Sunday Soup - November 10

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...

✽To be honest, this week's kerfuffle about what authors are allowed to say and what reviewers are allowed to say just makes me go:

I feel like the same thing just gets re-hashed over and over again, and the line is not clear and never will be. If people criticize you or your work, take from it what you find useful and move along. Honest reactions should be respected.  Personal attacks are best ignored, IMO, but if you must respond, I would suggest limiting your response to ONE interaction, along the lines of "I saw what you wrote and felt it was uncalled for. I welcome honest critique of my work, but your attack on [ ] was out of line."  Then mute, block, ignore, step away.  Because if you're going to fling shit, no matter how much your target deserves it, you're going to end up smelling bad too.

Notice that I have suggestions, not prescriptions, for what Everyone Should Do, because everyone has a different tolerance for debate, flames, and what I would term negativity. Also, I have been at this internet thing long enough to know that my odds of changing anyone's behavior is vanishingly small, and I prefer not to waste my energy.

✽On a related note, if we could agree on a book bloggers' motto, what would it be?  Something short and pithy... I rather like: "I read, therefore I blog."  I was trying to get some kind of play on "veni, vedi, vici" with something like "I read, I opined, I blogged," but I don't think I can get that to work. :D  What do you think? do you have a motto?

✽Amazon has floated an offer to independent bookstores to carry Kindles. Reaction has been mixed:

• Melville Publishing House reports
• International Business Times.
• Publishers Weekly
• And my favorite, McNally Jackson's very succinct response.

OK, no, it hasn't been mixed at all. 

✽New to me: Bloggers Recommend - a bit more litfic/generalized that works for me, but if you're looking for a small number of standout titles, it looks like a good blog to check out.

What I'm reading
✽I was in the mood for a contemporary, so I picked up Kristan Higgins' The Next Best Thing, which fit the bill perfectly.  Light and sweet, Higgins ramps up the poignancy with a story of a young widow falling for her deceased husband's brother.

✽I hit the bookstore last week, as I imagine most of us did, with so many big names releasing the same week.  It's boggling really.  Have a look at Jackie's roundup, if you don't believe me. The new acquisition that has me hiding from my children this week is Devon Monk's Hell Bent, a new series spun off from her popular (and beloved by me, anyway) Allie Beckstrom series.  It truly is a different series though, as the Allie Beckstrom climactic ending broke up and changed all the magical rules.  A few years later, one of my favorite characters becomes the focal point for the subsequent fallout and realignment of power structures.  I'm about halfway through and loving it. I also came home with Thea Harrison's last two full length Elder Races books, which I'm just so behind on but adore.

✽On the electronic front, I had pre-ordered Nora Roberts' Dark Witch, and ordered a Laura Kinsale title (Prince of Midnight) that I somehow missed in my original Kinsale binge. Many of her titles are being released in electronic and e-format, so now is a good time to re-read or catch up. Shout out to Blithely Bookish for her review last September that I finally dug out of my feed reader. I also nabbed Driven by Eve Silver - it was on a discount price and I've been on a post-apocolyptic kick recently thanks to Joss Ware and Kit Rocha.


On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?

I've decided I need to watch my calories a bit closer, so I have to strategize a bit with my beer consumption. So for Friday's happy hour, I decided to go with a stout, which is heavy enough to slow down my drinking. Young's Double Chocolate Stout was just the ticket - it's rich and sweet; it's basically an alcoholic brownie in a glass.

Sunday Soup - November 3

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽HarperCollins to join the online bookselling business. I'm pretty happy about this. While I love the ease that Amazon has brought to buying and reading ebooks in particular, their near-monopoly makes me very uneasy. To me, an ideal outcome would be a reversal of the consolidation of publishing houses, all with good distribution platforms. Access to books means access to ideas, and as that shrinks to only a few outlets, I think that's BAD FOR CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT. Not to be dramatic or anything.

✽Big news for frequent travelers - you can now keep your e-readers on during takeoff and landing! I don't travel that often but when I do, that is a big deal for a book addict.  Note: I will probably still carry an emergency "real" book in the event of a battery problem.

✽In one of the week's more ridiculous stories, Yelp reviewers are suing for wages. I could see how an unexpected ruling in that case might affect review bloggers, for instance if publishers became wary of distributing review copies for fear that they'd be sued for wages.  Seems like crazycakes to me.

