The weekly links, opinion, and personal updates post
Links of Interest:
The topic of relationships between bloggers and authors was in the air last week: My Friend Amy gives some thought to her disclosure policy, Sandra Brannon is pondering whether bloggers can be friends with authors at the BBAW blog, and Rebecca Joines Schinsky of The Book Lady’s Blog considers the problem of conflicts of interest. I am tuned in to this as I think about whether to write a review of a terrific book for which I served as a “beta reader”.
Gender Bias Bingo, at the Gender Bias Learning Project (via Feminist Philosophers). Deeply unfun, despite the name.
At LitKicks, Levi Asher is talking about Evil versus evil. I found myself noticing the zero comments on the post. This is the thing about about “lit blogs”: very often there are no comments, regardless of how good or thought provoking the post is. Whenever I write a post that generates few comments I console myself with the thought that blogs like Bookninja, LitKicks, and Bookslut never get any comments either. Some book blogs, like Maud Newton and Beatrice, don’t even allow comments. I wonder if that’s because lit blogs consider what they are doing journalism (one way communication) and other bloggers view creating a community (with dialogue) a central part of their mission.
Continuing with the evil theme, from The Atlantic, a moving reflection on compassion by Ta-Nehisi Coates, inspired by reading Drew Gilpin Faust’s Mothers Of Invention, a history of women in slaveholding families during the Civil War. Read it for the great discussion in the comments as well, where Coates considers evil in more detail. (via @meljean)
I enjoyed The Plot Escapes Me (NYT) by James Collins, in which he meditates on why he bothers reading fiction when he forgets most of what he reads. He talks to the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain who says:
“There is a difference,” she said, “between immediate recall of facts and an ability to recall a gestalt of knowledge. We can’t retrieve the specifics, but to adapt a phrase of William James’s, there is a wraith of memory. The information you get from a book is stored in networks. We have an extraordinary capacity for storage, and much more is there than you realize. It is in some way working on you even though you aren’t thinking about it.”
Did this mean that it hadn’t been a waste of time to read all those books, even if I seemingly couldn’t remember what was in them?
“It’s there,” Wolf said. “You are the sum of it all.”
At Conversations in the Book Trade, an eye opening interview with Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This. And by “eye opening” I mean “I deny much of what this person asserts”. For example:
The only people I know who read e-books work in publishing, and are paid to get excited about such things.
Oh, and guess how many comments? 
(via Books, Inq.)
All Things Urban Fantasy is celebrating its one year Blogversary with a huge contest.
From the Guardian, the amazing Cordelia Fine on gender. I have assigned her book in my feminist theory course this semester (Someone emailed for the syllabus, so will I post it). In the article, Fine says:
I’m pleased to say that the sheer extensiveness of the scientific terrain I covered enabled me to be tiresome in all sorts of different ways. Among friends, a well-timed sentence beginning with “Interestingly …” became my favourite way to spoil a perfectly pleasant conversation.
“Interestingly, in humans there’s no clear causal relationship between testosterone and aggressive behaviour,” I would say casually to a parent describing a group of boys’ behaviour as “testosterone-fuelled”. A dear friend was gently rebuked with the same word when she mentioned having to stock up the present cupboard with more “girl toys”. I couldn’t help myself.
What will we call “page turners” in the digital age? A funny cartoon illustrates it for us. (via @avidreaderket) <—— formerly @avidbookreader. Also, formerly sane.
Someone is thinking hard about Amazon’s Kindle collective highlight feature: cool or creepy? (via @booksquare)
I discovered a new blog, Literary Sluts. I’ll tell you what I like about it: (1) it looks good — clean and easy to navigate, (2) they carry the title through the rest of the blog in a funny way (the tagline is “We’ll Go to Bed With Any Book”, and they have a page called “Proposition Us” instead of “contact”) (3) it reviews across genres, and (4) it gives low grades when deserved. The reviews are short, and, like many of the popular women’s fiction blogs, are not analytical, tending to focus on (a) plot, and (b) their feelings about the book. For many readers, that’s all you need.
