Tag: Saturday Miscellany Page 40 of 61

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:

• Why ‘getting lost in a book’ is so good for you, according to science — Nothing terribly new here, but always good to have this reinforced
• Tie-in takeover: how film novelisations went from dire to great
• Auburn’s Ace Atkins: From football hero to best-selling crime novelist — a longer-than-usual profile of Atkins — from his days at Auburn to today.
• You Had Me Until the Ending…. — a fun discussion from Clues & Reviews
• Book Jackets Are Bad And You Can’t Convince Me Otherwise — this woman is a rank Philistine, but it’s a fun post.
• @erineliza_reads tweets a vital question — I need to come up with a plan, I don’t know about you.

There’s only one New Release this Week that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon, but it’s probably a good one:
• Video Killed The Radio Star by Duncan MacMaster — I (finally!) read the first in this series, yesterday. It was great! I bet this is, too.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to A Star on the Forehead, Tiana (The Book Raven), V Ramasamy, dpranita583 (don’t click on that link if you’re hungry, btw), Peg Glover, and SAM for following the blog this week.

I didn’t spend much time on social media this week — or anything really (see Wednesday’s Programming Note or this longer post on my other blog for details), but I was still able to find a decent list 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:

• How Minecraft is helping kids fall in love with books — I’m not sure I buy this, but, hey, it’s nice to think.
• Why You Should Read a Book With a Stranger — Great idea, but…I cannot imagine doing this.
• Why the ‘hero’ is the ultimate myth: Is he a Marvel-esque superhuman or an SAS daredevil? Or is he Ed Sheeran? Whatever the answer, it’s clear the public imagination is still holding out for a hero — It’s Andy Martin, so…you’re going to think and you’re going to have a good read.
• Why It’s So Hard to Stop Reading Books You Don’t Even Like — blah
• The World of Raymond Chandler and ‘The Big Sleep’: How Chandler Reinvented Himself and the Crime Novel
• It’s High Time You Read The Big Sleep — Megan Abbott and Jonathan Letham weigh in.
• THE SINNERS: Five Questions with Ace Atkins — Atkins talks about Quinn Colson and a little bit about Netflix’s Spenser movie.
• The Big Sleep: 25 Classic Covers, Ranked: Raymond Chandler’s Noir Has Inspired Some Truly Strange Art — I’ve never read a version of the book with one of these covers, but there’s some great ones here (and some others)

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen to:
• Episode 421 | Ace Atkins Interview on Hank Garner’s Author Stories Podcast.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Sinners by Ace Atkins — the 8th Quinn Colson/Tibbehah County novel is sure to be a good one. Sadly, my copy is hundreds of miles away from me, I’ll get to it when I can.
• Kill The Farm Boy by by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne — Part fantasy satire, part celebration of fantasy tropes, all fun and strong fantasy. I blogged about it a few weeks back.
• Constance Verity Saves the World by A. Lee Martinez — I’ve never read a Martinez sequel before, I don’t know what to expect. But…it’s going to be good.
• The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler; edited by Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson and Anthony Rizzuto — This is also hundreds of miles from me, but one of my kids opened the box and described it to me. Sounds like so much fun.
• Rescued by David Rosenfelt — Andy Carpenter defends a man he wants to be very far from Here’s what I had to say about it.
• The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn –the sequel to Bannerless a Vaughn book that has somehow not moved from by TBR Tower, this dystopian mystery novel looks just as good as its predecessor.
• Degrading Orbits by Bradley Horner — another sequel is out before I’ve had the opportunity to read the first in the series. Whoops.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to figlia dei fiori, Deb / Being Aunt Debbie, Dog Training Guidance, Cristian Mihai, pitchstory,and Jordan Peters for following the blog this week.

Just a few odds ‘n ends over this past week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• The Need to Read: Reading books remains one of the best ways to engage with the world, become a better person and understand life’s questions, big and small — This is a few years old, and I might have linked to it before, if I have, it’s worth a reread.
• On Semicolons and the Rules of Writing — been awhile since we got grammar-nerdy here, this is a good way to get back to it.
• A conversation with Ace Atkins about Spenser series and more — with the next Quinn Colson novel just around the corner, ol’ Ace Atkins is getting some good press.
• The Big Seep: Reading Raymond Chandler in the age of #MeToo. — Megan Abbot talks about her increasingly complicated relationship with Chandler. I’m not saying her take on Chandler is spot-on, but there’s a lot of food for thought.
• Kick-Ass Heroines WHO Should Be Read? — Zoë Sharp, who knows a thing or two about the subject herself, gives us a good reading list.
• 10 Reasons Book Reviews Still Matter

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen to:
• Ace Atkins – Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic on Stephen Usery’s Mysterypod