✽Ilona Andrews is working on something new and awesome and there's a little bit of it up on their website (and may I just say to the critiquing commentators? SHE DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR ADVICE).

✽In general, I'm not big on reading challenges. The best way to make me dislike a book is to tell me that I have to read it. Even though I have always loved reading, I hated almost all of the assigned reading back in school.  Because it was assigned. But there are exceptions.  Jackie's New Author Challenge is so simple and such a good idea.  Because it's so easy to fall into familiar ruts, it sometimes take a nudge to get out of them.  If you need that sort of nudge or just enjoy the community of a good reading challenge, I really do recommend this one.  I will try to do better about linking up my New Author Reviews.

✽The latest in the ongoing dissection of the reader/author relationship, fan reaction to a YA trilogy-closer titled Allegiant hit a feverish pitch last week. I confess I just don't get the rhetoric around what an author "owes" fans, and how readers "should" read a story, and whether I'm being a "good" reader or not. Sure, I have been disappointed by authors before (I'm lookin' at you, J.R. Ward). I mean, a series that dwindles off into WTF or repetitive or boring territory might actually be more the norm than one that is just consistently fantastic from beginning to end. But... I don't take it personally. I don't get angry at the author. I don't think she owes me a specific kind of story. I don't understand readers who do. Perhaps this is the line that divides the fans from the fanatics.

What I'm reading
✽Nora Roberts, The Perfect Hope. Very enjoyable. The resolution of the ghost story seemed a bit too easy, but the main romance was entirely satisfying. I've also got her latest paranormal downloaded and waiting.

✽I'm almost done with Alexa Egan's Shadow's Curse and it might be a new favorite.  Dark, paranormal, Regency, but NOT the ton. Good stuff.

✽I finished up Wallbanger by Alice Clayton and thought it was a ton of fun. I found the premise a little off-putting at first: the couple start out as next door neighbors with thin walls, and she hears every little spank and, uh, meow.  Yeah. Clayton knows how to write Excruciating Embarrassment, I will say.  Light-hearted with nice character arcs and fun secondary characters.


On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
This week I'm all super happy that the Blue Moon Mountain Abbey Ale seasonal is out and about. This stuff is like candy to me. Love it. I haven't found the Elysian Pumpkin I mentioned before -- haven't made it to any of the Super Boozy places lately.

Sunday Soup - October 20

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽Yet more deletions -- apparently, several online retailers are freezing up their self-publishing offerings to try to scrub them for porn, while also somehow attempting to not appear to be censoring. Good article at Gigaom, and an interesting personal slant from a successful author who also happens to have a deep technical understanding of what's being attempted.

✽The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith has readers stirred up.  Mandi loved it, Jane Litte loved it, Brie abandoned it. These sorts of reactions make me pretty curious, but at the moment I'm holding off.  Doesn't sound like my kind of story, but you never know.

✽I absolutely loved this piece about the reader experience, and how authors craft it: Romantic Attractions: The Thrills and Spills of the Reader’s Theme Park. Great fun, and you have to love an extended, well-sustained metaphor.

✽I really enjoyed this highly personal piece from John Scalzi about the books that influenced him. There's no bloviating about how these are The Best or The Most Important, just ones that matter a lot to him, personally, and a few words on the how and the why.

Titles That Caught My Eye ... 
A new ingredient for the soup-- books I might read; I'd love to hear what you think about them if you've read any of them or are also anticipating them.

✽Sarah Antonelli is on my radar now, due to Jessica's review over at Radish. With a tagline like "Quirky Romance Novels for Grown Ups…and Smart Asses," I feel I have to give it a shot, even though the premise of a quantum physicist who is also an undercover spy gives me a bit of pause.

✽Couldn't help but nab Coreene Callahan's latest Fury novel: Fury of Desire. Looks like special pricing for this week too; a nice price at $3.99 for a full-length book.

✽Amy over at Unwrapping Romance reviewed a book this week that made my eyebrows go way way up: The Sheik Retold, giving authorial credit to both Victoria Vane, a modern author, and the original author, Edith Maude Hull.  I read the original over a year ago now and just have not been able to put my thoughts about it into any coherent order.  As to the re-telling, I believe the book is now public domain but I have all kinds of questions about the ethics of putting both names on that, and whether any contact was made with Hull's heirs to use her name. Still, I am pretty interested in reading it.

