Well, they say a good battle plan never survives first contact with the enemy, and so it was with June’s reading list. During the last month, I packed up our things from our 6-month rental, moved them down to our new home, unpacked all the things from our two storage pods, and began trying to put our family’s life back together. I front-loaded a lot of audiobooks because I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of energy for physical reading this month, but even so I didn’t make it through all the physical books I wanted to read. Plus I got sidetracked by two unplanned reads. I guess that’s #writinglife. Expect me to double up on my writing-related books next month, as those are the ones I’m still working through.
Continue reading “What I Read: June 2021”Author: Liz Busby
Liz Busby is a writer of creative non-fiction, technical writing, and speculative fiction. She loves reading science fiction, fantasy, history, science writing, and self help, as well as pretty much anything that holds still for long enough.
Picture Books that Waste Your Time: 4 Things I Hate in a Read-Aloud
I’ve been reading picture books out loud to my kids for more than a decade. We are the family that makes weekly trips to the library and regularly breaks the handles on our reusable totes getting our haul home. I know and regularly come right up against the check-out limit. Each of the couches in our home usually has at least two books face down on it, and my kids floors are strewn with many more.
Suffice to say, I have opinions.
Continue reading “Picture Books that Waste Your Time: 4 Things I Hate in a Read-Aloud”What I Read: May 2021
Hello, all! I have decided to start aggregating my Goodreads reviews on the blog once a month. I spend a good deal of time writing them, so they might as well get some play! I hope they lend some insight into my reading life and maybe add to your own teetering TBR pile.
Continue reading “What I Read: May 2021”25 Questions Asked Upon Returning to Academic Writing After 13 Years
- What was the name of that awesome program I used to use to manage my research? Ah, there it is.
- Wait, now, what was that database that all the literary papers are in? EBSCO? No, JSTOR, that’s it.
- Woah, there are three whole journals basically devoted to CS Lewis? (Only a bit of an exaggeration.)
- Research is so fun! Why didn’t I go to grad school?
- Now how do I get access to these papers without membership in a university library? Oh, wow, this is way easier than it was in 2008.
- Why is the only academic thing I can find on Brandon Sanderson an undergraduate thesis? And I can’t access it. Oh well.
- Hmm, on reading these papers, none of this actually seems to be useful. Am I missing something?
- Should I buy these academic books on fantasy? What am I saying? Yes. The answer to buying books is always yes.
- How do I know when to stop researching and just starting writing? Maybe now?
- Uh, I don’t know how to start this. I guess, what better place to start than the middle?
- Actually, I need more sources to write this part. What if we move on to this later part?
- Now, how do I cite scripture in MLA?
- Writing is so awesome! Who’s the best writer ever?
- Why did I think starting in the middle was a good idea? Now I have two disconnected pieces.
- Why is this so hard? I remember being good at this once upon a time.
- Why do the Kindle versions of all the other books in this series have page numbers but this one doesn’t? I really don’t like having to cite chapter numbers for only this volume.
- What’s a better way to say “In this paper, I will show . . .”?
- Wait, do you italicize series titles in MLA?
- Is it ethical to just pull this quote from someone else’s paper and quote it as if I actually looked it up myself? Probably not. I’ll just buy the book. Mostly likely will use it again anyway.
- Who on my friend list do I trust to help me fix this paper?
- Am I a jerky friend for not asking sooner? It’s due in three days . . . .
- Oh my gosh, my friend is a genius. Why didn’t I see that?
- Should I save this paragraph somewhere before cutting it?
- Are there any more asterisks I haven’t replaced yet? Oh, there’s one.
- Okay, am I ready for this? Submit!
On the Ethics of Negative Book Reviews
A friend once asked me to review on Goodreads a book she was planning to indie publish in a few weeks. Like a shmuck, I said, “Sure, I’d love to” with no further details. I had briefly workshopped stuff with this friend (before dropping out because I had no energy to write at that point in my life). Her stuff had been mostly fantasy YA, and I had enjoyed it. I was sure I would have no problems reviewing this book positively.
I was so wrong. The book turned out not to be SFF but a romance novella. For me, romance is like salt. I don’t mind a little in my books. Occasionally, it really hits the spot like a good salted caramel. But would I ever eat a pile of salt? Nope.
Not only that, but it turned out that the book was, well, just okay. Like, if my friend was still workshopping the book, I would have had lots of questions and feedback. But my friend was ready to ship the book and just looking for some reviews to get the ball rolling. I had no idea what to do.
Continue reading “On the Ethics of Negative Book Reviews”