Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Thanks to Dr. Frantz, Associate Professor of Coolness at Fayetteville State University, for the following link:

Stephen King weighs in on the idea that fiction ought to have been an indicator that Cho was planning a massacre. 

The New York Public Library, publisher of a seriously addictive desk reference has released their list of the Greatest Love Stories of All Time. (Hat tip and curtsey to Hubby for the link).

The article is as shallow and insipid as anything else from the news that attempts to discuss love and romance, including pithy statements that people might turn to reading again with this list, and that the romance novels in the list might help the reader gain wisdom “and have a better date next week or a breakthrough in a relationship that you’re in.”

Wait, maybe your head hasn’t started a slow boil yet. Let me give the next quote from Carrie Sloan, editor of Tango magazine, which published the top ten list with the NYPL:

“Instead of trying to glean wisdom from Britney’s (Spears) latest meltdown, it’s looking back to philosophers and authors who have thought this through, and whose stories have stood the test of time.”

I was supposed to glean wisdom from Britney Spears? And I’m supposed to learn the secrets of romance from romances that detail some substantial dysfunctional relationships?

Get a load of the list and the commentary therein, published in Tango magazine‘s guide to relationships:

1. Wuthering Heights

2. Anna Karenina

3. Romeo and Juliet

4. Casablanca

5. Midsummer Night’s Dream

6. Doctor Zhivago

7. Sense and Sensibility

8. Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame

9. Dangerous Liaisons

10. Pride and Prejudice

My conclusions: in this list, romantic is heartwrenching, often whiny, angst, and happy endings are few and far between. I’m not saying that these aren’t good stories - I have a deep love of Sense & Sensibility and Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example - but are these the most romantic stories evah in the histowwy of the woooooold?

Depends on how one defines romance, apparently. 

Thanks to P.C. Cast and Lucinda Betts for both sending me a link to this bit of visual hilarity.

Behold, a clip from The Big Idea featuring ab-tastic cover model Anthony Catanzaro, who appears on the cover of Sexy Beast III. According to Catanzaro, it’s getting great reviews because of the abs. The book comes out… drumroll please… in August 2007.

Yes. Because all I look at in a pre-release is the abdominal action on the cover.

No offense meant to Kate Douglas, Lacy Danes and Morgan Hawke, of course.

The rest of the segment is ample evidence not to judge anything by its cover, notably the cerebral depth of a cover model.

Thanks to the many who forwarded me a link to Jenny Crusie’s rant about those who seek to ban rape from all romance on the basis of one book.

Of particular note:

Romance novels do not determine what readers think; readers determine what romance novels get published. Glen pointed out that the romance industry is more responsive to reader feedback than any other genre. Through reader boards and blogs, listserves and e-mails, and even snail mail, readers let publishers know what they think, but the biggest message they send is what they buy. Readers determine what a successful romance novel is, not writers with a political or moral agenda, and they do that by reading. The books they buy in stores, the books they check out of the library thereby encouraging the libraries to buy in great numbers, send a clear message in the only language publishing speaks: Sales. So I’m annoyed by the people who want to make some topic off bounds for me as a romance writer; they should get their cotton-pickin’ hands off my genre. But I’m not worried about it. I know romance readers too well to think they’ll let anybody push them—or me–around.

As usual, I bow to the sharp wit of Crusie when she’s got a bee in her bonnet. Well played, ma’am. She never leaves her clue cake out in the rain.

There’s a big ol’ discussion going on at Romance Buy the Blog today - a group of Princeton students are gettin’ schooled on the finer points of romance from a scholarly perspective.

Unfortunately for me, Mother Nature’s attempts to drop 8 inches of rain in one day means I have limited time at the computer today, and as a result, I can’t do justice to the whole discussion in this space. But go have a look.