What I'm reading
✽Just finished up Nora Roberts' The Last Boyfriend. I love her books so much. I love the way she writes kisses, especially first kisses, and the way her characters' professions inform their points of view. I love the way she chooses professions that are about doing, and making. You don't see cubicle jockeys in these worlds; there's a physicality to the characters' lives that I just... well... love. OK, I'm repeating myself. But honestly, nobody does it like Nora.

✽I'm working my way through Jill Shalvis' Blue Flame, which was a special bonus on top of It Had to Be You.  I'm finding it a bit slow, but I'm also having an extremely interrupt-driven week at home, so it may or may not be any fault of the text.  I want to see the characters through, so it's got that going for it.  The hero is an injured firefighter, and it seems unusual to me that the injury is bad enough that he keeps attempting to do romance-hero-typical-physical things, and well, kinda failing. So the heroine just does them for him.  It's interestingly off-kilter that way.

✽I finished of the Kat Richardson SeaWitch that I mentioned last week.  Shivery-creepy and delicious.  Great ghost story and another new twist in the mythology.

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
I haven't really tried anything new this week. I'm enjoying more of the Abita Pecan and Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. I guess I'm kind of over the pumpkin ales, although I actually did quite like the ones I tried. Since it is still October, and the pumpkin ales still abound, I did a bit of research on "best of" articles, and I liked HuffPo's list the best -- it includes broadly-available beers and based on 5 or 6 articles, I think they caught most everybody's top favorites in this list. The one I'm most interested in trying now is the Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale -- it's local, and highly regarded in quite a number of these "best of" lists.

Sunday Soup - October 13

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽I may have a little crush on Alexis Hall.  It started with this interview at Wonkomance, which made me read Glitterland, and now I find out that he manages to express everything that is amazing about Meljean Brook's Heart of Steel with humor, intelligence, and eloquence. Perfect.  Because everything IS better with sky pirates.

✽I think this is the best summary I've read about the whole GoodReads situation, from the bullying to the badly-behaving authors to the shelf deletions.  It's thorough, apparently unbiased, and I thought, pretty insightful. I think she's dead right about this:

What’s been going on at Goodreads and in Amazon discussion boards and on Twitter are more than just the usual Internet mishegoss, however. These are epochal convulsions, writ small. They’re the result of significant changes in the relationship between authors and their readers, and those changes have two causes: the boom in self-publishing and the rise of social networking.

As a voracious reader, I have a stake in this revolution in the publishing world, but it's not my livelihood.  I'm finding it interesting and kind of exciting to see how the rules are being re-written, and to be a part of it in a small way as a blogger.

Titles That Caught My Eye ... 
A new ingredient for the soup, and somewhat self-explanatory, I think. These are books I might read; I'ld love to hear what you think about them if you've read any of them or are also anticipating them.

✽Laura Florand's Chocolate series, rec'd by Nalini Singh
✽Nora Roberts has a new paranormal coming out, and just in time for Halloween: Dark Witch. via @ChloeNeill
✽The Trouble with Mojitos. Re-tweeted by @NetGalley. I just think the title sounds like a lot of fun.
✽When the Marquess Met His Match. I haven't read Guhrke yet, and I don't know why. I feel like I should check her out.
✽David Eggers isn't my usual kind of author, but this review made me want to read his latest, The Circle.

What I'm reading
✽I hit the library with my kids last weekend and ended up grabbing a couple of semi-random reads off their recent release table. I've had my eye on Twice Tempted by Jeaniene Frost for quite some time and finally swooped it up.  It was everything you want from a romantic vampire UF series, plus explosions and carnie acts.

✽I'm about halfway through Kat Richardson's Seawitch, and I think I have the hook figured out. Like everything in her Greywalker series, there are complications galore and the super creepy ghosty vibe that makes it just perfect for October reading. I'm enjoying getting to know Detective Solis better, too.

✽Just last night finished an ARC of Laura Kaye's Hard As It Gets.  Bit of a mixed bag, but overall not bad.  Review upcoming.

