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.
✽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.
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