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

Bitchery Reader Taylor has illuminated the BitchSignal to ask for help with an innovative request for assistance. Alert, Bitchery at Large: It’s Road Trip Time!

I was hoping the Bitchery could help me out. I’m planning a driving tour of the UK next spring and am stopping at all the places featured in some of my favorite historical romance novels. However, I would love to add another three or twelve books to my list of places to visit. Right now I’m researching locations in: the random, un-pinpoint-able Highlands of Julie Garwood; Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander; Gaelen Foley’s The Duke and Lord of Fire; Mary Balogh’s stories set in Bath; whatever area I find in some Judith McNaught books (haven’t read those in awhile, so I don’t know if there is anything useful in them or not); all the normal places in London like Almack’s and Gunter’s and White’s. I’m also going to Sherwood Forest to see how spooky it really is(n’t).

So, my question is...does the Bitchery have some omgFAVorite historical romances that include some interesting locations other than London? I’ve emailed some of the authors whose books I’m referencing and they have been great about giving me additional ideas and suggestions. If the Bitchery can help out, that just makes it so much better!!!!

If I could drive for more than an hour without having to make a pit stop, I’d be on that trip myself. That sounds awesome. So get out your Bitch Map - where would you send Taylor? 

One of the best parts of being the east coast Smart Bitch is that I open my email first. It’s 8am here, and the ass crack of down out by Candy (morning Candy!), so I am caffeinating and enjoying the round-up of links people sent me last night.

Shen Git sent over a video from the Best Week Ever’s recap of morning talk shows: Behold the jiggly mantitty.

That’s quite a threat right there - “BE SILENT! Or I will flap my man titty at you!” I’ve watched this dude about three times now, and I’m still amused. 

Congratulations, Tania, for correctly guessing the answer to last week’s Personal Ad contest. In honor of Gay Pride Month and the piratical theme of the contest, we created the following title just for you. Kneel, Tania, for we Smart Bitches now dub thee:

And behold, there were so many votes - seriously, a shitfuck ton of votes - that it’s taken me this long to tabulate them. But a (few) day(s) late does not make the victory any less sweet.

Hooray for Kerry, whose entry appeared frequently exit poll in the comments and kicked all kinds of ass in the official voting. And verily the electoral college said she hath been crowned the winner for her cover:

Congratulations! A gift certificate to Amazon shall be on its way to you, and, if you like, an iridescent nightlight shaped like Jesus. But more importantly, kneel and arise with your Smart Bitch Title™:

Bitchery reader Falon gave me a heads up to a book she really, REALLY enjoyed, as in, read the whole dang thing in one sitting. As I am a sucker for YA, I’m going to look for it next time I visit the book commerce locations online or in Jersey: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Have you read it? What’d you think?

Then, Early Ink maven Mollie forwarded me a really cool link to a UK publications catalog. The Bookseller uses a program called Ceros to publish their Autumn Paperback Preview - and damn, does it kick the crap out of Adobe in terms of function, zooming, and ease of use.

Both links got me thinking - time to consult the reading power of the Bitchery. What are you reading now that you’re digging? And what are you looking forward to in upcoming releases? 

Courtesy of Darlene Marshall:

International Condom ads. I think the wrestlers are my favorite. I almost snorted coffee out my nose.

Remember: Not Work Safe for Office Bitches!

Always stymied for a Father’s Day gift?  Never fear, next year you’ll know exactly what to give him: Pussy Juice. (NOT WORK SAFE, KIDS.)

No. Am not kidding. Not even a little.

I’m looking forward to their next product offerring: Sweat From My Balls. (You can feel it!)

Props to iffygenia for forwarding me the link. And by props, I mean “HOLY GOD WOMAN, WHAT THE FUCK?”

Remember those? We used to have those regularly. And all that. In honor of the 164th Annual Plunderathon (anyone else going? I’m definitely going to be there, swashing my buckle and buckling my swash), I’m going to go with a pirate themed romance.

You regulars know the score. First person to correctly guess the author, title and heroine’s name wins the booty booty, consisting of one not-at-all landlubbery and only mildly scurvy Smart Bitch Aristocratic title.

---

Fire-breathing reformer seeks prisoner transport ship to expose appalling conditions faced by female prisoners. Am most decidedly NOT seeking a randy pirate captain and his randy pirate crew who are seeking a shipful of women as part of some sort of hare-brained utopian scheme--no matter how becoming your eyeliner may be.

