Soup Dish: book people are talking about...
✽Of course, the main thing that romance book people are talking about is RWA. If you went, you are probably too jet-lagged and/or footsore to be reading this. I'm looking forward to the "best of" posts, but for now, here are some other things that have been going on...
✽Chris Kluwe publishes, but not what you're expecting:
When various publishers first approached me about writing a book, the majority of them wanted the standard “football player autobiographical” that everyone churns out once they get even a sniff of attention. You know, the “on x day I did y, and it made me feel z because I gave 120% of all the sports cliches my coach ever taught me about Jesus.” That one.Pretty sure I like that guy. Quote is from his piece at John Scalzi's place.
✽RWA is not the only con from this week: Natalie's report on ReaderCon. The San Diego ComicCon is also in progress, but I'm only mentioning it so you know I'm cool enough to know it's going on. (I am not actually very interested in it...)
✽Speaking of comics, Gail Simone has announced a new series of Red Sonja comics, to be written by an impressive array of women writers, including some of my favorites, like Meljean Brook and Marjorie Liu.
✽Jessica concludes her two-part series on book blogging. It's a fun look back. I tend to agree that book blogging may have peaked, and there is more action on Twitter. However, peaked != dead; and while I enjoy Twitter a lot, one of the things I like about it is that I find out about interesting long pieces.
✽Another piece on blogging. I expected this to be sort of a throw-away piece, but it is really concise and I agree with his points, especially this:
Be relatable, be yourself.✽Wonkoromance might be my new favorite-est blog. I thought this piece about how terrible their first books were was hilarious.
What sets bloggers apart from newspaper article feeds is voice. Your content is what draws them in while your personality, or your voice in writing, is what will keep them there. Let your readers get to know you.
✽I am kind of a sucker for reading lists (I think it's a competitive streak). And this one, 15 YA novels every adult should read, caught my eye. I know that when I say "I don't really read YA" in that tone, I'm being a lot like those people who say "Really? you read romance?" in that tone. But the thing is, I have read it. When I was a young adult (or, well, adolescent, really). But sometimes I think I should see what the fuss is about. So maybe I'll try a couple of these. I have to say though, a couple of them sound really, really terrible. What YA would you recommend?
What I'm reading
✽Sheik Week preparations continue! I found this amazing list on GoodReads and my local paperback exchange had four books from it. Wheeeeee! I finished Adora by Bertrice Small and started on Wicked Loving Lies by Rosemary Rogers. Note, many if not all of these titles may be trigger-y for some.
✽I also finished up two upcoming re-releases from Open Road Media, by Dorothy Eden. I expect to have a review up shortly (don't I always say that?) but the short version is, they remind me a little bit of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, all tension and little details from the corner of your eye and questionable reliability of the narrator. Very nice suspense.
On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
✽I gave Trader Joe's Dunkleweizen this week -- billed as an "amber unfiltered wheat beer," the shelf tag mentioned caramelized malts, which is sort of a key word for me, and I often like wheat beers in the summer. However, it has a really sour taste right in the middle that I didn't like at all. I looked at a couple of reviews that didn't say anything at all about the sourness, so I'm wondering if I got a bad batch.
One Last Thing
Irony has always been a concept that isn't completely straightforward to grasp, but Alanis Morrisette is solely responsible for an entire generation of not-getting-it*. Fortunately, this has now been corrected:
No comments:
Post a Comment