What with it being Banned Books Week and me posting yesterday about how much people are reading for pleasure less, it’s altogether unusual that a bookstore chain is doing well… well enough to befuddle no end of retail analysts in the age of inveterate online shopping. Now, I posted about Barnes & Noble’s curious resurgence back in January 2025, but guess what? It’s still going strong as per this eight-minute video for Fortune: I have…
In looking for additional posts for Banned Books Week, I came across this article by Chrissie Gruebel for Barnes & Noble noting some of the petty and pretty ridiculous reasons people have sought to ban books. And if you’re wondering about the image above, yes: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? was removed from a school curriculum in 2010… for Marxism! Some of the other reasons for book removal are similarly ill-informed and,…
I’m probably not the only person during Banned Books Week pondering how much reading people are doing during this age of algorithms trying to keep people online. You’ve probably heard news reports or anecdotal evidence about people reading less. Well, I went and found one of the actual studies that doubtless fueled some of those news reports. Basically, Americans have been “reading for pleasure” less and less over the past 20 years or so… as…
Once again, it’s Banned Books Week, an annual, nationwide celebration of the freedom to read that I’ve posted about since 2018. Whether you need an excuse to crack open a book, want to add a title that’s not in your usual reading mix, or just want to stick it to The Man, I highly recommend web-strolling over to the American Library Association’s website specifically for Banned Books Week. There, you’ll find this past year’s most…
When you filter out all the Star Trek posts and viewing guides, one of my most visited posts was about Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s “11 Laws of Showrunning.” Showrunners are invariably writer-producers, and while some of the laws definitely get into writing (e.g. #6: Write and Rewrite Quickly), it’s more into management. I mean, per my reading, a huge motivation for writing the “11 Laws” was Grillo-Marxuach wanting to give leadership principles he wished he’d been given…
I’ve found myself thinking about Banned Books Week, an annual event I have come to celebrate on this blog and which will start this year on October 4th. I enthusiastically urge you to pick a banned or challenged book to read. Odds are you’ll learn something… and it pisses off The Man. Besides the top 11 challenged books from the last year, you can also consult a rather evergreen list of challenged or banned books…
Not a long post to start off the week, just a link to a fellow fiction podcaster and creative Stephanie Elie’s post from earlier this year with an important reminder about where your value resides. Rock your week.
On this day, a century ago, a wonderfully funny, delightfully off-kilter comedian and satirist was born who would forever change how we think about American history, advertising, and, well, dragons. Yes, I’m talking about the one, the only, the inimitable Stan Freberg. Many of us in the audio fiction world wear many hats and Freberg did so admirably, writing, producing, and acting in the various media he did. If you’re one of my fellow audio…
O for a Muse of, well, water. I mean not well water, but… Let me try again. Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story OR, y’know, maybe just hook me up with a map. Been a while since me and the boys have hit the Aegean. I’ve had a boss who’s really been tasking me with being clever about a whole lot of land stuff, not so much seafaring navigation. I think…
Upon the recommendation of a host of various people, I am working my way through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series which, as many of you clearly know, has its share of bizarre character classes. The author of the series, Matt Dinniman, appears to be around the same vintage as I from the last millennium, so seeing as we’re the smallest generation of living adults, it’s nice to see us unlock some achievements as it were.…