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
I'm back on my Sam Adams Cream Ale kick, and I also tried a seasonal Abita Pecan Harvest Ale. I liked it, but it seems to be more proof that I do not have a very subtle palate; I don't think I would be able to identify a real pecan flavor to it. But it was very nice, a bit sweet, a little more hops than my favorite beers but I rather liked it.  Perhaps this is the elusive "balance" that beer descriptions frequently use.

Sunday Soup - October 6

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽Sometimes, it's hard to believe what people get wound up about.  Even my techie buddies heard about an article at Dangerous Minds, and then "Ravished by a Triceratops" was reviewed on Smart Bitches.  @EvilWylie's imagination was captured and Twitter was fairly lively on Wednesday as book people pondered this phenomenon. I have to give some credit to the authors though; these books are written by a duo of college girls in Texas and I thought their interview was quite poised.  I have to say I blinked a little about her advice for making sure you have good cover art:

 ...make good book covers or hire someone who can (you can find good royalty-free pictures to use for cheap; www.123rf.com is a good place and you can hire someone on fiverr.com to make you a cover for $5)

But hey, it looks like it's working for her, so no hate from me.

✽ Speaking of doing what works, I thought this article about author websites was fairly surprising. I don't ask a lot of an author website -- have your booklist, and the date of your next book due out. If reading order is important, list that. If you make appearances, list those, and keep it current. It doesn't seem like that would take too much time or effort. One reason that WASN'T listed is that many publishers have author pages on their sites -- I could see that maybe they'd prefer to drive traffic there and maybe make changing publishers a bit more painful?

The argument about cost/benefit is compelling though. What we really want from our favorite authors is more stories; fancy websites are purely optional.

✽I enjoyed this discussion on droit du seigneur sparked by historian and historical author Katharine Ashe. This is such a staple of old-skool medievals -- or maybe the couple that I ran across just made THAT much of an impression on me at the time. Yet more evidence of the ongoing fascination with the power dynamic in romance, through the centuries.

✽I am officially registered for RT14! The whole enchilada, and I have to say, I'm a wee bit giddy. I'm planning to arrive on Tuesday, and I'm hoping I can make my arrangements to get there in time for a scrapbooking event because that is another wheelhouse of mine. I'm also pondering a bit about trying to organize something for bloggers -- it won't be official, most likely, but maybe a "hey everybody, how about we all meet in the bar at a certain time, mmkay?" kinda thing. Also pondering: trading cards?

What I'm reading
✽This past week, I have continued my binge on Darynda Jones' Charley Davidson series. I finished The Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet yesterday and I'm dying (heh) to get my hands on the last one. I have a friend that's offered to lend it to me though, so in the interests of my book budget, I'm taking a little breather and have just started in on Jeaniene Frost's Twice Tempted. I was really pleased when she kicked off an independent series because the long Night Huntress series just seemed a bit daunting; however, it's becoming clear to me that I'm not going to be able to resist binging on that one too.

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
Here in Seattle, we finally got some gloomier, cooler weather and I am thinking of what might go in the actual soup for Sunday dinner. I've been craving a good black bean soup, but haven't made it happen yet. Not much in the way of beer adventures this past week; I've been to the Rock Bottom brewery twice lately for lunch. Their Belgian white was good but did have that apparently authentic "feety" flavor, so I'll probably avoid in the future. Their Rocktoberfest special was just what I like though, medium-dark, a little sweet, and smooth without being super-heavy. I might have to head back soon for that.

Sunday Soup - September 29

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
✽Bookish twitter feeds and blogs lit up this week about David Gilmour's (literature teacher, not guitarist) completely un-self-aware interview about how he chooses his curriculum.  Spoiler: all middle-aged white male authors, how shocking is that? The interesting thing here is that he really believes it's a totally justifiable stance.  Later, he apologizes for the sake of his future book sales:

I talked to Patrick Crean [his publisher]. He was concerned that this was going to affect the general climate around the book, that some women might not like the book if they think that that’s my policy. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m apologizing. Normally I actually wouldn’t.

Here's what I don't get.  He seems to think it's perfectly reasonable that he only loves middle-aged straight white literature, because he IS a middle aged straight white guy, but... now here's the crazy part... aren't most of his students young women, most likely of a cross-section of sexualities? Apparently that matters, right?  How does he expect his students to love this stuff?  I mean, it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that they cannot and never will. Isn't privilege a delicious thing?  It's just like air, you don't even know you're breathing it.