Maybe it was the holiday, maybe it was . . . who knows? I just didn’t see that much for this post this week. But there are a couple of odds ‘n ends about books and reading that did catch my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Leisure reading in the U.S. is at an all-time low — ugh.
• How To Lend A Book To A Friend & Still Get It Back Afterwards — Without It Being Awkward — there’s just been a whole lot about book lending in the atmosphere lately…why?
• Venting: Pirating books is wrong! — When you see tweets from Steve Cavanagh and Seanan McGuire (great thread, read it) on the same topic, you know something big happened. This rant does a good job summing up the arguments against book piracy. Sadly, I know too many and it’s really difficult to remember to be civil to them.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Marked by Benedict Jacka — Man, you thought Alex Verus had it rough when he was suspected constantly by TPTB and only trusted to help when they had no choice? Well, now that he’s one of TPTB (a minor P, but still) things are so much worse. Really digging this one, hope to post about it early next week.
• Heroine’s Journey by Sarah Kuhn — the third volume in this very strange, very charming, and frequently quirky Superhero series looks to continue the strange, charming and quirky ways.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to atozmom, https://crossfitmomm.com/ and jendionne10 for following the blog this week.

Ugh. Three posts behind for the week (stupid body requiring sleep); my scheduling was defeated by apparently hitting “draft” instead of “schedule” twice in the last week (took me 7 days to notice one of them); just got a shipment notification for a book I preordered so many months ago I forgot to expect it Tuesday — which means I have to reorganize my entire week; basically, life as a book blogger is hard, yo.

Anyway, enough about my travails and woes. 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:

• A Life of Reading Is Never Lonely — worth it for the first paragraph alone.
• The Great American Read: Author Patrick Rothfuss weighs in — this is a good one. (I haven’t read the translation mentioned of the World’s Greatest Play, but between Rothfuss and the linked review, I might have to track it down).
• Patience Pays Off: An Indie Success Story — I don’t know anything about Fredric Shernoff, but it’s a nice story.
• The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018 So Far — another one of these lists — this one from B&N’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog.
• The Books We Refuse To Lend
• One of The Books That Has Most Influenced Me Was One I Hated — an interesting take on that Facebook book challenge that’s making the rounds.
• The Best Country Music Is Crime Fiction: 12 Country Classics That Capture the Spirit of Noir — I wouldn’t have thought that Mark Billingham was the right guy to write something with this title, and I would’ve been wrong. Good stuff.
• 12 Famous Authors at Work With Their Dogs: The Most Literary Take Your Dog to Work Day — Yeah, this is technically a week late, but I’ll take any excuse to look at dog pics.
• TTBG’s Bad Blogging Advice 101

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• I meant to mention last week: Episode 147: Michael Koryta of the Speaking of Mysteries Podcast.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows — you know me, I’m a sucker for takes on Jane Eyre — even when they come in a YA Romance with a supernatural accent.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to cagedunn and Aspen Kendrick 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:

• Lots of People Love ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Roxane Gay Isn’t One of Them. — Roxane Gay is wrong about Mockingbird but that’s okay (I suppose), but this is actually about the shortcomings about a new book about the Novel/Film adaptation.
• Michael Connelly on Bosch, Books, and the (Occasional) Bad Review — from Novel Suspects.
• Teaching Children to Love Mystery, One Comic At a Time: How Scooby Doo Taught Me to Love Genre Fiction
• Hot Reading Challenge Tips from Pros Who Read More Than 100 Books a Year
• Tor.com Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2018—So Far — Last week we had Time‘s lists, this week Tor.com weighs in.
• 10 Hilarious Book Reviews

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to thisischechewinnie and vibealittle 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:

• What happened when I (tried to) read 30 books in 30 days — There’s some good lessons to learn from her failed experiment.
• No, my book is not a ‘guilty pleasure’ just because I’m a woman — I’ve read plenty of stuff written by non-women that were tagged “guilty pleasures,” so that part of this essay didn’t work for me. But overall, I liked it. The NFL line alone justified the time spent.
• Is rereading your guilty pleasure? We take a look at the pros and cons… — Ignoring the problematic phrase “guilty pleasure,” here’s a good look at this totally non-controversial issue (I did have to agree with a lot of the cons, even if I ignore most of them on a frequent basis)
• Here’s a helpful twitter thread about attending an author event or book signing
• 5 Literary Mysteries That Have Never Been Solved But Are Seriously Fascinating
• 40 of the Best Villains in Literature — Gotta agree with many of these
• Best Novels of 2018 So Far — Haven’t even heard of most of these. Whoops.
• Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 So Far — I have, however, heard of some of these…
• “I Can’t Tell You Stuff Like That!”: Jim Butcher on Dresden, Writing Comics, His New Home and More — some highlights from a recent appearance at a B&N from Jim Butcher. Dude knows how to work his audience.
• These Extremely Condensed Versions Of Famous Books Are Hilarious And Enlightening — I enjoyed this, should probably pick up his book.

