Sunday Soup - July 14

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...
✽Fascinating article from an unusual blog.  I kind of want a romance hero something like William Fly, who did this:

Fly walked indifferently to the gallows; to the astonishment of the spectators, he upbraided the hangman’s poor knot and remade with his own hands the instrument for his own neck — one last use of his seaman’s proficiency with ropes.

Fly didn't get a happily ever after, unfortunately, but the manner of his death was fairly impressive, according to this article.  While the post focuses on William Fly in particular, it references a book called Villains of All Nations, which makes me want to read non-fiction. Via @2nerdyhistgirls.

✽Jessica's retrospective on book blogging.  If you're like me, you'll find yourself nodding along.

✽I like to kid myself that I don't pay much attention to cover art. Since I shop in the genre section of the bookstore anyway, I expect what I get and I pretty much get what I expect.  But this slideshow from Maureen Johnson's "Coverflip" project is very thought-provoking.  You can see lots more with a tagged tumblr search.  (I guess this happened back in May, but I just found it.)

✽If you haven't heard about Google's new policy to take down, without notice, any blog that appears to them to have adult content and be serving ads, you may be living under a rock. But just in case you haven't seen this, be advised! I think I am probably safe since I do not serve any ads whatsoever; however, it is motivating me to get my several hundred posts backed up, just in case I need to pack up someday. 

What I'm reading
✽Like almost everyone in Romlandia, I tore through The Story Guy last week, on the strength of the author's "Nut" essay on Wonkomance (which I linked to in last week's Soup) and buzz on Twitter. My reaction was a bit more mixed than most. While the language is exceptionally beautiful and sort of... sculpted... I found the very craftmanship of it slightly distracting, to be honest.  It seems more suited to an essay or poetry format. Also I hated the introductory device of lonely-librarian-combing-the-personals.  That might just be me.  But I do absolutely mean mixed feelings though, because it's beautifully written and the characters really shine.

✽Talk about contrast, I also continued my Bertrice Small binge with another harem romance, Adora. I really miss the epic scope of the old-skool romance-- Small's heroines are dynasty-builders, and the historical sweep of the expansion of the Ottoman empire is a fabulous read.

✽Speaking of Bertrice Small, you may recall that I was so appalled at the editing issues with the Kindle version of The Kadin that I contacted the publishers, and I did hear back from the editing team, who is going to have a look at the file.  They also let me know that the older books like these 80s publications are scanned from hard copy to create the electronic books-- if the font was as small as it was in the paperbacks that I read back in the day, I can understand why the software missed something like 5% of the periods in the text.  It makes me happy that the are hopefully going to fix it up.

On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
Continuing my quest for a honey-based beer that has an actual discernible honey flavor, I picked up a 6-pack of Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss. It was mostly harmless. Not much honey to it as far as I could tell.  Totally drinkable but nothing special.