It's Smart Bitches day once again, and I have a confession to make.
I know I often pick on category romances, making snide comments about their titles and subject matter (I mean, really, how many secret babies and royal men are running around out there? I have yet to meet a Duke. Basketball player: yes. Duke: no. Unless that player’s name was Duke…must look into this), but I do it out of love. You see, I used to be a rabid reader of Harlequin Presents.
Yes, Harlequin Presents.
I read them all. The sexist of the sexist. You know, the ones where you’re sitting there reading the book with the knowledge that if some guy ever acted this way with you, you’d slap him with a sexual harassment suit so fast that his head would spin. Sure, they’re short, often sound the same, and the men (oh those foreign men) tend to use endearments in other languages that don’t always translate well (In fact, I’m pretty sure one author was using the Wicked Greek book. Note: this is perhaps not the best source material, although it does tell you how to say “I am a Goddess, worship me,” which is something a girl should know in every language. Hmmm. I need to find that book again.), still I loved them.
Despite the secret babies, and men trying to make their woman into the perfect mistress (because he doesn’t want to admit that he’s in love with her because she fell into bed with him right away, which makes her a total slut even though she might have been a virgin, and Hey! Where’s that hymen located anyway?), they saved my soul during a very dark time in my life: the Year of Organic Chemistry.
What it feels like to be take Organic Chemistry, for those of you who never had to suffer through the horror, can best be defined by dipping your eyes in Hydrochloric Acid. As it eats away your nerves on its way to your brain, the sensation can be equated to how it feels to look at a chemical interaction that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! Sure, the molecules had names and rules of behavior, but they didn’t follow them, or they did something weird in the middle of a reaction and suddenly you’re sitting there in lab wondering why you have mashed potatoes when everyone else has a clear liquid, and why, dear God why, did you think you wanted to go into medical school because if it’s several more years like this you are going to end up using a broken beaker to commit suicide…or to go for the throat of your T.A.
It’s not pretty. I witnessed more panic attacks in that class (and verged on having them myself) than any other in my four years of undergrad. It wasn’t that the teacher was bad—I loved him—but that the manner in which Organic is taught does not equate to real world usage (a.k.a. the biology of it all). And it was first thing in the morning, eight o’clock, leaving us to stumble out afterwards into the bright sunshine blinking myopic eyes (from taking millions of cramped little notes), completely disorientated. The rest of the day molecules would dart across you version, hinting at an SN2 reaction or an E1, tantalizing you with some sort of understanding, only to slide away before full comprehension could take place.
The horrible, migraine inducing knowledge imparted by that class could only be fought with one thing: Harlequin Presents.
Logic, you want logic? I’d cackle to my brain as it tried to puzzle through some reaction. Try figuring out why Rosaline sleeps with Santos even though she knows that he thinks she’s sleeping with his brother, huh? Or why they didn’t use protection even though the brother is a man whore?
I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause it’s love, Holmes, and it’s got the power to moooooove you.
How’s that for logic?
But, but, but, my brain would stutter until I anesthetized it even more, pouring book after book on its neurons. But that doesn’t make sense! He’s a sexist pig!
Sexist pig or not, I’d reply, love will find a way.
And it did, find a way that is. As did the Harlequins, which gradually moved from my apartment to that of the next girl in Organic, and from there to the next. I became a bit of a dealer, doing the embarrassing work of actually buying the product, and then passing it on to my customers. Late at night there would be a knock on my door, and standing there would be some poor, worn soul, wrinkles and ink etched into her skin from where she passed out against the pages of her text, begging for some relief.
“One, I just need one,” she’d say, hands shaking. “I just need one to get me through the next test. You understand, right? Just a little one, something Italian, maybe?”
“But this is the third time this month,” I’d reply while scanning my bookshelves for the perfect dose of mindlessness. “Are you sure you’ll be okay if you take one?”
“I’ve gotta do something,” she’d reply. “Just help me. I’m desperate.”
