Tag: Saturday Miscellany Page 46 of 62

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:

• Indie Booksellers Report Solid Summer Sales — Yay.
• Why Books and Reading Are More Important Than Ever — am not certain More Important is true, but it’s a nice little post.
• Do celebrity book blurbs ‘blackmail’ readers? — good grief.
• Cover Reveal: THE HIDDEN FACE — Friend of the Blog, S. C. Flynn, has a new book coming out and the nifty new cover has been revealed.
• Supanova TV Episode 10 — a nice chat with Patricia Briggs
• In The Spotlight: Don Winslow’s The Dawn Patrol — a good look at my favorite Winslow book.
• 10 Books That Were Written on a Bet

This Week’s New Release that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Hangman’s Sonnet by Reed Farrel Coleman — Coleman continues his excellent run on the Jesse Stone series. Here’s what I had to say about it.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to The Lyrictrotter 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:

• Claire Messud: ‘Maybe in 50 years there won’t be novels’ — “As her fifth novel is published, the American writer warns that shrinking attention spans could prove the death of long fiction” yeah, okay.
• Seanan McGuire on What She Learned From October
• In the wake of the Game of Thrones finale, indulge in the nostalgia of Dragonlance — I’m not sure I agree with this, but anyone talking Dragonlance gets me happy.
• A Better Place — Jamie Schultz tweeted this link to his new short story. Dug it.
• Reverend Spooner, Father of the Spoonerism — as is the case with every article on Spooner/Spoonerisms, this piece would’ve been better with more examples. Still — a good read.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• Author Stories at Dragon Con – Jim Butcher Q&A Panel — on The Author Stories Podcast this week, they’ve posted a few episodes related to Dragon-Con — including this very entertaining Q&A with Jim Butcher. Got a couple of nice tid-bits about upcoming books, too.

This week was one of those overwhelming weeks with just too much to keep up with — I’d have been sunk if I hadn’t read a couple of these early. Here are the latest batch of New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire — the 11th Toby Daye novel (and 1st Hardcover!) starts a whole new story arc, and . . . wow. It was just so good. Stop reading this and go get it.
• The Western Star by Craig Johnson — have heard Johnson talk about this one in a couple of interviews while writing it, been looking forward to it for months.
• Skyfarer by Joseph Brassey — This Space Opera knocked my socks off — and it will do the same for you, probably. See my original post here.
• Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart — not my favorite of the three Kopp Sisters novels, but that’s more about how good the others were, this story about Constance trying to save three very different young women is worth your time. My post about it is here.
• Sourdough by Robin Sloan — I’ve tried and failed for the last two years to talk about Sloan’s last novel, hopefully I do better with this one. Having seen what he can do with a font, a bookstore and Google — I can’t wait so see what he does with a sourdough starter, the Bay Area and technology.
• Luck Favors the Prepared by Nathaniel Barber — a good collection of short non-fiction stories that are as funny as they are well-written. See the book tour stop promoting the book from this week here.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to His Perfect Timing for following the blog this week.

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye — fair warning, these are basically all about things I fanboy over. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• Teaser Trailer for Plague of Giants — Audiobook narrator extraordinaire Luke Daniels cut together a teaser trailer for the upcoming Kevin Hearne epic fantasy.
• An Addictive Author — Lawrence De Maria has discovered Nero Wolfe and, as all right thinking people do, has become a fan. I loved reading this.
• https://www.eater.com/2017/8/31/16216310/20th-century-detectives-food — Speaking of Wolfe, here’s a very intriguing look at what his food obsession (and that of Wimsey and Poirot) say about the character
• A Journalist at Heart — an interview with Michael Connelly by Alafair Burke (who knows a thing or two about writing mysteries)
• 15 Things You Might Not Know About Dorothy Parker — blah

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo — after the splash the movie made this summer, it’s no surprise that this book is showing up everywhere on all my social media feeds. Oh, and the book looks good, too.
• Kiss The Devil Goodnight by Jonathan Woods — the latest from Fahrenheit Press. I’m not going to even try to say anything about it until it gets read. Just click the link in the title there.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Vinayak Gupta and Matt Cowper for following the blog this week.
(not true about me, it’d ruin the larger book’s binding. . . . philistines)

(I have no explanation for the messed up date in the post title, I’m tempted to try some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey would be-Doctor Who thing, but… Who has time for that? Not going to change it, either, for the sake of external links) 