One of our readers forwarded on ”The Scorn of the Literary Blog” by Adam Kirsch, an article about the future of reviewing and book blogs; given our recent discussions about book reviewing, she thought it’d be an interesting addition to the dialogue.

Kirsch does raise some points I’d like to examine further:

Yet in the face of the constant shrinkage of newspaper book coverage — as inexorable, it seems, as the melting of the glaciers — the literary world still makes time to fight over some very minor “ethical” questions. “Should a book review editor assign a book on subject A to a reviewer who has also written a book on subject A?” the NBCC survey asked. “Should authors who publish with a particular house be permitted to review other books published by that house?” I can’t think of a working editor or journalist who would say no to either question. What’s more, such questions demonstrate a basically flawed understanding of what book reviews are for. [...]

Mr. Tanenhaus put his finger on the source of the problem. Questions like those raised by the NBCC survey envision the book review as a transaction between author and reviewer, rather than between reviewer and reader. To be obsessed with potential bias or conflict of interest on the book reviewer’s part is to imagine the reviewer as a judge, who is obligated to provide every author with his or her day in court. But that judicial standard is impossible, because there is no such thing as an objective judgment of a work of literature; aesthetic judgment is by definition personal and opinionated. Nor would a perfectly objective book review even be desirable. The whole point of a review is to set one mind against another, and see what sparks fly. If the reviewer lacks an individual point of view, or struggles to repress it, there can be no intellectual friction, and therefore no interest or drama.

While I don’t think an author should be barred from reviewing another author solely based on potential conflicts of interest, such as being, I dunno, the AUTHOR’S EX, I do think a brief explanation or disclaimer before the review can’t hurt. It gives us a place to work from; it places these people in context. Conflict of interest can and sometimes does materially affect a person’s opinion, and brushing it all under the giant rug with “It’s All Subjective, Anyway” emblazoned on it isn’t doing anybody any favors, and ignores the nuances of the issue. No, book reviews aren’t FDA evaluation panels, and they’re not the peer-review process required for publication in academic journals, but as much as I possible, I want to see where the reviewer is coming from, if her background isn’t evident from her name alone. Asking people to declare any potential conflicts of interest isn’t the same as suppressing their point of view.

I have the feeling that the critics have hold of, if not the wrong end of the stick, then at least are wielding it from a very awkward angle. Am I wrong?

But book bloggers have also brought another, less salutary influence to bear on literary culture: a powerful resentment. Often isolated and inexperienced, usually longing to break into print themselves, bloggers — even the influential bloggers who are courted by publishers — tend to consider themselves disenfranchised. As a result, they are naturally ready to see ethical violations and conspiracies everywhere in the literary world. As anyone who reads literary blogs can attest, hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned. And the scorn is reciprocated: Professional writers usually assume that those who can, do, while those who can’t, blog.

I am somewhat lacking in context here, because the only book blog I follow with regularity nowadays is, well, this one. But my impression has been that most litbloggers lash out and act really pissy when people, like, say, Richard Schickel start talking about how blogging is DRAGGING DOWN THE THE DISCOURSE, MAN. (If litbloggers are feeling disenfranchised, maybe it’s because they kinda are?) But more to the point, I don’t get the impression that the litbloggers acting as watchdogs for print reviewers represents paranoia on their part, or resentment; the thing is, blogs are more mobile than newspapers are, and are able to cover a whole lot more in a really brief amount of time. Most litbloggers are reasonably well-connected within the publishing industry; if they don’t start out that way, they soon become so if they achieve any sort of popularity. They have a lot more dirt, and they’re not afraid to dish it out.

Again, I’m getting the feeling that Kirsch isn’t quite getting it--except for the bit about “hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned.” Y’know, we are a tetchy bunch of scrappers; just as the freedom to maneuver allows us to outstrip and outdo certain types of reportage, it also allows us to mash that “SUBMIT” button before we’ve had time to cool down. Instead of writing letters to the editor, WE’VE BEEN BLOGGING! ("I met her on the Livejournals! She said I was teh sex.")

In fact, despite what the bloggers themselves believe, the future of literary culture does not lie with blogs — or at least, it shouldn’t. The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature, and it is no coincidence that there is no literary blogger with the audience and influence of the top political bloggers. For one thing, literature is not news the way politics is news — it doesn’t offer multiple events every day for the blogger to comment on. For another, bitesized commentary, which is all the blog form allows, is next to useless when it comes to talking about books. Literary criticism is only worth having if it at least strives to be literary in its own right, with a scope, complexity, and authority that no blogger I know even wants to achieve. The only useful part of most book blogs, in fact, are the links to long-form essays and articles by professional writers, usually from print journals.