A Couple of Book-ish Related Podcast Episodes you might want to give a listen:
• I meant to mention last week: Episode 389 | Kevin Hearne Interviewon the Author Stories Podcast.
• Also from The Author Stories Podcast, this week Hank Garner posted Episode 399 | Jim Butcher Returns With Brief Cases I’m not sure I heard anything new here, but maybe I did. It was fun to listen to regardless.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to annhwkns77, Allie Sumner and lindsayjohnna 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:

• 9 Weird Literary Relics People Spent Serious Money On: $15,000 for an X-ray of Ernest Hemingway’s foot? Don’t mind if I do! — Once again, Electric Lit, puts out something I never thought I’d read.
• Bill Clinton: By the Book — say what you will about his previous career (just not in my comments), but this is an interesting post about a debut novelist. I remember reading about the impact he had on Dennis Lehane’s profile/sales, too. He knows what he’s talking about, it seems.
• ‘Kingkiller Chronicle’ Author Patrick Rothfuss Doesn’t Believe in Writer’s Block — coming from one of the reigning champs of Authors not producing things, this carries a some weight.
• Why Dead Blind Is Such a Personal Book — I read a killer review for this a couple of weeks ago, and bought it immediately. Hoping to read it soon — this piece by the author makes me want to move it up even quicker.
• Have you ever broken the law to read a book? Here’s my story… — For The Dragonlance Chronicles in the late 80’s? I absolutely would have. I didn’t. But I get where Paul’s coming from.
• Lastly, there’s a couple of TBR-related tweets I found very amusing this week: this one from @MeredithIreland and this one from CG Drews/@PaperFury — both elicited a firm chuckle from me

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:

• Brief Cases by Jim Butcher — New collection of short stories from The Dresden Files. I started this Wednesday and cannot believe that I haven’t finished it yet. I will be expressing my deep love for this soon. (A quick update 1 hour after posting, I’m done and I had no idea an hour ago how much I loved this book. Probably my favorite thing to date in 2018)
• The Puppet Show by M. W. Craven — introducing Washington Poe. I heard a review of this on the latest Two Crime Writers and a Microphone episode. Sounds great, sounds creepy and with great lead characters.
• Free Chocolate by Amber Royer — I’ve been seeing raves about this for so long, I can’t believe it’s only been released now — a Space Opera with a sense of humor about a Galactic struggle to control the Earth’s chocolate. Of all the reasons I’ve seen for going to war lately, I’ve gotta say this ranks at the top.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome to glenn van nostrand and T.Jaye for following the blog this week.

It’s the last week of the month (or it was…), plus the holiday — which always makes for a short post for me. Still,there’s some good stuff here (including, but not limited to, one that I forgot to post last week). Without further ado, 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:

• Why crime fiction is booming — There’s a lot of good insight here, particularly this line: ” Good crime fiction is necessarily a reader-centred experience, because it only works if the reader is willing to engage with it – other genres can see the author be (for want of a better word) pretentious, and focus on what they want to get out of it. In crime fiction, the author wants a reader to try and solve their crimes.”
• An Audio Addict’s Guide to Audiobook Mysteries — I haven’t listened to any of these, but I’ve read some of the novels and agree with her take on them, and she’s right about George Guidall (his Longmire work is great).
• The Brothers Goldberg: Tod Goldberg interviews Lee Goldberg — probably the best Lee Goldberg interview possible — even if you’re not a Goldberg reader, this is worth a read.
• 10 Small Press Books to Read this Summer — some good TBR fodder.
• A facebook post from Jim Butcher — in response to readers thanking him for saving their lives. Honestly, if I ever met the man, I’d be tempted to say something like that to him, too. This post was just great.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff — just click the link, I’m not going to try to summarize. Killer concept from a killer author. Im sure it’ll be a blast, I have no idea when I could possibly fit it in.
• The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 edited/compiled/transcribed by Janet E. Croon — history from a ground-floor perspective. It’s just great, as you can read here

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

Hope you all had a great Towel Day! And for you U. S. types, I hope you’re having a good Memorial Day.I got knocked out by a stomach virus this weekend — spent most of it unconscious, and the time I was awake, I couldn’t focus enough to write anything — even this. Reading was straight out — this is the longest I’ve gone without reading in years — Friday afternoon through…I dunno, really — I need to spend some time today reshuffling my schedule so I can make all the deadlines I have in the next 8 days. So anyway, I’m just saying, there’s a reason this is two days late.

Here are the odds ‘n ends over the last week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Are ebooks dying or thriving? The answer is yes
• What’s Going On In Your Child’s Brain When You Read Them A Story? — huh
• What Does A Goodreads Three Star Rating Mean to You? — I don’t get this — 3 is good. Not every book can be mind-blowing, right?
• The 5 books Bill Gates thinks everyone should read this summer — For that species of people who don’t have stacks of things to read all times, “Summer Reading” is a thing — for those who are looking to come up with their list for the upcoming season, Bill Gates (noted literary critic?), has some ideas.
• The Mystery Buffs in the White House — inspired by the upcoming Clinton/Patterson novel, a look at Chief Executives with a thing for mysteries.
• Speculative Noir: 10 Classic Sci-Fi Thrillers That Tore Down Genre Borders — Crime Reads lists 10 SF/F-Crime hybrid novels.
• What Exactly is a Cozy Mystery?

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