✽Then there's the Goodreads thing. Goodreads recently deleted a number of shelves (a tagging mechanism) that had labels referencing author behavior, and related articles by members that focused on the author rather than the book. 

Online communities succeed or fail -- or struggle along somewhere in between -- by virtue of their content. Goodreads correctly observes that there is no way to please everyone:

We recognize that not everyone is going to agree with our approach. People have different - and often quite strongly held - viewpoints about what should and should not be allowed in a review.

So perhaps it's a sign that I'm getting old, but I don't think there's anything wrong with adding guidelines to keep discussion civil. Another point that comes to mind is this chestnut:

image attribution

Aside from the question of content, you might also take from that bit of wisdom that if you really want to be in full control of your content, you might want to consider taking more ownership of your platform.  Some Blogger users learned this the hard way recently too.

✽On a related note, I think all of us in this brave new world of reviewing books online occasional stop and think about what the inevitable (is it? I tend to think it is...) interaction with authors, publishers, and other industry professionals means for us as readers and reviewers.  Kaetrin has some interesting thoughts on the topic.

✽Font geeks: I just thought this was cool.  It's from a Seattle building too.  Who knew that "font designer" could be an actual career?

✽Sometimes, it's all about the title.  Honestly, I have my doubts about the premise of this book.  But I am mostly likely going to give it a whirl because I'm loving the title: Heavy Metal Heart.

What I'm reading
✽This week has been all Charley Davidson, all the time.  I'm on the third book of Darynda Jones' series about a wise-cracking human portal to heaven, her fling with the son of Satan, and the mysteries and mishaps they solve along the way.  I tend to avoid books with overtly slapsticky humor, just a personal preference, but these are working for me.  The one-liners and smart-assery are really consistent throughout these books, and yeah, I think there have been a few that clinked or felt forced to me, but for the most part, the combination of humor, action, and sexual tension are reeling me through these books like a well-hooked trout... er, I'm not sure if that's the best analogy, but haven't got a better one at the moment, so let's just go with it.  I'm hooked, get it?

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
Last week I talked about the Blue Moon fall sampler. This week I picked up the Sam Adams version of the same thing - a 12 pack with 5 different beers. So far I've tried the Hazel Brown - interesting, heavily flavored with hazelnut, quite sweet; the harvest pumpkin ale, which honestly I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference from the Blue Moon beer of the same label; the IPA, which unsurprisingly is too hoppy for my taste, and the Octoberfest ale, which is entirely nice but I won't be holding my breath waiting for it next year or anything. There's also a Ruby and a regular lager that I haven't tried yet.

One Last Thing
I might resemble this woman:

Hopefully I won't have to chain either of my daughters by the legs to prevent them from throwing themselves into the haunts of vice though.

(Ohh, and I can't help but think, wouldn't "Ungovernable Passion" be a great name for a romance blog?)

Source

Sunday Soup - September 22

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

So first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little sister Jolene, who is an amazing mom, financier, and homemaker.  She doesn't actually read my blog, so I can admit that she actually does a lot of the whole working-mom thing a lot better than I do.  Happy birthday Jolene! you look like a monkey, and you smell like one too! 

Soup Dish:  book people are talking about...
Yeah, actually, I have no idea at the moment. I've been kind of disconnected from my usual media in the last few weeks. I didn't really plan it this way, but September is turning out to be a pretty intensive family-commitment month. We've got tons of back-to-school activities (I have a 3rd grader and an 8th grader; oy, how did that happen??). Here in the Pacific Northwest, summer can stretch pretty nicely into September, so last weekend the family took a last-hurrah-of-summer roadtrip, and right this second as I'm typing (Saturday evening) I'm completely pooped from taking Thing2 to the state fair with a friend. Next weekend will be a birthday party and probable sleepover; and did I mention my mother-in-law came to visit over Labor Day weekend? So perhaps you can forgive me for minimal posting for the last couple weeks.  But here are a few things that caught my eye over the past couple weeks.