PS> And when I say “not analytical” I don’t mean “not objective“.
Post-HEA Nookie (PHN)
I reviewed Shiloh Walker’s Veil of Shadows this weekend, and in the review I noted that the book features PHN, something for which I do not care. Walker stopped by to cast aspersions on my sanity for holding this view. And then Rosario defended me, saying she, too, is no fan of the PHN because:
Sex scenes where there’s nothing at stake (and I would assume if we’re after the HEA, there isn’t) bore me.
This is exactly why I don’t like them, although I did not realize that until Rosario explained my own view to me. I might make an exception for a certain kind of romance: one in which the hero and heroine are antagonists for most of the book, the HEA is very late, and the PHN is the one scene where the reader gets to see them playing nice (as in Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements, for example, or any Harlequin Presents). What do you think?
Personal
The kitchen is still only halfway done and our friends and neighbors are getting sick of hosting our sorry asses for dinner. I have more work than I can shake a stick at, and my experiment in not getting my eyebrows waxed for a month has revealed that I have hair follicles all over my eyelids. Oh, and I threw the final gauntlet in the battle against my own sanity by deciding to coach an Ethics Bowl team this semester.
Given all that, I am not even going to intimate what my next post will be or when.
HAPPY WEEK!
Jessica, one of the best stepbacks to date, i clicked on basically every link. The one about Evil vs evil was very interesting and useful (I think I will use it for my review tomorrow, I was struggling with it), so thank you.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is very interesting to read; though I often disagree with him, I like how eclectic and thoughtful his blog is. Speaking of The Atlantic, did you see the overwhelmingly negative review of Franzen’s Freedom? I’ve not read the book, so I don’t know if the reviewer does it justice, but it’s one of the few negative reviews I’ve seen so far.
Also, I was amused to see a commenter suggest that the review was “wrong”. Not sure what a right/correct review is; one that the reader agrees with?
I’m very impressed with your output considering the state of the kitchen!
I don’t see the conflict of interest in writing a review of a book you consider terrific, as long as you are up-front that you were one of the people assisting the author in pre-publication stage to make sure she didn’t screw up the story anywhere along the way.
You’re not just helping a friend find an audience. You’re helping a terrific book find an audience. Isn’t that what reviewing is all about.
I have had fun clicking all over the web, reading comments, adding my own and generally thinking about stuff. Thanks so much for a great stepback installment. Good luck with the kitchen!
I agree that if you’re being compensated by an author for doing PR, you definitely shouldn’t review the book. But someone you’ve had a drink with? Good grief. Academic book reviewers do single-blind reviews, economists do unblind peer reviews (i.e., author and reviewer are known to each other), and lots of so-called double-blind peer reviews aren’t anymore, what with Google and all. Some of the reviews are negatively affected by this, but many are not, at least in my field. So no, I don’t think having *any* kind of regular or semi-regular interaction should disqualify you as a reviewer; just be sure to consider seriously whether you can review the book the way you think you should, and if you review, then disclose the connection.
Reviewing something you’ve beta read is a little trickier. Not so much because of the relationship, which obviously you can disclose in the review, but because you now have a higher likelihood of being invested in the product. If they took your advice, you’re going to like it more, and if they didn’t, that may reinforce your original criticisms. Either way, you are going to approach the book differently.
Why not have a guest review and then if the author is okay with it, write a post about the process of beta reviewing and your feelings on the finished product?
I didn’t realize it either, but I think Rosario nailed it. I remember a blogger saying she wished J.D. Robb would cut out the sex scenes in the “in Death” books at this point, and I think it was probably for that same reason. For me, there has to be a story behind the sex.
I also don’t like HEA sex. I usually skip over it. I’m with Rosario and you and in that I prefer the sex to be a culmination of sexual tension or that it furthers the plot/relationship. Unless the HEA sex is the first time a couple has sex, I think it’s redundant and usually boring.
