The (semi) weekly links and opinion post
Links of Interest:
Laura Vivanco at Teach Me Tonight on Representing Mothers and their Children. Thought provoking post and insightful comments.
Audible now has an Iphone/Ipod Touch/Blackberry App, making it a one step process to purchase and play your audiobooks. And the features in the Audible app — inclusive of cover art — are better than those in iTunes.
As reported by NPR, UVA has digitized and made available Faulkner’s talks given while he was in residence in the late 1950s.
“Because I’m the Batman!” — Batman sends an audio query to Janet Reid with hilarious results.
Mandi at Smexy Books has a great post and a wonderful thread on Urban Fantasy and the HEA.
An older post, but worth a look if you haven’t seen it: Women Writing Fantasy by Stella Matutine (hat tip to Kristin of Fantasy Cafe for the link).
Randy Cohen, “ethicist” (he’s actually a humorist) for the Sunday NYT Magazine wrote that trans people have an ethical obligation to expose themselves to their dates. This has not gone over well with several bloggers in the trans community. Lisa Harney has a particularly clear and incisive critique.
Tonight’s episode was definitely better, but I have had a very hard time watching True Blood this season on feminist grounds. Womanist Musings explains why.
The Book Smugglers have kicked off YA Appreciation event. Click the link for all the details and events.
RomCon
Two quick points about my experience there that I did not get to put in the blog post:
- Many of the authors and readers I met at RomCon do not read blogs, at all. Or even know they exist. The only website I heard mentioned by name by anyone was AAR. At the panel on “How to be a fairy godmother to your favorite authors” (or whatever the name was), a small sheet was distributed with a list of sites to talk about books online, and in addition to Amazon, and Goodreads, you had Coffee Time Reviews. That was pretty much it. It was a forceful reminder that we cannot take our experiences in Romland as representative of romance readership.
- I felt unexpectedly hesitant to pimp my blog at RomCon. I had fancy business cards (*giggle*) made up, but I only gave them to two people. I actually had the feeling – and I may have been totally off base here — that it would put a wedge between me and whomever I was chatting with to mention that I had a review blog. I’m not sure what to make of it. It felt like admitting I was on an opposing team in some strange way. Irrational, but there it is.
A few more post con reports have sprung up:
Kim from SOS Aloha has a great recap with a comprehensive list of all the bloggers in attendance.
Keynote speaker and author Lori Foster
Limecello, reviewer at TGTBTU
Author Nicole Peeler
Publisher’s Weekly, Beyond Her Book, Guest column by NYStacey
Author Carolyn Jewel, over at Risky Regencies
Covers:
Why are we interested in book covers? I can think of a few reasons. For one, aesthetics. Humans are interested in beauty and design. We like well designed things, even when the design is unrelated to the function. Some readers likely collect covers, the way someone might collect coins or ladles, and display them.
For another, as fans, we are interested in how the covers represent not just the book, but our genre, and therefore us. It’s interesting to think about what covers say about our culture, about what attracts buyers, etc. When we talk about covers, we are talking about how the industry sees us, and about how we are portrayed to those outside the genre.
Covers also provide an easy shorthand for us as buyers. Even a badly designed or ugly cover can communicate something about a book. To that extent they can help us with buying decisions, especially when we are in a rush.
Of course, covers can mislead us and often do. Few of the heroes in the books actually look like the cover models, and often the hero is posed in ways no human other than a cover model would consent to. The heroine also often does not resemble the female cover model, especially when the author has written her to be less than classically beautiful, or, as we have seen in the whitewashing cases, when she is of other than white Angle race or ethnicity. Covers can also show situations or scenes that do not occur in the book. Some covers are much more misleading than these examples, leading readers to mistake the subgenre or genre of the book in question.
But covers have no relation to the main purposes for which most buyers will pick up a book. Whether we read for fun or escape or mental exercise or any other typical reason, the cover is not predictive or causally connected in any but the most generic ways to whether we our reading experience will be a good one. Bad, ugly, misleading covers adorn great books, and lovely covers adorn awful books. Exciting, unique books get boring, unimaginative covers while dull and uninspired books get covers that are visually cutting edge.