 Sorry this is late (for those of you waiting on tenterhooks), just one of those days where things got away from me. Thanks in part to taking in The Boise Library Comic Con 2017 with my daughter (who was one of two teen girl cosplaying Castiel there). 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:

• How I Rebuilt My Childhood Library, Book by Book
• ‘Y Is For Yesterday’: Sue Grafton’s Penultimate Mystery Series Novel — NPR interviews Grafton
• Crime Fiction: Sue Grafton Nears the End of Her Alphabet Mysteries — a couple of quick reviews for the new Kinsey Malone and The Driver.
• Seanan McGuire Tells Us Where Dragons Come From — a good little interview
• Twenty Questions with Jeff Noon — another good interview. (note to self: get the new Noon book)

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

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to shellinoutreviews, Nici Copywriter, Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents, Mrinalini Raj and Shelfleigh for following the blog (in one incarnation or another) this week. So many new people, I’m hoping performance anxiety doesn’t set in.

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:

• 2017 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners — the worst of the worst.
• The search for the Great American Read is on (again)
• Want Teens To Stop Hating Literature? Let Them Read ‘Filthy’ Books — well this rife with problems or stereotypes.
• How to Read an Entire Book in a Single Day — this seems overly complicated.
• The House at Allen Cove — E. B. White’s house is being put up for sale — looks like the kind of place he should’ve lived. Probably out of my price range.
• Why We Read and Why We Write

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh — Set inside ” a dusty town in the Texas Panhandle cut off from the outside world and populated entirely by former criminals and witnesses put in protective custody. The twist: None of these people know who they are, because all of them have had their memories of their pasts erased.” In this quaint little town, not surprisingly, trouble erupts.
• After On by Rob Reid — his Year Zero was a fun humorous SF look at music and piracy, this Silicon Valley novel about an evil social network looks to be equally fun.
• Urban Enemies edited by Joseph Nassise — short stories from the villain’s point of view from series such as The Dresden Files, Iron Druid Chronicles, Kitty Norville, Toby Daye, Faith Hunter and more.
• A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon — a couple of decades ago, Noon’s Vurt blew my mind, and I haven’t picked up anything by him since. This will hopefully be the end of that annoying trend.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to texaslawstudent and Lauren 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:

• Explicit material: students want warning put on books — The Irish Times has some good thoughts on this topic
• Ree Reyes series update — Michael R. Underwood’s report on the state of the Geekomancy books offers some great insight into the business part of publishing.
• 14 Books About Books
• 3 Lies and 7 Truths About Reading Short Fiction — I’m not sure I agree with this, but I wish I did.
• Escape the evils of Brexit and Trumpery and find solace in a grim thriller — I have some significant differences in the politics behind this piece, but I appreciate the rest.
• Cover reveal for The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste — yeah, that’s a creepy image

This Week’s New Release that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon (yup, month’s end, so we got a tiny list):
• The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock — Tarantino meets Flannery O’Connor in a western. Or something like that. Sounds good to me.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Author Maremma Gee for following the blog this week.

I knew I was being overly ambitious when I packed 3 books for my 2 days away, but I was unprepared for how busy the waiting areas we were in were. I got a little over 100 pages of reading done. Pitiful number, really. I know I had more important things going on, but I still expected a little more.

Anyway, I was away from the Internet for a few days, and so I didn’t find that many odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading, but I enjoyed these:

• My bookshelf says who I am – and a Kindle cannot do that
• A Rambling Ranty Post about Realisms on the scReen — it applies to the written word, too.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• Myke Cole Interview — on The Author Stories Podcast. I’ve heard Cole interviewed a couple of times before, but Garner got a bit more out of him than I’d heard before.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• Collared by David Rosenfelt — Andy Carpenter defends a man during a retrial — my post about it is here
• The Fallen by Ace Atkins — Quinn Colson chases some bank robbers and we get a new antagonist. I had a little to say about it.
• The Late Show by Michael Connelly — I’m about 2/3 done with this and am really impressed with Connelly’s new detective.
• Graveyard Shift by Michael F. Haspil — a UF Police Procedural, some peanutbutter in my chocolate. Looks tasty.
• Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks — okay, I’m not that interested, but I’ve got a kid who will be.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to danielwalldammit 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:

