ππ Read
All Your Followers Will Not Buy Your Book - by Kate McKean katemckean.substack.com.
ππ Read
All Your Followers Will Not Buy Your Book - by Kate McKean katemckean.substack.com.
ππ Read
Yes, Social Media Can Sell Books. But Not If Publishers Sit on Their Hands | Jane Friedman janefriedman.com.
ππ Read
Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, βItβs Unreliable.β - The New York Times nytimes.com.Read: www.nytimes.com
π¬ “North Americans practice embalming, but we do not believe in embalming.” Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty π
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This was a slow reading year for me. I read a lot more fiction than last year, a little less nonfiction, many fewer comics, and no poetry.
I only read 28 full-length books for myself (as opposed to for my kid). I range widely each year, usually coming in the 30 - 50 book range, so this is a little less than even a normal slow year would be.
But of course, year 2 of a pandemic, especially when finishing a PhD, is not a normal year.
All of the fiction I read this year was good, because I don’t keep reading things that aren’t. But my favorite was Gideon the Ninth . It took me a little while to get into, but once I was into it, it blew me away. It also helped me realize, along with the Star Trek: Discovery episode “Su’Kal,” that space gothic is a subgenre I love.
I’m still into Dark Academia, which explains the presence of The Historian , If We Were Villains , Bunny , and Ace of Spades on my finished books list.
My other fiction reading decisions were driven primarily by media tie-ins. I read the Shadow and Bone trilogy and Six of Crows duology in anticipation of Shadow and Bone on Netflix, then decided to stick with Leigh Bardugo and read her Wonder Woman book . I also read The Last Wish , the first book in the Witcher series. It will probably be a while before I get around to that show but I enjoyed the book.
None of my nonfiction reading blew me away, but it was all good.
I definitely read some fanfiction, but I couldn’t tell you what. And I read a lot of articles, most of which you can find in my Links category.
I hope to read for pleasure a lot more next year.
What did you read in 2021? If you had a hard time reading, what did you do instead?
In case you’re on micro.blog and missed it, @JohnPhilpin is asking people interested in joining a Micro.blog Reader’s Club to complete this form. π
Want to read: Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage by Heather Havrilesky π
π Read Queer and Jewish Identity Are the Heart of βWhere the Wild Things Areβ. π
I love this. I want to look at In The Night Kitchen and Outside Over There and all the Nutshell books through this lens.
Want to read: The Coldest Touch by Isabel Sterling π
Want to read: The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Miller π