✽Are readers "driving the market"? I have no doubt that reader demand is more influential these days than ever before, but does "more" amount to a little or a lot?  Is it a good thing?  On the whole, I tend to think it is. And while some literary purists will inevitably argue that such direct reader influence might dilute the artistic vision, and drive literary output toward a lower common denominator, it seems to me that a) that has always been true, it's just that there was a commercial publisher acting in a middleman role; and b) self-pub opens a channel for the true visionary that did not exist under the Big NYC Publisher industry model.  I really don't claim to have any idea what will happen to print publishing in the next, say, 25 years.  It's going to be an interesting show.  One thing that seems certain: there won't be a lack of diverse and engrossing genre fiction.

✽ Mark Henry is back and he's writing... category romance? This should be interesting...

✽ Jennifer Weiner throws down with Jonathan Franzen again. Bring on the popcorn (I'm rooting for Jennifer).

✽ Some new kids on the block, as rounded-up by Jessica. Speaking of which, the return of Read, React, Review is no small potatoes in my blog-reading world.

What I'm reading
✽Believe it or not, I read an actual dead-tree book this past week. Maybe that's one way to break a slump: change up the format. I finished Glitterland, as mentioned a couple weeks ago on the Soup. The first bit, almost a prequel, was in present tense and so dark and pain-filled that I almost didn't continue. I'm so glad I did, though. The rest of the book was a bit less jagged and I became really invested in Ash getting his HEA. Or at least conceding the existence of the possibility of an HEA, which turns out to be a pretty big thing.

✽ The Mistress, by Tiffany Reisz. While I didn't think it was intended to be a series closer, it definitely had a feeling of resolution about it that seemed missing in the first few books, which I didn't really expect. Fans of the series will enjoy it, I think, and I'm not saying I didn't, but I had a few issues with it that didn't bother me about other books. Mainly I think she has made Soren a bit too saintly -- which is kind of ironic given his secret life, but really. He's just sort of an inhuman well of forgiveness and serenity and still doesn't seem very real to me. But the book does serve to neatly tie off (heh) a number of story threads while opening up some new avenues to explore.

✽ I buzzed through a novella by Courney Milan, Unlocked, that I did enjoy. One of the weird things about e-books is that I don't always pay attention to how long the format is, so sometimes it takes me by surprise that I'm halfway through a story after only an hour so of reading. This was one of those times. So it resolved a bit too easily for me, but I think my expectations were miscalibrated. I did particularly like the portrayal of the heroine's relationship with her mother.

✽ Oh and the big one I went through is the latest S. M. Stirling Emberverse novel, The Given Sacrifice. The ending was not a surprise, given the title, but the timing was, sort of. I have very mixed feelings about this series. In many ways it jumped the shark many books ago, but I just enjoy visiting the world so damn much I don't care. It's a lovely little fantasy about How The World Should Be, with enough Scary Big Bad to keep it fairly interesting.

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
OK, so after paying a certain amount of attention to what I'm drinking for a few months, and some deliberate attempts to experiment a little, what I'm finding is that if I really like a basic ale from a particular brewery, chances are I'm going to like some of their other varietals as well.

It's pretty obvious that Sam Adams is working for me. I like their fruit flavors, the Cherry Wheat, the Blackberry Wit, and summer brew with a hint of lemon, and spent most of last winter and spring savoring the Cream Stout.  (Yay, it's almost Cream Stout season again!)

Blue Moon, a purportedly Belgian-style white ale, frequently served with a slice of orange, is my other staple. I say purportedly, because many Belgian whites such as Hoegaarden that I've tried have a distinct flavor note that an esteemed colleague of mine succinctly described as "tastes like feet," which is thankfully missing from Blue Moon. Maybe that's a note of authenticity? I dunno...  Anyway, I absolutely loved Blue Moon's spiced winter ale last year and have tried a number of their variations.  I picked up their fall sampler this past week and while I've never been a particular fan of pumpkin flavored things, the pumpkin harvest ale is working pretty nicely for me.  I like the spice combinations and the slightly fuller body.  The caramel-apple flavor was a little sweeter than the regular ale and had less of the citrus flavor, but I don't think I would've pulled "caramel" or "apple" out of a blind taste-test.  Blue Moon is a subsidiary of MillerCoors, which just goes to show you, my taste in beer is not too far off my taste in reading:  readily available, enjoyed by the masses, a distinct lack of bitterness, and a smooth sweet finish.