them all for your browsing pleasure.
• 14 Books for Grammar Nerds — I started one of these (and wish I hadn’t run out of time to finish) and have another on my shelves. Those numbers should rise by the end of 2019.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to february87 and Ontheminds for following the blog this week.

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:

• Bookstore Sales Increased 7.2% in October — doesn’t sound like much, but up is up, right?
• Guess what’s anchoring many small downtowns?: Even in the age of online shopping, the answer is: bookstores
• The ‘Future Book’ Is Here, but It’s Not What We Expected — this Wired piece is worth the read
• How Indie Presses Are Elevating the Publishing World: Three independent publishers discuss their mission — 7.13 Books is featured in this nice offering from Electric Lit (nothing against the other groups featured, I just don’t know them)
• Some Thoughts on my Forthcoming Novel ‘Not Famous’ — I’m a little annoyed because I’m about half done with my post about this book and Hanover covers everything I talked about here. Now I’m going to sound like I’m taking talking points from him 🙂
• Thinking of Rex Stout & Nero Wolfe — you know me, I never pass up a chance to proselytize about Stout and Wolfe.
• Crime Fiction Superlatives: The Best and Most of 2018: Yearbook Superlatives For the Crime and Mystery World — I should’ve done something like this, but I’m not that clever.
• A few more Best Ofs:
  • Best Nonfiction of 2018 — according to Paul’s Picks
  • 19 authors pick the best crime novels of 2018 — from Dead Good
  • The Best Crime and Mystery Debuts of 2018: 15 New Voices To Watch — from Crime Reads, I’ve read one of these and wanted to get to a few others
  • Crime Reads also named The Best Noir Fiction of 2018: Celebrating the Year in PIs, Procedurals, Noir and Hard-Boiled
  • The Fantasy Inn’s Best of 2018 — I agree with a lot of these, and added a couple of other things to my TBR
• Because we can’t just look back:
  • 2019 Preview: 25 Thrillers to Watch for Next Year — I’m carving out time on my calendar already for some of these
  • Most Anticipated 2019 books! — from Grimdark Dad. Some great looking things here.
• Tom Gauld on the author’s ultimate goal is the cartoon we wrap things up with.

Book-ish Related Podcast Episodes you might want to give a listen to, both from Hank Garner’s Author Stories:
• Episode 527 | Craig Johnson Returns To Talk Depth Of Winter And Writing A Long Running SeriesI meant to post this last week, but, better late than never. Good chat in general — but the bits we got about the 2019 novel absolutely make it worth it.
• Episode 531 with Luke Daniels, Rhett Bruno, and Jaime Castle
  I like Bruno, Castle seems like someone I can appreciate — but Luke bleepin’ Daniels? Loved listening to him.

This Week’s only had One New Release that Caught my eye:
• The Disasters by M. K. England — “The Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy” ’nuff said.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Russell Deasley for following the blog this week.

It’s still technically Saturday. Especially in my time zone…. Nothing wrong, just one of those days. So, here’s a few 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:

• World’s Highest-Paid Authors 2018: Michael Wolff Joins List Thanks To ‘Fire And Fury’ — no shockers on this list — but the numbers separating the top 3 from each other (not to mention from the rest of the list), are eyebrow raising. Also, I wasn’t aware that the two tied for 8 were still producing. Also, I love the associations for those tied for tenth and fifth.
• Billy Connolly: ‘Going to the library changed my life. It may even have saved it’ — I prefer funny Billy Connolly to elder statesman Billy Connolly (or whatever label you wanna throw on his more thoughtful stage), but this is a good read.
• 8 Things I Learned Behind the Circulation Desk — I worked in a library in high school, and can endorse all of these, 3 & 6 in particular (although I had a different reason for #6 — chaos rules that section, no matter how hard you work).
• Crime Beat: The mystery community is infested with drummers. — there are more crime writing drummers out there than you might have guessed (if you ever considered the question, that is)
• Cover Reveal of HEART OF BARKNESS — There are few books I’m anticipating more than this one in 2019. Seeing the cover doesn’t help much.
• Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott review – bang-on Bertie Wooster reboot — I really don’t care about this, really just posting this to give Bookstooge something to comment about.
• The 20 Best Crime Novels of 2018: The Year’s Best in Crime and Mystery Fiction — from CrimeReads
• Best Reads of 2018: Fiction — The first of Paul’s Picks 2019 lists.
• The Most Scathing Reviews of 2018: “It’s physically impossible to dunk on a novel that is already dunking on itself so hard” — featuring a very different look at one book on Paul’s list.
• Why I love doing book reviews
• So, what is it about the series then? — a very nice post from the It’s an Indie Book Blog about the place of series in the hearts of readers and writers.

I actually didn’t see any new releases this week that made me sit up and take notice. I probably missed some good ones.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to Jenniely, Pinklotus76 and Word Hunter for following the blog this week.

I started a new job this week, which is what I’m blaming my relative silence on — I did almost complete a few posts, to be honest (and a little self-justifying). Just nothing I’m quite ready to push “publish” on. But I have an ambitious schedule for December, so I need to get busy (and I have a little bit of November to finish with, too — oops). Here’s hoping next week is busy around here.

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:

• Reasons for Blogging Slumps. — The Tattooed Book Geek’s post seemed an appropriate place to start with (although I’m not technically in a slump, I don’t think). Also, it’s a good one.
• The joy of not finishing books: if you don’t like it, don’t read it — James Colley’s piece is entertaining and wise — worth it for the last ‘graph alone.
• Why We (Still) Love Crime and Comic Book Heroes: On the Flawed Heroes and Superheroes of Modern Genre Fiction — I started this week off with a post about Meghan Scott Molin’s debut novel. Seems fitting to end it pointing to this from Crime Reads.
• Behind the Scenes: The Making of ‘Storm Cursed’ — I’m a fan of Dan Dos Santos’ work (and looking through his portfolio this week, I realized much of what I’d previously liked I had realized was his). This is a cool look into his process in designing the upcoming Mercy Thompson cover.
• It’s that time of year — best of lists. TBR pile fodder abounds. Here’s a few that I liked:
  • The Real Book Spy’s Best Thrillers of 2018
  • Guardian best books of 2018: across fiction, politics, food and more
  • Lit Hub’s Favorite Books of 2018: 59 Books That You Should Probably Read Some Time in 2019
  • Michael Connelly’s Favorite Reads of 2018 — blah
  • Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Graphic Novels of 2018 — from Powell’s Books’ Staff
• Who Is The Most Instagrammed Writer Of All Time? — huh
• ‘P Is for Pterodactyl’ alphabet book teaches kids some anomalies of the English language — this just looks like a lot of fun

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Frame-Up by Meghan Scott Molin — a comic writer/artist consults with the LAPD in a hunt for a real-world costumed vigilante in one of the most enjoyable debuts of the year. I talked a bit about it Monday
• Blood of Ten Kings by Edward Lazellari — The third volume of the Guardians of Aandor — an Epic Fantasy/Urban Fantasy hybrid of sorts — hit the stores this week. Listening to Lazellari describe the books on the latest Once & Future Podcast sold me on volume one.
• King of the Road by R. S. Belcher — I missed the first novel in this UF series last year, but a group of Truckers descended from the Knights Templar who defends the roads of the US from supernatural threats — and a biker gang, apparently — has got to be worth a read.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to awesomeyou (nice blog, but I can’t read that side bar — as pretty as it is), whinney, Di Salvo Cambiamento (I assume the blog is nice, but I can’t read that language), Arganise Campbell (a very busy young woman) and Shalini for following the blog this week.