I actually struggle to think of many books in which post-HEA sex features. The only ones that stick out are Mathilde Madden’s books – but these are erotic books (the author may not view them even as erotic romance – although I do). So for that reason, the post-HEA-sex is an actually part of the HEA rather a post-HEA event. In fact, it’s really an evocation of what their HEA is going to be.
Re the beta reading I personally wouldn’t review a story I had beta-read. However, I would possibly post thoughts on the book that were not a straight review – perhaps discuss one particular aspect of the book. (And since I think I know what book we’re talking about, I would very much like to read your thoughts on it.)
I am fortunate to call many authors friends and clients, and my personal rule is that if I work for you or if we have, say, gone drinking together, or I know how you’re adjusting to your five-year-old going off to kindergarten because you told me at our regular brunch last week, I won’t review your book. I might talk about it (and I will always, always mention what our relationship is, so people know exactly where I stand), but I will not, under any circumstances, review it. Because really, even if I were completely honest and unbiased about it, who’s going to believe it? … I quoted the blogger paragraph in its entirety because duh, “work for” … and Sunita raised an eyebrow at “had a drink” but for me the implication was that it was a drink between such close friends that you knew how his/her child was adjusting to kindergarten. So isn’t that a friendship that’s close enough to possibly preclude reviewing and sorta calls out for a “I know this author pretty well”? That’s how I took it.
As much as I love Rosario, I can’t search thru her marvelous blog looking for a quote about HEA & after sex: when it comes to In Death, I like their “encounters” after some conflict of some sort. Not just “colour” for the book. Just me.
I think it’s fine to review a book you’ve beta-read as long as you disclose that information. Generally speaking though, depending on the reviewer I probably wouldn’t bother reading said review if I see that’s it’s glowingly positive. And by “depending on the reveiwer,” I’m talking about how descriptive are their reviews; or do they often review books of friends and have any of them been negative. If a reviewer typically provides enough details to let know how I’d feel about a book regardless of how she felt then I’d go ahead and read the review.
I’ve never even thought about the PHN issue. While I want sex scenes to be well written and an organic part of the love story, I don’t need a motivation for their existence. I just need those sex scenes to exist, otherwise, unless the author is indescribably wonderful in every other way, I’d feel ripped off.
Thanks so much for talking about our blog here. I just saw this and your post and links look really interesting to me. I plan to dig into all the links after work.
I’ve read a lot of interesting things about Cordelia Fine’s book, but until that link I didn’t know that her mother is Anne Fine . (At least) two generations of awesome there!
Thanks for sharing my over-thinking about the Kindle post — it brought me over here to discover your fantastic blog.
I love the PHN!! I enjoy the sex scenes in the In Death series (to use an example). They remind me that the relationship is still working. I think they show where the relationship is, so I’m all for them.
@Ana: Thanks! I don’t agree with him on all counts, for example, the claim that all moral rules are universal, but it’s a great post.
@Meri: I had not read Coates prior to this. It’s interesting that you are mixed.
Also, I think reviews can be wrong, although in practice I agree that people are more likely to accuse a review of being “wrong” if they disagree with it. Haven’t you ever talked with someone about a book and thought to yourself that she just did not get it? That she had it “all wrong”?
@Mara:
What a nice way to put it. I am going to ring you the next time I need to finesse a conflict of interest.
@Merrian: Thanks! Tile floor is going down today.
@Sunita:
Even this is a joke half the time, if you work in a smaller field. you’ve often heard the paper at a conference or know who is wrote it some other way.
@Sunita:
She did take my advice, and it’s my proudest accomplishment since giving birth. Think that will affect the review?
@willaful: I had not thought of In Death in this context, but absolutely, that would be the same thing. I’ve only read three of them, though … not enough time to get sick of it, I guess, since they were still working out major issues. (see below)
@LVLMLeah: so glad I am not the only one!
@Tumperkin:
That is a great way to put it. It is hard to distinguish “post HEA” sex from sex that is part of the HEA in many cases.
@Tumperkin:
You do, and you will.
