Blog Post Round Up | January 2021

And we made through the first month of 2021! How is everyone feeling?

I, for one, feel close to the same as I did last month. I’m staying as safe as possible and being cautious when I have to leave the house. I have to say, it’s a good thing that my backlist of owned books is big enough that I don’t have the need to make frequent library or bookstore trips – even though I miss it!

Below is my round up of some posts that I’ve enjoyed and discovered last month. If your post is not listed, that does not in any way mean your post wasn’t amazing!

The Blog Posts

Brigid at The Alliterates gives us a Short and Quick Guide to SFF Books Releasing in January. I only recognized a few of the titles/ covers, but the whole list looks pretty awesome!

Kristin at Kristin Kraves Books gives us a great list of recommendations in her recent If You Liked This, Read This post. There are several on this list that I’ve read or have on my list.

Bertie at Luminosity Library (new to me blogger!) tackles the question what’s so bad with labelling adult books YA? I’ve seen a few other bloggers tackle this question too; I never really gave much thought because naïve me thought that if an author writes a book with an adult audience in mind, it’s going to be labelled as such. Bertie’s post really got me thinking and I enjoyed her thoughts on the subject!

Katie at Never Not Reading shares her thoughts on whether literacy and reading is inherently valuable. I really enjoyed reading this post of hers because it got me thinking and provided a different side of the coin. I believe that they are valuable but not necessarily superior or the only valuable media form or type of entertainment. It’s hard to acknowledge that as an avid reader, but books as Katie points out, has never been the only medium to add value to a society’s culture.

Chana at Paper Procrastinators talks about misogyny in fiction. I have to say, I don’t think I realized how many books had male leads more often when I read when I was younger. I don’t really remember now and I definitely tend to read books with more female leads. However, I do think that some balance is missing. Like she says that when a girl character is written as a badass, then stereotypically girly stuff doesn’t get written in at all or very much. Definitely interesting to think about and keep an eye out in future books.

Ashley at Falling Down the Book Hole shares a reading guide for audiobooks. As I’m listening to more audiobooks, I found a lot of her tips helpful!

Lashaan at Bookidote shares his reading modi operandi. This was such an interesting and fun post to read! It had me thinking what my MO for reading actually is. It isn’t something that I really think about .. reading is like second nature at this point!

Charvi at Not Just Fiction (new to me blogger!) gives 5 tips to get the best out of group and buddy reads. To be honest, I’ve never really thought about trying to do group or buddy reads because I never really know for sure what I’m going to want to read next. And book clubs I kind of stay away from because I can’t add any more books to my TBR, I would just get too stressed out. Regardless, I found this post to be helpful – if I ever do a buddy/ group read in the future!

Sara at Words with Wings talks about negative reviews and whether not writing them makes her a less credible blogger. I don’t think so at all! Writing reviews is all about expressing thoughts and opinions on a book .. I personally enjoy reading all types of perspectives, etc on a book from bloggers.

Alex at The Paperback Piano (new to me blogger!) shares info about a new platform called bookstagrammers.com. Like Alex, I’m interested to see how much this site takes off. I’ve never heard of it before stumbling onto Alex’s post about it.

In Other News

Mark Manson: The Surprising Science of Goal Setting (And Why You’re Probably Doing it Wrong)

Publishers Weekly: Christian Trimmer to Head Relaunch of MTV Books (I didn’t know that MTV was still a thing and that they used to have MTV Books)

Washington Post: Let’s talk about fantasy and science fiction books that have fallen off the radar

The Mercury News: Michael Connelly’s ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ books to become a Netflix TV series

Oprah Magazine: The 7 Best Caribbean Books for Your 2021 Reading List, According to Rebel Women Lit’s Readers’ Awards

The Verge: New lawsuit accuses Amazon of e-book price fixing

Book Riot: THE MOST COMMONLY ASSIGNED BOOKS IN U.S. COLLEGES and WHAT TO READ AFTER WATCHING (AND LOVING) BRIDGERTON ON NETFLIX

The Inc.: The Top 10 Most Assigned Books at Ivy League Business Schools

The Guardian: What trashy novels taught me about life