This is where Kirsch loses me and makes me wonder if he reads and understands the nature of blogging. There isn’t a litblogger with the power and influence of Kos or Drudge? Of course there isn’t, for several reasons:

1. More people are interested in politics than books, and it’s easier to engage people in conversations about political matters than their reading material.

2. Political decisions, especially on the federal level, affect everybody. Much as we’d like to think Harry Potter has the same impact, it’s just doesn’t.

3. The news has coverage that the vast majority of books can only dream about. Just about everybody knows about the Virginia Tech shootings and can offer opinions and commentary. Not the same can be said about Thomas Pynchon’s newest, or hell, even Nora Roberts’ newest.

And those are just off the top of my head. Litbloggers are small beans compared to the political blogs? Fuck yes. Just as The Book Review is small beans compared to the front page of the New York Times.

And Kirsch, like most people who work primarily in print, dismisses blogs as a miscellany of links and ephemera in a way that I don’t think is quite accurate. Yes, some days there ain’t nothin’ but LOLHUNKS and links, but on many days, there are substantial issues that are talked over in the comments section of a blog. As for “bitesized commentary"--not that we can compare with the more substantial offerings of newspapers and magazines, because he’s right, it’s just not as comfortable to read the screen as it is paper for most people--all I can say is, many of the blogs I know offer pretty hefty bites.

And like Schickel, Kirsch seems to believe that reviewing strives for similar goals as academic criticism. I have the feeling that some sort of bait-and-switch was pulled; most of the article seems to be dealing with reviewing, and then BAM! we’re all of a sudden talking about literary criticism. The two beasts are related, but not necessarily the same thing. Is blogging suited for Criticism, big C, full of footnotes and lengthy analysis? Probably not. Is blogging suited for criticism, as in “commentary and analysis”? Certainly. In fact, I think it’s a wonderful vehicle for that sort of thing, because what you lose in elegance and profundity in the article itself, you gain in the ability to engage in a dialogue with other people in the comments. I’m not saying blogs are better; I’m saying blogs are different, and they’re encouraging people to engage in different ways with text, while it seems that people like Kirsch and Schickel keep thinking about blogs in print terms.

Still, it is important to distinguish between the blog as a genre and the Internet as a medium. It is not just possible but likely that, one day, serious criticism will find its primary home on the Web. The advantages — ease of access, low cost, potential audience — are too great to ignore, even if our habits and technology still make it hard to read long essays on the computer screen. [...] But there’s no chance that literary culture will thrive on the Internet until we recognize that the ethical and intellectual crotchets of the bloggers represent a dead end.

Intellectual crotchets? What a marvellous phrase. And it’s true, blog drama can get tiring after a while, but it adds so much more interest and spice to the enterprise, don’t you think? Where’s Kirsch’s love of intellectual friction now, eh? For what it’s worth, I think that literary culture is thriving quite well on the Internet in its own Interwebbish format; whether print literary critics will recognize it as such is another thing entirely.

From the most excellent site, I Love Bacon, a truly awesome example of closed captioning.

Now someone needs to write erotica with a clit that has a strong moral code. 

Sarah Weinman forwarded us this fascinating (if brief) discussion between Dwight Garner, senior editor of the New York Times Book Review and a romance author going only by Jen.

Jen starts out by asking, in response to the brief book review recaps by Garner:

Interesting that every single book reviewed elsewhere has also been reviewed by the Times (the Diana book’s gotten two full reviews, plus a feature piece on Ms. Brown).

Can you give us some insights into how reviewers make their choices? Do you all get a supersecret list of which books/authors/imprints are important enough to merit a mention? Have reviewers noticed that it’s the same tiny handful of authors who get written up everywhere, while there are authors — and, in the Times’ case, entire genres — that never get mentioned at all?

Garner provides a link to Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus’ explanation of the process. When Jen points out it still doesn’t answer her question about why certain books are selected as worthy and brings up romance as a genre that has been completely neglected in The Book Review, Garner responds thusly:

Reviewing romance novels: whew. We don’t have room to review so very many things we’d like to; is reviewing romances really the best use of our space? Can’t the readers who love them find news of them elsewhere?

Who does do a good job of reviewing them, anyway? Who is the Lionel Trilling of romance critics? Maybe we should hire that person, whoever he or she is.”

Jen’s reply is eminently worth reading, but alas, not easily quotable. Go go go; read read read. And Garner’s responding comment is wonderfully civil, even as it doesn’t necessarily provide any further food for thought.

