I have not read Pillars of the Earth, and I would be lying if I said it was even in my TBB pile.

Anyway, I haven’t read it yet, no. That is a loooooong book. I have heard a lot of good things about it, but like you anything non-romance is usually a hard sell for me.

Out of curiosity– did you read The Pillars of the Earth?

This is a book that has been recommended to me for, oh 5 years or more, but I’ve never started it. I have it. (My father might have given it to me one Christmas but I’m dawdling). Generally, the recommendation goes along the lines of: “You like medieval history? Have you read The Pillars of the Earth?” I don’t know why I’m so hesitant. Maybe because there’s so many romance novels I’d like to read?

I’ve had the same stylist for 6 years. But the same haircut for 20. I have no desire to change it. I am still figuring out how to get it just right

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Jessica- I understand the hair situation. I changed my hair style a few years ago, and that was only because I was growing out red dyed hair and refused to cut it short. There was a fun time when I looked very “futuristic” I’m told–my hair was half red, half brown. I eventually received “the cut no one has been able to duplicate.” I went to a stylist my best friend loved, told him to do whatever he wanted, but make it easy to care for and keep it long. It was perfect. No one has ever been able to replicate it, and how I’ve tried.

My stylist is usually the one who book mugs me. The last time I went, she convinced me I really needed to read The Pillars of the Earth (which she just happened to have in the salon–coincidence????). And the time before that, I was talking to some random person while waiting, and she gave me Katherine by Anya Seton. I was like, “I heard that’s a good book,” and she goes, “Oh, do you want it?” I have strange book experiences there.

I’ve huge respect for Jessica and Maili and Wendy and yourself, so if you all feel there’s an obvious anti-blog agenda on the boards, perhaps I’m missing something.

Actually, I’m not sure I’d call it an agenda so much as normal fan behavior, which was what I was trying to say before. If one really looks at the comments, there are people who say they only visit AAR, some who are venturing out to many other sites and then those who appear to notice other sites/blogs solely to critique their bad points and compare AAR favorably.

That last is the diehard fandom mentality, but again, it’s clearly not the thinking or behavior of every commentor there. Once it’s recognized for what it is, though, is it honestly a concious agenda or simply cheerleading for the fandom?

Because that’s what fans do. They root for the home team.

It’s usually only a problem when their territorial and protective tendencies are challenges by competing fandoms, though… that’s when the wars tend to start in earnest.

Rothgar is my favourite Jo Beverley character and I could eat him up with a spoon. I don’t know if it’s significant that I started at book 4 in the series, read book 5 (Devilish) and then went back and read all 5 in correct order. I found that I enjoyed Devilish even more after reading the 1st 3 books as well – I thought his character was richly drawn and Diana was perfect for him.

Clearly I’m in a minority but in my humble opinion, Devilish was the delicious top layer and the icing on a wonderful layered cake.

Just sayin’….

Thanks for taking the time to look. I really appreciate it.

Marianne

What I see is a mixture positive and negative comments which is pretty typical of a long standing fairly tight community.

But that’s exactly what I see when I read the original thread Jessica linked to – a mixture of positive and negative comments which are pretty typical for that type of discussion.
I’ve huge respect for Jessica and Maili and Wendy and yourself, so if you all feel there’s an obvious anti-blog agenda on the boards, perhaps I’m missing something.

I just, seriously, don’t see it. It just looks like normal social interaction to me – yes, some people grouse about DA, some people grouse about Brockmann, some people grouse about historical accuracy, some people grouse about the use of ‘peak’ for ‘pique’.
Equally some people link to DA, fangirl Brockmann (that’d be me, pretty much), swear they enjoy wallpaper historicals – though I don’t think anyone has defended the use of ‘peak’ as yet.
It’s all just background noise, and not, the way I see it, cause for concern.

But I appreciate that others feel differently.

My perception would be that the thread is, broadly speaking, positive towards other sites and blogs.

Would you read it differently?

I thought I remembered the thread you were talking about but just to make sure I went back and read through it again. What I see is a mixture positive and negative comments which is pretty typical of a long standing fairly tight community. Of even more interest is that most of the negative comments directed at other sites could probably have been used to describe AAR at one time or another – that other sites are clannish for one, that other sites deal in controversial topics for another – yet AAR is considered to be always courteous and respectful of opinions.

That’s typical fandom thought processes in action.

Seriously, I could go to any number of fandom forums on any number of topics/properties and literally lift similar comments from them. Simply replace names and places and you’d never know the difference.

So, yes and no. Yes, I see the positives but I also see the negatives and the bigger picture they make.

http://xkcd.com/386/

Oh look, so it’s already there. Oops.