I sit next to a lot of kids on their way to school on the subway, and many of them have a DS or other small gaming device, though I don’t often see them reading unless it’s a text screen from a game.
Not so in Japan - “Love Stories for Grown-Ups,” better known around here as “Harlequin romances” are now available for the Nintendo DS in Japan.
Can we discuss my jealousy here? Not over the books - the features of the DS Harlequin selection. Check out the features:
Love Stories for Grown-Ups enhances the reading experience by offering a number of interactive features accessed through easy touch screen operation—a “concierge” that allows you to navigate stories by mood or type of heroine, character correlation charts and lists that are updated along with plot developments, narrative annotations including maps for locations, digital bookmarks, story recaps that bring readers up to where they last left off, a choice of background music, Author introductions and images, polls on hero ranking, review rankings by other users via Wi-Fi connection and more.
That is an amazing mix of social networking and personalization - and here I can’t even hack a Kindle to organize my books by genre and subgenre. Seriously. It’s enough to make me want to go to Japan, buy a DS, and ... wish I could read Japanese.
I can’t even imagine the device that would organize such features and make them user-friendly here in the US. Isn’t that sad? I’d love to be able to, for example, read a romance by the mood I’m in, and see who I know is in a similar reading mood - amazing. ETA: it reveals a little bit about the cultural differences and the resulting electronic usage differences between US and Japan, I think.
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25 comments
Em from Germany sent me this video and it’s hilarious on its own - it’ll take awhile before you figure out what the hell is going on:
I like the shirtless firefighter myself.
But according to Camryn in Copenhagen,, Fleggard is a German store owned by Danes who help the Danish save buckets of money:
Just across Germany’s northern-most border with Denmark you’ll find an incredible superstore called Fleggaard. There, you can buy everything you need – tubs of gummi bears, cases of wine, industrial strength dishwashing soap – at prices 30% cheaper than you’ll find in Denmark. It is Denmark’s Costco, packaged as a German loophole.
Though the store is in Germany, it is owned by Danes and exists solely to help Danes avoid the high taxes on goods they are forced to pay in their lil’ island-country. If you’re having a party in Copenhagen, it’s smart and common to make the 4-hour schlep just across the border to Germany to buy all your liquor (after all, parties are expensive, with all the drinking that goes down). So, Danes will drive for 2 hours, take a ferry ride, drive another 2 hours, all to SAVE oodles of cash.
So, as Fleggaard is just over the line between Germany and Denmark the company slogan goes “Lige Over Grænsen” which translates to “Just over the line” in Danish.
Their advertising agency has taken that mantra to heart, with a series of gorgeous ads featuring scantily clad models that are ‘just over the line.’ The first film (below) included a plane full of stunning red-bikini-wearing models who, topless, parachute out of an airplane.
The 100+ women do stunts in the air – while free-falling—holding hands to spell out “Half-off on Dishwasher soap at Fleggaard.”
So that banner under the blimp? It’s all about the soap, baby.
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47 comments
This request will make someone swoon. I already did, I freely admit it. Stephanie writes:
Help! I have a friend who is an Air Force MP. Big burly Alpha guy. (pause for visual image to form)
Anyway he is currently deployed overseas and asked me to send him some books. I thought I was going to have to buy out the Tom Clancy section at the bookstore but then he admitted to me that he used to enjoy Jackie Collins’ books but now needs something else (along the same lines) to read. He’s an undercover romance reader! (I found him, get your paws off!)
I was never a huge fan of Ms. Collins’ so I need your and/or the bitchery’s help. For someone who liked that style what would you recommend in current authors?
How awesome is that? I love requests like this. I asked for clarification as to what it was that he liked about the Jackie Collins books- the Hollywood, the smarm, the sex or the intricate wtf plot? Stephanie surmises that “it was the sex (#1) the intricate wtf plot (#2) and then the smarm. Hollywood was probably incidental.”
I’d suggest Maggie Marr’s Hollywood Girl’s Club novels, as they are much better written and casted than Collins’ novels, and feature strong women. But for fun and intelligent super sexy contemporary-set romances, Julie James’ Something About You might also appeal - minus the obvious Hollywood glitz, unless US attorneys in Chicago are extreme glitz and I don’t know it.
What do you recommend?
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70 comments
Every now and again I take a break from romance reading. Sometimes it’s to scour my brain and take a break from tropes that seem over familiar or frustrations that seem perennial. Sometimes it’s because I love good mystery novels, though I don’t often review them here, and I crave the puzzle and change of pace that good mystery provides. And sometimes I’m curious about a book that I hear mentioned over and over.
If I hear about a book from different people in completely different contexts, it catches my attention because most of the time, the different groups of people I know don’t overlap much. If I hear about the same book in multiple venues, like on Twitter, via email, on my personal Facebook, and in person, I take a good look at it. So it was with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I was craving a break from romance, and this book presented itself to me multiple times.
I don’t usually go for books that have a lot of hype behind them. It took a very good friend saying to me, “No, really, ignore all that crap and read it” before I picked up The DaVinci Code. But the personal recommendations of people who don’t normally interact in the network that is my life made me download a sample, then buy the book outright.
I don’t think I need to tell you it’s not a romance, do I? It’s really not a romance.
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33 comments
Ahoy from the Not Safe for Work department here at Bitchery HQ.
I’m not kidding about the Not Safe for Work Part. Please. Think of the children. And yourself.
From Melissa Marr, we have an amazing and dare I say brilliant link to what truly happens when you become Bejazzled. Bejazzling, if you’re not familiar, is when Swarovski crystals are applied to your waxed hey-nanner-nanner. Instead of a landing strip, for example, you have a sparkly strip.
Wouldn’t that… chafe, should someone engage in some action with her actual and literal glittery hoohah?
But then, nestled intimately alongside Melissa’s email came another email from Gry, who sent in this piece of Norwegian majesty: Ad for over-filled swimming trunks ... sometimes there can be too much sausage.
Ok, that’s Gry’s translation from Norwegian, but if you look at the picture, you get… the picture. Here’s the rest of the article, translated:
The German sportswear store might have selected slightly larger size for the
model.One of the readers of the Swiss online news page Blick.ch discovered the potent ad picture in the web store of Sportcheck, a german sport equipment retailer.
One of the models is shown wearing a classical pair of swimming trunks from Adidas. But, as the reader discovered, the trunks were either too small, or the model had too much body. Alternatively, somone has screwed up rather badly while photoshopping.
(The picture has been removed from the web shop page)
Wow. Glitter and wang! In one entry! How do I cope?
With a contest, of course. These two are destined to meet, the bejazzling investigator and the overburdened swimsuit model. I’ve got a $25 gift certificate up for grabs (ha!) to the person who comes up with the best romance novel title for these two lovely people. The Overhung Swimsuit Model’s Glittery Virgin? Caught In His Swimtrunks by The Sparkle?
Comments close in 24 hours, and you’re more than welcome to pimp your favorite to try to sway my vote.
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