The usual understanding of rationality (or at least instrumental rationality) is that your means match your ends. You have goals, and you do the thing that is most likely to help you meet them. Given that definition, using covers to make buying decisions is irrational.
The covers and content so rarely go together that I am actually grateful I now read mostly digital, because I feel like I have a better chance of meeting my reading goals –namely, a terrific, well written, enjoyable book — without them.
Personal:
We have decided to totally redo the kitchen. Those cabinets we had painted? Twice? Are getting ripped out. So is the floor. Hold me.
I got my instructor’s copy of True Blood and Philosophy. Expect a review in the next week or so.
I’m writing a talk for a conference on Saturday in Camden, so it’s a busy week.
We are also hosting a British soccer coach for my sons’ camp this week. Originally from London, he’s a university student at Leeds and an absolute delight. We are already learning a lot about English culture: I gave him a few cereals to choose from for breakfast and he poured a little of each into his bowl. It gives me an excellent excuse to fix a lobster dinner tonight.
Jessica, thank you for linking to the post about trans people. It was very interesting to read them…I have at least one YA book lined up this month with a trans character and I think these posts will help me when reading the book.
I think another function of covers might be to get the browser (in a physical bookstore) to pick up a book without knowing anything about the author or genre (shelving does dictate genre in some ways, I think, but books on “new this week” tables aren’t always in genre groupings). I call this the “Ooh! Shiny!” effect.
Hooray for UVA making Faulkner’s talks available! They really do have an amazing library system – and I don’t say that just because I used to work there. At one point when I was there, they were recognized for the size of their collection. We had a great big nerdy party to celebrate.
Re: RomCon – I know I shouldn’t be surprised that more people don’t know about online Romland, but I can’t help it. I know people who only lurk online, but they’re still familiar with a wide variety of blogs and sites. Perhaps knowing lots of folks who are on computers all day for work skews it for me, but most romance readers I know offline are aware of at least a few blogs and sites beyond the ones you mentioned above.
Jessica, thanks for all the info on RomCon. I doubt that I’d ever attend a conference, but I really enjoy hearing all the details.
Also, I had my kitchen gutted about ten years ago (even took out a wall), and it’s the best thing that ever happened to my house. The key to sanity is getting the right contractor.
Thanks, Jessica, for the news updates. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find the info you post.
I’m still on the RomCon high (as we roll into RWA next week). Like you, I had business cards to give out, but ended up talking too much with authors and readers. If authors aren’t reading blogsites, they are probably too busy writing, marketing, or laundry. I heard authors agree that they welcome reviews – good, bad or indifferent. They also enjoy readers talking about romance – in person or on the Internet. It’s all good for business!
And your blog is more than just funny reviews (at least the ones I’ve read) – you pass along great info for us to ponder. I have few “romance” fans in Hawaii to share my passion over coffee, so I rely upon your blog (and others) to keep up with other romance readers!
Best wishes with your conference and remodeling!
This. A thousand times this. I feel like I’ve been screaming this for the past 10 years and nobody seems to believe me.
Re: What Lynn said – I think it just doesn’t occur to some readers to “go online” to find other readers or scope out reviews. They read in a vacuum. They pick up books by their favorite authors, or stumble across something at the local library that “sounds interesting, I’ll go ahead and try it.” They lack the obsessive gene some of us have to research books/series/upcoming releases etc. etc. etc.
Before I got hooked on the romance genre? I browsed. A lot. I’d just wander around the local library and pick up books that looked interesting to me, read them, enjoy some of them, not enjoy others. This is actually how I discovered Mary Higgins Clark, Barbara Michaels, Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller and Victoria Holt. It was only after discovering romance that I started going online to find reviews and recommendations. Since I was so “new” to the genre, I wanted a good jumping off point. And that’s when I found TRR and AAR….
