Happy Friday Links
8-9-24
Hi friends,
I hope everyone has had a great few weeks since I last landed in your inbox. I made it through Covid in time to fly to Seattle (Covid test negative) and had a great time on the cruise and sightseeing afterward. I’ll write more about that in the next couple of weeks.
I managed to read two books while I was vacationing, and I really enjoyed both. I make it a point to read every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Being on a cruise ship with 5,000 of my new best friends gave me some extra time to read—I had to take a break from the crowds a few times. I had a bunch of links ready to go before leaving on vacation (and getting Covid), but I just didn’t have the energy to do a newsletter while sick and feeling horrible. Enough of the chit-chat; let’s get to the links.
Authors are choosing to take more control of promoting their new books. According to this Guardian article, after achieving publishing success with a few books, many authors hire independent planners and publicists to organize bookstore tours and help promote their books.
While thriving as a doctor, this author self-published her first book and thought that would be the end of her writing career. Now, she is the top-selling thriller author. This NYT (gift link) article tells why she writes under a pen name and how all her success happened.
When I’m looking for a fun(ny) read, I turn to author
’s Zillow-related newsletters. Here, she writes about her Zillow obsession, and occasionally, she’ll write a newsletter (with pics galore) about all the absurd houses she finds.The outgoing president of the American Library Association recently ended a 4,900-mile road trip across the country. In this 19thNews article, Emily Drabinski discusses what she learned about the state of America’s libraries during the cross-country trip.
I recently started volunteering to register voters with the League of Women Voters at Naturalization ceremonies for new American citizens. It led me to wonder what these people had to do to become US citizens. One of the requirements is to take a ten-question test about “history and government,” and the applicant must answer at least six of ten randomly chosen questions (from a list of 100 questions) correctly to pass this portion of the Naturalization test. Here is a copy of the test used in 2021. How many of these questions can you answer correctly?
After getting wrapped up in Jackie & Shadow’s quest to hatch their eggs every year, I found this article about an eagle becoming a stepdad after trying to hatch a rock. Heartwarming.
I haven’t paid a lot of attention to AI in relation to authors’ books, but I know that it is a problem, and the problem will most likely continue growing as AI grows. Here are two authors’ views about AI and how it has affected them and their books—authors Lyz Lenz and Natalie Wexler.
Everyone who has been here for a while knows of my love for Libby and its features. Here is a Libby Life article about Libby’s accessibility features that make its app “more accessible to more readers.”
This article was originally published when J. Ryan Stradal’s latest book, Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, hit the shelves in 2023. In it, Stradal tells of his love of Minnesota, the food of the Midwest, and why a Supper Club is so fun.
Many people dream of being a published author someday—maybe that describes you? If it does, author
has written a newsletter that she says “every debut author needs to read.” In it, she tells you about the ten things you need to know as a debut author that “nobody will tell you about.” Many of them sound somewhat depressing, especially thing #1.This is a little late for the Olympics since they are ending this weekend, but it’s never too late to find more books to read if you are an Olympics fan. Libby Life lists 20+ books related to the Olympics and some of its past and present competitors.
After my cruise and sightseeing trip, I’ve got the travel bug. Since I had been to the Pacific Northwest before and had seen all the big cities and tourist traps, all but one of the places we visited on this trip were “small towns,” which I enjoyed so much. This Thrillist article tells about the best small town to see in each state in the US.
That’s a lot of links, and I still have more to share, but I’ll save them for the next issue of Happy Friday Links, which will be out in a couple of weeks. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the links and if you found any that put a smile on your face. You can tell me in the comments below.
Bookish Fun Fact
Today’s bookish fun fact puts a smile on my face, and I think it will put one on yours, too. August 9th is National Book Lovers Day, a day to “celebrate literature and books and encourage people to put down their phones and devices and simply read!” Book lovers celebrate this day by reading and doing things “reading adjacent.” Use your imagination to find a way to celebrate, or just pick up a book and read for a while. For those who love to go “all out” celebrating things/anything, readers can celebrate today by visiting a library, giving a book as a gift, volunteering to read to kids, donating to a literary charity, or in many other ways as pointed out in the article linked above. No matter what you do, have fun and read!
I’d love to know if you celebrated National Book Lovers Day, and if you did, tell me what you did to celebrate it. It’s a given that I’ll be reading, and I’ll also be volunteering at my Friends of the Library bookshop for my weekly shift this afternoon. You can bet I’ll tell everyone who comes into the bookshop what a great day today is!
After being away for two weeks, I’m happy to be home and back to my real life and volunteering. It’s fun to travel, but as the saying goes, “There’s no place like home.” I’m in the middle of two really fun books and hope to finish them over the weekend. I hope your weekend provides fun, relaxation, and, of course, a few books to read. 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.
Ha! I actually have an answer to your question. I have recently became a US Citizen (June this year), and when I first did the test to get a baseline of how knowledgeable I was about US history I scored 72/100 - Two weeks later i was 100/100 and aced my test!
So many cool links to check out, as usual. Thanks, Gayla! Glad you’re well again. Good for you for registering voters. It’s something I ought to do. I’m afraid of what I won’t know among those naturalization questions. We should all be required to pass that test—it would undoubtedly help our democracy.