For once, I’m not going to jump all over this and be shrill, partly because Garner’s courteous (if dismissive) tone is making me feel contemplative. His rather off-hand contempt is clear, but I feel like engaging in a dialogue instead of yelling. (Not that yelling isn’t good, dirty fun on occasion. I love a good blog rumble as much--if not just a touch more--than anybody.)

Ignoring, for the moment, the comment about the Lionel Trilling of romance (and really, even if they DID find one who qualified, do you honestly think, Garner’s assurances aside, they’d hire her? Psh), here’s my take on why The Book Review and other major newspaper literature reviews won’t cover romance novels while allowing certain bestsellers and genre roundups between their hallowed pages--and no, it’s not going to be the usual “Blame the patriarchy!” spiel:

1. It’s all about the benjamins, baby.

2. It’s also all about being a cultural gatekeeper. Baby.

*cue lamé-clad jiggy dancers*

There are certain works of popular fiction that The Book Review can’t afford to not cover if they want to maintain even an illusion of being fresh, relevant--and profitable. If a book is going to make a huge enough crater on the landscape, then by golly by gum The Book Review is going to track its blazing progress across the sky--together with all the other newspapers, because they can’t afford to miss it, either. They may not have kind things to say about the impact, but they have to at least cover it.

Similarly, once mysteries and science fiction moved far away enough from the intellectual ghetto that their readers weren’t afraid of being clobbered left and right by cultural assumptions as soon as they admitted their love for those genres, I think The Book Review realized that they needed to throw some sort of sop to them. But also? I think at one point, the new(ish) generation of editors looked at each other and had conversations like these:

“You read SF?

“Um. Yeah, I do.”

“...so, did you read way too many Ray Bradbury stories as a kid?”

“Yes. Also, please don’t tell anyone about my unspeakable love of everything Heinlein. What is UP with him and his ‘sex will save the world, and if that don’t work, fascism will’ schtick, anyway?”

And realized that really, being an SF or mystery reader isn’t the end of the world.

This sort of thing hasn’t happened with romance novels yet, and they likely won’t for a good long time. I have the impression that The Book Review drew a sort of line in their cultural map with the round-ups for SF and mystery. “We’ll go this far but no further.” They have a reputation to maintain, for god’s sake. Can you imagine the uproar should they decide to cover romances? Doing so would be lending a sort of tacit approval to the genre. It would say to all their readers that not only are there books well worth reading within the genre, there are books actually worth the time and energy that go into reviewing them. The Book Review isn’t nearly ready for that sort of step yet. It has too much invested in its prestige, of being one of the vanguards of high culture.

This is why Garner’s arguments about lack of space vs. popularity of genre don’t really hold water; why they are, in fact, prety goddamn ridiculous and half-hearted. While romance novels as a whole outsell other genres as a whole, individual mid-list romance titles perform about as well as mid-list anything else. If they were truly interested in elevating the undeservedly obscure, I don’t see why they couldn’t do exactly the same for romance novels as they did for SF and mystery.

The line on the map has been drawn, and The Book Review are keeping quite firmly to their side of the divide. In the end, it really does boil down to the crack Garner made about the Lionel Trilling of romance and its implication that no such creature could possibly exist. Romance, as far as they’re concerned, lies at the empty blue expanses at the furthest reaches of the map, with “Take Caution: Here Lie Gyrl Cooties and Manne-Titty” scrawled in an elegant hand and a drawing of Fabio underneath the dread warning. And what’s more, The Book Review is certainly not interested in exploring and risk being touched by The Bewitched Viking’s ever-extended finger. I can’t say as I’d blame them on that score....

I leave you dear readers with this--I figured, since I mangled it for Hoff’s sake, I can do no less for The Book Review:

No! I am not Lionel Trilling, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant reviewer, one that will do
To swell the Internets, start a flamewar or two,
Advise the readers; cause their eyeballs to twitch;
Insolent, but glad to be of use,
Impolitic, incautious, and a bit explosive
Full of high sentence, and low humored abuse;
At times, indeed, almost corrosive,
Almost, at times, the bitch.

Today is Sarah’s birthday. Rejoice, O Internetlandia!

So, the first time I wished her Happy Birthday on this site, I told her she was my favorite Hebe.

The second time, I inundated her with animated GIFs of birthday cakes. Also, a dancing Elvis.

This year, I wanted to do something REALLY special. Something that showed her how much I appreciated all that she’s done for the website, and what a stellar partner-in-crime she is.

So I decided to Photoshop really stupid catchphrases on romance novel covers as a website birthday gift.

Happy birthday, Sarah, and hope you enjoy the LOLHUNKS.

And a few Really Not Work Safe selections below the fold, folks:

We’re finally getting off our (impeccably callipygean) heinies and coming up with some sort of Smart Bitch merchandise, O Bitchery. We’re going to start with T-shirts first, and move on to other things based on demand. But! In order to realize some of our Most Awesome ideas, we need the help of a graphic designer--preferably someone who knows how to draw and manipulate man-titty. Because awesome as it would be to have the Pull My Finger viking telling us YOU BITCHES HAVE GONE TOO FAR, putting that on a mousepad and selling it would violate so many different types of copyright it’d make our head spin. (OK, so it’ll violate only one type of copyright. Allow us some comic hyperbole, eh?)

Interested? E-mail and with samples of your work or a link to your website, and we’ll talk terms. Besides money, we’ll be happy to pimp you and your business up, down and sideways.

Oh, imagine the Google hits we’ll get off that title. All I need to do is drop the word “Dominican Bitches” in there somewhere and we’re set for another year of weird referral hits.

But hat tip to Lilith Saintcrow who sent us this list: AfterEllen’s List of the top 100 hottest women as voted on by their readers. AfterEllen, a site for “news and reviews of gay and bisexual women in entertainment and the media” (that’s a mouthful), was rather disappointed by the relative un-hotness of the Maxim Hot 100, so they did their own list.

Clearly, what straight men and lesbians find sexy in a woman is a little bit different. “Hot” for lesbians and bisexual women comes in all ages, sizes, colors and styles, as the diversity of women on our list demonstrates — from Tina Fey (No. 7) and Helen Mirren (No. 31), to Ellen DeGeneres (No. 50), America Ferrera (No. 30) and Queen Latifah (No. 55). There’s even a conservative Republican in the mix (Angie Harmon, No. 82), proving we can still find a women sexy even if we don’t agree with her alternative lifestyle choice....

Many of these women aren’t just women we like, they’re women we want to be like — women we admire as well as desire.

The list is quite impressive. It’s not men in kilts, but it’s something equally clever to consider, certainly. Kate Winslet in the top 10? As far as I’m concerned, this list is dead on. 

I think that I read too many Sweet Valley Highs as a teen because lately, series turn me off. I can’t describe my negative reaction to a series without a finite end enough to identify what it is that bugs me, except to say that it’s similar to my dislike of soap operas. A soap opera allows a character to experience happiness for at least a few minutes of an episode before turning the sparkly pink happiness into great weeping (but never mascara-running) tears of woe. A series, particularly one that fringes or lands squarely in the Land o’Romance, has to keep some plotlines open to continue interest, and can’t wrap everything up. Even the happily ever after isn’t entirely happy, because there’s More To Come. There’s this neverending feeling of “Tune in Next Week!” to find out if there’s ever going to be a resolution - and really, I’m just too much of a mental slacker to manage it all.

Part of the problem is that I have a really, breathtakingly, no I’m not kidding it’s BAD, memory. Add to that pregnancy hormones and I barely remember my own damn name. So if you have a series where each installment comes out every six or seven months - or fuck it, every three to four YEARS like some potters I might mention - there’s no way I can recall every detail and remember what it was that was happening When We Last Saw Lord Clusterhump and Lady Danderhead....

So for me to find a series that I willingly and eagerly keep up with, or at least look for the next issue with anticipation, that is a rare thing indeed, and there have been a few that I try to remember to look for.

All of this ramble preamble does have a purpose: The House Of Night series? Very very good. Worth keeping, and keeping up with.

Zoey Redbird, a completely normal teenager subject to life with a spineless mother and a supremely right-wing religious nutjob stepfather, finds herself marked as a vampire in the middle of the hallway one afternoon at school. Aside from the total abject humiliation of having an outline of a blue crescent moon appear on her forehead after some tall-dark-and-weird dude announces she is one of the marked, Zoey also has to deal with faster-than-instant-pudding ostracization from her peers, her ex-boyfriend, and her best friend, not to mention the hell-and-damnation rhetoric of her stepfather.

More pressing, however, was the fact that if Zoey didn’t get her marked self over to the House of Night, a boarding school/incubator for fledgling vampires, she was going to die. Not even living at the school guarantees her survival, but not going at all pretty much assures her of a very brief post-Marked life. So she sneaks out after being locked in her room by Asshat Stepdad, parrot of the religious right, and runs to her grandmother for help.