@Janet W: It’s very hard to know what a drink signifies in many cases, isn’t it? My own rule is usually that if I feel a concern, there is a COI. The next question is how to deal with it: is disclosure enough? Or do I need to hand the task to someone else?
And you don’t have to search Rosario’s blog, as rewarding as that would be — just click the link! She made that comment here.
@Las:
I take it you don’t read Julie James or Kristan Higgans then, LOL! I need sexual tension, because I think that’s a crucial part of romance, but I don’t care whether the author keeps the bedroom door closed. In fact, half the time, I wish she would.
@Tricia B: Your blog was a nice discovery. Good luck with it!
@Liz: Yeah, and I am pretty sure her father is Kit Fine. Poor thing. Such underachieving parents.
@Callie Miller:
There is no such thing as “over thinking” in my world. Thanks for visiting!
@Kaetrin: I can see that. But let me play devil’s advocate: there is no HEA in the In Death books, so none of the sex scenes count as an example of what I am referring to. ?
I don’t know if I’d use “wrong” to describe a a disagreement with someone’s subjective opinion about the merit of a book. But I suppose if I disagree with their interpretation of what the book means, or what the author is trying to say, then yes, I might consider it wrong. That wasn’t the case here, though; more like “you’re a bad person for not liking Franzen and aren’t smart enough to appreciate his greatness. So you’re wrong.”
As for Coates, our backgrounds and life experiences are very different, and it affects the way we view many things. But I’d be bored reading bloggers with whom I agree all the time. It’s good to reexamine my own views and try to understand where other people are coming from. I don’t always agree with you, either.
@willaful:
Honestly, for me, the books would lack some realism, though, if that happened… they are supposed to be, in part, about exploring a relationship after the marriage. I’d find it hard to believe that couple could have a happy relationship without a healthy sex life, since we’re with them on their journey…well, I don’t really like the closed door sex. Cutting the sex out altogether cuts out an integral part of their lives-their romance.
Romance doesn’t end with that commitment-with “I do” or “I am committed to you, only you”
Generally I write as the HPN (dang, love that) as not just a ‘closure’ for me and the book, but in my mind, it’s also a step off in the H/H’s beginning. Romances don’t end with that commitment, after all…that commitment is just the beginning.
Those names barely look familiar.
I’ve read plenty of books where the authors were so good at writing sexual tension that if they had left the bedroom door closed I wouldn’t have minded (much). But in my experience, those authors who choose not to include sex in their romances aren’t much for writing that palpable sexual tension I think is an essential part of any love story. (Maybe I’ve just read the wrong authors.) I feel like I’m reading romances meant for young teens, and I didn’t read those types of books when I was a young teen, so I’m not about to start now.
(Tumperkin)
(RRR Jessica)
I agree with Tumperkin (I hadn’t had time to read that comment before) – I see the in Death series as the HEA being an ongoing event rather than a completed one. At the end of each book the series could end and we could all go off believing in the HEA – until the next book where there may or may not be some conflict between Roarke & Eve and they have to work it out again.
Also, with long series/books like the in Death series or the Outlander series frex, every now and then I like a little “HEA/HFN” break where the couple are just happy together (some of the in Death books are like this and the conflict is in the crime part of the story) and I enjoy reading the sex scenes in those books/parts of the series- it’s part of the payoff I think. I know others gloss over the Eve & Roarke sex scenes in later books but I’m not one of them – and, I can’t imagine glossing over a Jamie/Claire sex scene – except maybe when the characters are like 80!
I stay the hell away from reviewing books I “beta-read”, no matter how fantastic those books are. If I love the book and I want everyone to give it a try, I pimp it as a reader through the usual channels. Any route but a review. I broke my rule by writing a review of an awesome game Tiger Eye, but I didn’t go through with it in the end. I just couldn’t do it. I ended up recommending it the usual way.
I do wonder if my policy is to do with cowardice, though. I think one has to have the balls to use their reviewer hat to review something they were involved with. You know, putting their reviewer credibility on the line.
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