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

From Noelle: Photobombers make me cry mascara.

From a source I can’t remember (sorry, cool person!) we have a site that does nothing but cover snark and does it so well: Judge a Book by its cover. I’m particularly fond of Phallus Phridays. Because, dude. Awesome.

And from Star Opal and Sasha, Green Porno a short feature in which Isabella Rossellini, according to Star Opal, “dresses up as insects and bugs and shows how they have sex, playing (when necessary) both female and male roles.”

How can you not love that?

Yesterday, a one-day auction of an author interview here at Bitchery HQ to benefit Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction netted a $788.00 winning bid. Holy smacking tuna. That’s just outstanding (and a little bit of pressure, I must say - what is a $788 dollar question?)!

But check out this other bit of awesome: so far for Dear Author’s one day auction of a one time adspace: with 9 hours to go, the high bid is $825.00. That is just breathtakingly awesomesauce. Way to go, y’all. 

Bitchery regular who wishes to remain somewhat anonymous is looking for syllabus assistance, as she was deeply impressed with your work shaping the syllabus for Dr. Frantz's syllabus last January. She writes:

The course I'm designing is primarily on the *rhetoric* of the romance (and just plain romance itself)--how it's talked about, portrayed in the media, presented in bookstores, used in advertisting, etc. However, in order to give my students a better sense of the genre as a whole, I'd like to give them reading assignments from the primary source material.

Which is where the Bitchery comes in. Are there anthologies of diverse short romance fiction out there? Anthologies that have samples from paranormal, suspense, regency, contemporary, even inpsirational? Are there anthologies that incorporate multi-ethnic, interracial, or basically anything other than all-white, all the time romances? If not, can the Bitchery recommend some short stories that I might build into a coursepack for my students? I'd like a diverse sampling from across the genres.

My own taste runs quite dramatically into novels (I have a rather deep-seated loathing of the short story as a genre), so I'm a little at a loss when it comes to romance short fiction, and I'd like to be able to give them *something* to work from. Even novellas would be fine.

So - what's your recommendation for anthologies. Is it possible to create a definitive romance anthology? I've never been one for the short story in the romance genre, but still - what's your opinion on this one?

I wish I were made of stronger stomach, but I have been forcing myself to read the accounts of the horrifically devastating earthquake in China which killed thousands of people, including hundreds of children. I was blog-hopping and found that I am not alone in that difficulty. Marjorie Liu is in China right now, and her blog from China documents the earthquake in brief snippets that communicated to me how truly, truly awful the situation is there. She also provides many links for further information, and ways to help.

Stay safe Marjorie. 

From Darlene Marshall, a link to rugby strip tease. Not. Safe. For Work. According to Reuters,

The Austrian national rugby team tried to get over their 48-0 defeat by Lithuania by staging a mass striptease in the capital Vilnius late on Saturday, only to find they had been caught on video and put on the Internet.

What? Naked men stripping on the internet? Boo yah! Scroll down to enjoy the full experience of defeated rugby players making the best of losing a ball game.