Books/Mags/Blogs

Like a guest who leaves nearly before he arrives, Lad Lit has left the building. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Lad Lit is (was?) like Chicklit, only for and by men. But we think maybe women were part of the target audience, too, and they weren’t too thrilled with stories of men acting exactly like we’ve long suspected real men do. By reading between the lines of the article, we also get the impression that men can’t read. Or something like that. This discovery doesn’t explain why we trip over piles of male reading material every day. It’s […]

As we’re well satisfied with our own bookclub, we don’t follow those of television personalities very closely (also, we prefer books with uplifting, positive, makes-us-want-to-get-out-of-bed-the-next-morning endings, but that’s another issue entirely). Happiness with our lot in life doesn’t stop us from a peculiar fascination with Richard and Judy. Partially because we don’t know who they are (but this time we did manage to type the word “Richard” instead of “Punch”). Partially because they have such interesting influence over the British book market. And, we suppose, partially because The Bookseller roundly declares the two have picked this coming summer’s hits. Sort

When we’re hungry, all stories about food catch our attention. When we’re not, we sometimes find ourselves playing catch-up. So we nearly missed this one. We won’t bore you with all the facts (that’s why we post links to things — someone else does the work for us), but it seems there’s a book on the market (Little Children by Tom Perrotta) and it turns out the makers of Goldfish (not the things that swim, the cute little high-carb snack crackers), which are trademarked, recently noticed their trademarked (we presume it’s a trademark or it’s registered or something) fish on

We (obviously) think blogging is a great thing for writers. And those who like to share their every thought (we don’t advise this — most thoughts are pretty dull). Then there’s the Nick Denton/Jason Calacanis pseudo-feud. Now comes this particularly coy profile of Denton and Gawker Media. Turns out there’s no money in blogging. Or not. Depends on what day of the week it is. The article has a lot of words (we’re sorry for that), so you have to work (or go directly to page 5, your choice) to reach what we thought was an interesting coincidence: just as

It is uncanny how close Liz Miller’s column on adaptations hews to our recent experience (ironically — or perhaps not — when we saw Hellboy). First, our mother poked us over and over, saying, “this isn’t what I think it is, is it?”, then the man next to us leaned across two empty seats to say, “Asimov must be rolling over in his grave” (we didn’t agree or disagree, being fairly certain Isaac Asimov has passed on, but not wanting to embarrass ourselves). Miller, in her Hollyood Madam column on Bookslut, lays out what we consider to be the immutable

We choose articles based on a highly proprietary method. A large part of the process involves determining why we are drawn to a particular piece. If we can’t figure out why, the article is lost forever. Sometimes we regret our impulsiveness; mostly we don’t. To give an example of how to catch our eye, we turn your attention to rather lengthy headline below. First, off, it’s not quite punchy, is it (though we applaud the use of the word “aflutter”)? Second off, it took a couple of literary journals to prove writing is flourishing in the Golden State? Seriously, has

There was quite a bit to catch our attention in the article about the book Waiting to be Heard. First, of course, is the fact the book is comprised of short stories written by teenagers. Second, is the dedication of both students and adults (including Dave Eggers and Isabel Allende). Third, well, the fact that for many, peace isn’t all about listening to birds sing under sunny skies. We applaud the bravery and honesty exhibited by the authors of this collection — and sincerely hope they continue to use their talents in such a positive way. Teens once “Waiting to

Dubravka Ugresic has published Thank You for Not Reading a collection of essays on, well, we’re stumped on this category, literary trivia. Ugresic, a serious author and thinker, understandably questions an industry that fetes Joan Collins while missing the irony (please, please, put your hand down — we didn’t mean you. Of course you smirked into your white wine.). We think there’s some sort of connection with other posts this week, but we are lacking sufficient caffeine and allergy medicine to make it. Joan Collins and the decline of the west

Yesterday (or thereabouts, time flies, you know), we published an article where Marian Keyes declares 40 to be the new 30. We’ve been saying this for quite some time. But to discover that aqua is the new pink? We’re simply not sure how this affect our decorating plans. And so it goes for chicklit, so many changes, so hard to keep up. It’s been a rough week for this budding genre. It always is for books about women, by women, that sort of thing. The article, fairly evenhanded, explores the good and not-so-good about chicklit (yes, Virginia, feminism did happen,

A tipster directed us to this very informative article. We are sharing because, frankly, we know so many authors who are going about this publishing thing in the wrong way. In fact, we’ve made one or two missteps ourselves (but, of course, we don’t admit to them). The article touches on the basics of blogging-for-publishing-deals (including tips for staying alive — as it turns out, dead bloggers aren’t quite as effective, nor can they sign contracts) and all but promises editorial interest. This may be why the author remains slightly anonymous while helpfully pointing to others who’ve found success. Update: