Happy Friday Links
Hi friends,
What’s been happenin’ with you lately? Have you done anything fun or read any good books? I’ve finished a few books, and I’m reading a couple more for upcoming author interviews, but other than that, I’ve stayed busy volunteering at the library and the Friends bookshop and doing various other things. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.
The hamster runs around in my brain at night and provides so many ideas and things to write about, but when daylight comes, none of that interests me, so I don’t write much of anything. I have several guest posts to work through; the next one will be published in a couple of weeks. I still owe you a newsletter on the San Antonio Book Festival—so many things were done right that made my experience great. There were some pretty good authors there, too!
Here are a few links to send you off to your weekend:
BookRiot comes up with some of the best articles, and I laughed and shook my head in agreement all the way through this one.
In contrast to the one above, even though this article is older (2017), I shook my head in agreement with it, too.
Another Substacker shared this link, and I thought NYT games fans might be interested in it, too. It takes you back to the beginning.
I would love to live in a city with a vibrant literary scene, as this article describes.
Occasionally, I’ll read a review about a book I want to read, and the review causes me to decide I don’t want to read it after all. In this post, I think
offers great advice on how to keep reviews from tainting your reading experience.BookRiot has transitioned several of its newsletters to Substack, and one of my favorite authors of their newsletters is
. I learned so much from this deep dive into Carnegie Libraries.BookRiot began in 2011 and in this article
tells what he’d do differently if he were starting BookRiot today.One of my favorite people on the internet is
, and she made her Today Show debut this week to talk about her new book, How to Walk into a Room.I’ve seen people raving in online bookish groups about Bookmory—how it can replace Goodreads for book tracking. I haven’t used it yet, nor do I think I would switch to it right away, but this BookRiot article makes a good case for using it.
Several authors tell readers about their favorite bookstores in this Booktrib article. Maybe one of these is in your neighborhood.
Bookish Fun Fact
Saturday, April 27th, is Independent Bookstore Day, celebrated by independent bookstores and readers across the US. I highlighted several bookstores in previous newsletters here and here to celebrate this day back in 2022. Bookstores participating in the nationwide celebration offer many activities for readers during the day; some bookstores will continue the celebration through the weekend. You may find a bookstore crawl or other joint activities with several bookstores in locations with many bookstores nearby. You can use this map to locate a bookstore near you. Visit a bookstore tomorrow and help them celebrate their special day.
I’m heading to the North Texas Teen Book Festival tomorrow—a first for me, and I’m really excited to go. This festival features middle-grade and young adult authors, and I’d like to see several of them. Most of the day is full of panels of authors such as Julie Buxbaum, Karen M. McManus, Katharine McGee, Morgan Matson, Ruta Sepetys, Jeff Kinney, and so many more. Each author makes appearances multiple times during the day on different panels, so if you miss them on one panel or just want to see them again, you can. I’m afraid I’ll be one of the oldest at the festival (Teen Book Festival), but that’s alright. You don’t have to be a teen to enjoy MG and YA books. I’ll tell you about it in an upcoming newsletter, assuming I survive the experience!
I hope your weekend brings joy, fun, rest, and a few books. Happy reading!
Some of the links in this newsletter may be affiliate links. That means that if you click through and purchase anything, I may earn a small commission. This costs you nothing and helps me feed my voracious reading habit, and for that, I thank you.
Tomorrow there's an indy bookstore crawl here in chicago. Sadly, I won't be able to participate this time! Next year and many days between though!
We're mapping out our path for tomorrow's Indy Bookstore Crawl in Chicago. Can't wait!