Books/Mags/Blogs

When we were a wee one, one thing was certain: we were not surrounded by wineries. Flower fields, yes, but the wineries came much later. These days, people not only know how to pronounce “Lompoc”, but they have also been there. Before, it was just a place one drove by as they cruised up the 101. Unless you had a relative in federal prison, but that’s another story. Now the world knows about Santa Ynez and not because of the Chumash Casino. Los Olivos is not just the place Michael Jackson lives. Solvang is more than a place to buy […]

Now, correct us if we’re wrong (though we’re not), but didn’t we put a ban on any new genre ending with “lit”? Though our memory is fuzzy on the subject, and we’re too lazy to pull out the old search engine, it seems we demanded this practice cease around the time “lad lit” hit the scene. As with all our magic, it appears something backfired: the lads left, but the lit stayed. Probably this is because we can’t twitch our nose without squinting. So after sifting through the discovery that women of a certain age like to read about women

We believe in live and let live. Mostly. Bookclubs aren’t for everyone, but we take exception to the notion that our libations are inferior. Our bookclub (still going strong after all these years!) prides itself on the quality of food and beverage. As much thought is put into refreshments as is put into the book*. Actually, it’s quite refreshing to read such a curmudgeonly piece so early in the morning. It reminds us of what matters in the world. Yes, crankiness is an underrated virtue. Venting spleen keeps the blood flowing. Thumbing your nose at that which you don’t understand

Far be it for us to question the press, but have to wonder when the author of the article linked below last looked over the range of Harlequin titles. Because we’re fairly they stopped “tastefully” implying sex and started getting pretty detailed about the act a long time ago. Now if the scale was sliding from softcore (in a manner of speaking) to graphic, she’d have something. Since we suspect we won’t have time to cover this story in any depth, we’ll just hit the highlights here: erotica is the new black and Harlequin is getting them some of that.

We know that the publishing industry moves slowly. While we’ve never actually seen molasses moving uphill in a snowstorm, we understand the book world resembles the process. So it is always surprising to us when houses leap on an almost-brand-new idea. Almost, because they’re leaping onto something that worked because it was so different, so perfectly timed, so right…well, you get the picture. So this guy who hosts a (fake) news talk show on a cable channel gets his staff together and writes a book that, hard to believe, is as close to perfect satire as we’ve seen in our

Eagle-eyed Booksquare readers have no doubt noticed a new link* over there on the right. Yes, there’s a new blog in town, and we’re excited about it for a few reasons. First, of course, is that we’ve been invited to be a columnist for the blog (same crankiness, real name). Terminology’s a bit off, but you know what we mean. Second, and this is really cool, the blog is prototyping (and we use the word in the best possible sense of the word) a different concept in genre fiction communities. If we may…(and heck, only three other people in the

Granted, the beauty of fantasy men is that they’re not real, but we never let that distract us. Probably every blog and its brother has linked to this story about Bookslut and its human, but we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t march really slowly because of days of email to slog through. Did anyone catch that blogs are over (see previous posts)? Really a shame, because, what with being easy to publish and all, blogs are the next big thing. Publishers are getting it: hey, these people read our stuff and like it. Maybe we can do some business.

It has come to our attention that despite the long weekend (hmm, our brain is asking, are we having a holiday…and why didn’t anyone mention that earlier?), news continues to flow. So, for the four or five of you who took the weekend off from your mailing lists and other news sources, Arabella magazine has ceased publication. Oh stop! You knew this was coming. Never fear — there will be another, better business model around the corner. We promise. Arabella Announcement

It was this Reading Experience post that sparked this new journey for us, and, after you’ve read it, we highly recommend reading other recent posts because Dan Green continues to explore the idea in different ways. While we find we’re more cynical than Green about the publishing industry, his questions are excellent. Rewards and Remunerations