• The Rise in Print Continues — “Despite no big hit in the first half of 2017, sales of print units are 3% higher than in the first half of last year.” Sounds good to me.
• A Novelist Forces Himself To Press On After Losing 100 Pages In A Tech Glitch — both a cautionary tale and a look into the mind of one writer.
• Spider-Man Taught Me How to Live, Comics Taught Me How to Write
• Q&A with David Rosenfelt, Author of Collared — a nice little Q&A from one of our favorite dog lovers
• Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort: Why He’s the Baddest Villain Ever — my “On this Day” on Facebook showed that I linked to this piece a few years back — thought it was worth a re-read, you might, too. Damon Lindelof knows his villains.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon. I’ve read 1 of these and 4 of them are calling to me from my shelf/Kindle. A good-looking crop.:
• Dead Is Good by Jo Perry — Charlie and Rose are back for . . . who cares what they’re back for? They’re back! A ghost and a ghost dog solve mysteries, does it matter what the specifics are? The only book 3 I’ve been looking forward to more is Rothfuss’ very overdue one.
• Gork, the Teenage Dragon by Gabe Hudson — Space-faring dragons in a teen adventure. This is what I had to say about it.
• Besieged by Kevin Hearne — 9 Iron Druid short stories (5 of which happen post-Staked)
• Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn — a murder investigation in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero — a spoof of/tribute to teen detectives
• Song of the Swan by Michael RN Jones — Victor Locke and Dr. Jonathan Doyle are back, this time Locke’s in prison and it’s up to Doyle to save the day.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Person of Interest, Brusque and The Hunt and Peck Blog for following the blog this week.

There weren’t a lot of odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye, but these are worth your while:

• That’s the Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of English by Matthew Engel – review — This looks like a fascinating book.
• G J Moffat – Q&A — Good interview on a book collecting electronic dust on my Kindle TBR shelf from the book blog From First Page to Last.
• Why Do We Quote — Book Blogger Literary Titan posts about another interesting looking book.

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• Fredrik Backman Interview — on The Author Stories Podcast. I forgot to post this last week — whoops. Fascinating author, good discussion. Hank Garner’s a reliable listen anyway, when you get an author like this, it makes for a very good podcast.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• In the Still by Jacqueline Chadwick — a former forensic psychologist in a new country gets sucked into a murder investigation. I started this one this morning, really good so far . . .
• Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine — a thriller about a serial killer’s wife in the aftermath of her husband’s conviction.

and we even see some books without the word “Still” in the title…

• Heroine Worship by Sarah Kuhn — the sequel to last year’s Heroine Complex, now that her PA/friend is her crime-fighting partner, how does Aveda Jupiter deal with things?
• Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry — The story of Captain Hook, from his POV

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:

Undoubtedly, you’ve read a little about the 20^th Aniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone this last week. Here are a few of the better things I read about it:
• A Potted History of Harry Potter — because who doesn’t like an infographic
• Twenty years of Harry Potter – the 20 things we have learned — from The Guardian
• The Three Year Summer: Reading Harry Potter, One Book at a Time
• Harry Potter Turns 20 — Novelist Harry Connolly looks back

…and some non-Potter reads

• Yesterday’s Pearls Before Swine — I’m with Doctor Dan
• Your Literary Idols and Their Wardrobes — ummmm
• A good reminder from Alex Bledsoe and Seanan McGuire
• LeVar Burton’s New Podcast is Like READING RAINBOW for Adults
• How One Man Overcame Blindness and Started an Audiobook Show for New Scifi and Fantasy
• Don Winslow: By the Book
• Fantasy author Myke Cole on grounding a medieval world with demons in it — can’t wait for this
• 10th Anniversary Edition: Cover Reveal for The Name of the Wind, I like the original cover better — but this is striking.
• Goodreads Readers’ Favorite Books of 2017 … So Far — huh
• B&N’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog gives us The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far

A Book-ish Related Podcast Episode you might want to give a listen:
• Reed Farrel Coleman — on the Hear Me This Book podcast. I really wasn’t impressed with teh host (he derailed Coleman’s answers so many times), but I really enjoyed what Coleman had to say.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Right Side by Spencer Quinn — an injured soldier comes back from Afghanistan and as some trouble adjusting (to put it mildly). This is what I thought about it.
• The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch — A Peter Grant/Rivers of London novella, Ghosts and the London Underground — ’nuff said. If you care to glance at it, here’s what I had to say.
• SAUL by Bradley Horner — SF tale about a father trying to save his daughter. Horner writes some of the best reviews around, can’t wait to see what he produces on the other side of the fence.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to dawgietime for following the blog this week.