I respond to Wendy’s apparent shock and dismay that more readers and authors don’t “go online” to learn more about romance. I would like to answer as one of them.
- Time. The laundry just doesn’t do itself.
- Addictive. I’ve forgotten to pick up my son once from school because I was so absorbed in an internet discussion about romance books (I bribed the teacher wtih a romance book).
- Privacy. I’ve taken the plunge to comment, but most of my military friends will not due to security concerns.
- Respect. Some of the confrontational attitudes on blogsites go against how I was raised and am expected to act as a military officer and spouse.
And for those that are now joining Romland, there are too many choices … it can be overwhelming.
I’m about to loose my time on the library computer.
See y’all in Orlando!
I saw that small sheet of recommended sites and I found it insulting. Amazon is not the end all and be all for book reviews sites.
You come to realize how small the book blogging community is when you come out behind the computer and intact with those who don’t know about blogs and the on-line world as much as some of us do.
I think I need to get out more because I’ve become a hermit.
Honestly, I’m surprised that readers and authors are not familiar with review blogs. I’m constantly discovering new ones, like Kim’s, which I discovered here.
I am reader who loves to read romance and also wants to be informed of what is happening within this genre. It’s all so fascinating to me. I have a thought in my head that I want to go to RomCon next year. I would love to get all of your business cards
I only check Amazon if I need spoilers, is that wrong?
@Wendy: True. There are a lot of browsers out there. I tend to work among researcher/analyst types, so sometimes I forget what it’s like to be out there browsing or just seeing what’s on the front tables at the bookstore.
@Kim in Hawaii:
I think the privacy aspect is a big one for folks not wanting to comment. That’s exactly the reason I have so many friends who read but don’t comment on romance blogs, or other kinds of blogs in general.
@Ana: She has loads of introductory posts as well. I have learned a lot reading them. I have been saying for years I need to do a unit on transgendered identities in my feminist theory course and this is the semester I will.
@Victoria Janssen: Yes, and that “oooh, shiny” effect is irrational, unless you are shopping for covers to rip off the book and make a wall poster, or plan to display the book on your coffee table.
@Lynn Spencer: I have enjoyed listening to bits of the Faulkner. so glad UVa has made them available.
And I do think our perspective is skewed a bit. A lot of people I know have one computer in their home, which they TURN ON when they need it. Can you imagine?
@Karenmc: Oh, I am glad you have enjoyed the reports. I felt the same way last year reading the RWA reports. Maybe you’ll come to RWA in NYC in 2011?
Also, thanks for the support on the kitchen redo. I am awake night with the amount of money we are spending but I keep telling myself the return on a kitchen investment is the best you can get! Plus, we are never leaving this house anyway so we may as well make it as nice as we can.
@Kim in Hawaii: Thank you for the kind words, Kim. I agree that for several authors I spoke to, not reading blogs was not an issue of not liking them, but more an issue of not having time.
Have a great time at RWA.
@katiebabs: I really did not have a problem with the concept of that session. I mean, this is a fan conference. If fans are willing to come from far flung places (like Maine) to share their love of the genre, then it is not insane to assume some of these attendees would appreciate a session on what more they can do for the authors they love.
Unfortunately, in execution the panel was flawed, from the opening lecture on piracy (I mean, talk about preaching to the choir. Most of us in the audience spend a sizable chunk of our discretionary income on books!) to the suggestions for how to help authors. I think several people in the audience were more knowledgeable on the topic.
@Vi: I read Amazon reviews for the inspired lunacy, myself.
@Wendy:
Agreed. But isn’t there hope for them? An obsessive gene transplant?
I am too anal to browse. I need to read reviews before I buy a book. It’s partly the money and mostly the time. I am a compulsive book finisher and very slow reader: buying a bad book literally takes hours off of my life!
The privacy points Kim and Lynn make are also good ones.
I look forward to your comments on “True Blood and Philosophy”, I must say!