Comments on: The Great Chick Lit Roundup

By: booksquare

booksquare — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 04:47:38 +0000

David, you’re not a chicken, by any means. The covers are only the tip of the shame iceberg. The New York Times cannot discuss romance without using the term bodice ripper. Do they use such derogatory terms for any other industry leader? Quite possibly Mary Kay (and I’ve had some, well not harsh, but less than positive thoughts there).

If you’re smart (and I like to think I am) and you’re educated (ditto) and well read (double ditto), you quickly learn that reading women’s fiction proudly is the social equivalent of Monster Truck thingies (hey, you read Road and Track, you know what I mean ). Smart people don’t read trash. We all know what kind of people read that stuff.

Yet the truth is very different. And women who enjoy what they read are made to feel like it’s a “guilty” thing because admitting the truth is anti-intellectual. This bothers me, especially when I succumb to peer pressure!

By: David Thayer

David Thayer — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:34:12 +0000

K2, I didn’t see this for a few days. No I’d probably hide the book inside Sports Illustrated or something equally manly…Road and Track. The marketing of books aimed at women is all too obvious in any bookstore and it must frustrate the authors to drive their readership away. Would I read Jennifer Weiner in public? Sure, but I think in my case people would be puzzled rather than judgmental, so it probably is more reflective of a double standard than any great courage on my part.

By: booksquare

booksquare — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 06:20:52 +0000

Hey, we don’t diss Zim around here (nor Torre. Steinbrenner is totally fair game) — though Zim and dirty acts? We have to draw the line somewhere. That being said, the Pedro moment proved the beauty of TiVo.

As for shame…can you go out in public with a copy of Men’s Health (which, apparently, is quite different than what I thought (that’s the hazard of a career in Hollywood!)? Sit in public with the cover in full view. Let people see that’s what you’re reading?

When it comes to women’s fiction, half the battle is the fact that the covers are, well, godawful. Some of best writing in the genre I’ve read (Laura Kinsale comes to mind) is buried in awful covers (Fabio, for example).

Probably I’m asking this of the wrong person, but would you sit in public and read Jennifer Weiner? Would you sit in public and read a romance novel (with a lurid cover)? This is not a challenge — I won’t ask you to do what I can’t necessarily do myself. But when it comes to shame, the fact that I can’t read books I enjoy in public (and that is the lot of the reader) without feeling like I’m being judged (it’s not so much guilt as experience) is bothersome.

To me, that’s shame.

By: David Thayer

David Thayer — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 19:06:48 +0000

This covers an awful lot of ground. As a guy I view Mens Health with a certain unhealthy disdain, maybe it’s the writer in me, maybe not. But Don Zimmer…c’mon he told Steinbrenner where to go and he had Pedro cold until he slipped on that Fenway grass. Anyway I’m a fan of Zim and Jennifer Weiner and yet feel no shame.