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

I cannot believe I am hunting the internet for Andy Rooney’s segment on 60 Minutes tonight - or that I tuned into 60 Minutes for that matter. I enjoyed it but I also get the feeling I should take my teeth out and put them in a glass to soak now. I remember my grandparents watching that show, back when there wasn’t such a thing as network news channels.

a- ha! I found it! - it’s the third down on the right, in the current menu display, titled Books or Video in the Future?

Rooney’s segment, which I will link to if I can find it, was all about his 1000th commentary, and how the network has them all on tape. He then wondered if tape would ever really, truly replace books, and went on to talk about a few of his favorite books, the ones he would never part with, because they are his most-useful references. There was a leather-bound four-volume set of Darwin, a few guides to writing, and a book by Walter Lippman titled A Return to Morals.

Rooney’s favorite books are mostly of the reference variety, and it got me thinking: what books do I hold on to, either because I refer to them frequently, or because they have sentimental meaning to me?

Hubby answered the question by saying, if the waters were rising in the basement again and all our books were down there, he’d grab his copies of the Baseball Prospectus dating back from 1991 to the present. They’re more of a historical reference for him, based on his years as a rotisserie baseball player, because he can look back at the names of the players in the National League and remember what was going on in his life when those players were on active rosters.

For me, if all the books I own were in the basement and another nor’easter rolled in (the last one got all my second-tier cookbooks, the ones I don’t refer to constantly but liked having around - damn storm) to flood the basement, well, I’d hope that I’d learn not to keep my books down there anymore. But since I’m not too swift on the uptake, I’d have to grab my copy of the complete unabridged works of Shakespeare, which I had to buy in college and weighs about six thousand pounds AND I had to carry it to class every day (up a hill, both ways, in the snow in South Carolina). But the notes in the margins are worth the book itself, and gosh do I love that book. Reading it helped me write one of my favorite, and (if you ask me) best papers for that class, which touched on herbal abortions, madness and sex.

After I chuck the sixteen pound Shakespeare up the stairs, I’d grab my wedding album, with the proof book if possible, and the baby name book I found in my parent’s house, which I think they used to name me. We also found Freebird’s names in there, one of the few books that has both.

Fiction? Sadly, I don’t have any must-keep editions of fiction, though I get a giddy thrill from the books I have that were thoughtfully signed by the authors. The books I have to grab possess that reference to my past with such sentimental meaning that they can’t be replaced by Alibris or Half.com.

And funny enough, as Rooney says in his segment, I wouldn’t grab a single videotape as a irreplaceable reference.

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.