How could I deny her the sweet, sweet relief?
So off she’d go with Allesandro’s Secret Love Child, or the Millionaire’s Mistress, her steps a bit lighter.
It was only after Organic was over that I began to slow down on my Harlequin consumption, ease back from my dosage of Dukes and Italians. I didn’t need them as much, or perhaps I had just overdosed on them in that short time period: either way they didn’t bring the same mindless relief. Now that I’m done with the sciences I rarely look at them at all, except to chuckle over the back copy and play the cover game, which I will now teach all of you out there in cyberspace.
You see, I’ve always believe that the Harlequin Presents covers can be used either to a.) make one weird blackmail note, or b.) summarize a whole new plot for the upcoming month. To do this one must first collect six Harlequin Presents. For our example we’ll use the six that came out for the month of November:
Pregnancy of Revenge by Jacqueline Baird
The Italian Doctor’s Mistress by Catherine Spencer
Bound by Blackmail by Kate Walker
Disobedient Virgin by Sandra Marton
Sale or Return Bride by Sarah Morgan
The Greek’s Bought Wife by Helen Bianchin
Do not try to make sense out of the titles. I don’t know what the Sale or Return Bride means either; it doesn’t matter. You are now going to rearrange these titles so they make a sentence (or a couple of sentences). Feel free to add in important linking words like (if, then, and, or longer phrases). Your result may look like so:
"Although Bound by Blackmail, the Disobedient Virgin refused to be the Italian Doctor’s Mistress and instead chose to be The Greek’s Bought Wife. Even though he considered her to be his Sale or Return Bride, she would carry his Pregnancy of Revenge with love."
That’s right, kids, we’ve just generated our own Harlequin Present’s plot. Now if you can just produce 250 pages on the subject, you’re set.
I play this game whenever a new batch comes into the store, and I’m stripping the covers of the old. Sometimes I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia, and I have to sit down and just flip through one, reliving the jealous man and clueless (but sexy in a very unconscious about it way) woman and their relationship trials and triumphs. It’s a bit like cotton candy: good for a bite or two to remind you of what it was like to go to the fair when you were a kid, but acting like a glutton will only make you sick. It makes me think about the other girls, though, the ones who stuck with medicine and are now in Med school.
Who’s dealing the romance to them now? Do they even have time to indulge? Has their habit gotten worse?
I also wonder if Harlequin Presents realizes its importance to the scientific community. I’d write them about it, but somehow I don’t think they’d believe me.
We were all very good at hiding our addictions.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
Random Sighting of the Possibly Famous
So the other day as I’m doing my rounds to ask people if they need any help, I approached this gentleman at the magazine rack and something about him made me pause. It wasn’t because he was tall (although he was so very tall, which made me feel short—something not that easy to do), or good looking, but how he carried himself. He was just minding his own business, flipping through the car magazines, doing absolutely nothing showy, but I was struck with the thought, “I should know this guy.”
Now considering I have the worst memory for faces ever, and that I’m much more likely to remember someone because of their reading material, this was an odd thought on its own. Not that I think that he’d ever been in my store before. He hadn’t (I’m positive). So that left only one possibility: I’d seen him on TV.
Which must mean he’s famous, right? Yes, that’s how my mind works: TV = Famous (even if it’s the news at 11). I am a child of the eighties.
Still, I had no idea who he was, and rather than sound like an idiot by blurting something out, I just asked him if I could help him find anything. He said, “No, thank you.”
Ah, hah! So he had manners! A clue! Of course, that didn’t mean anything, but combined with the fact that he was wearing Nike gear worth more than I make in a month and was caring a wadded up practice jersey in a bag, I was convinced that I had a Famous Basketball Player in my store.
Ten or twelve years ago, this would have sent me into fangirl heaven. In those days basketball, not to mention my professional basketball team, was a sport worthy of support, and I knew all the rules. I might not have known the faces real well, of always had a problem with that, but I could call a game better than most refs. It was a bonding experience for my dad and I to sit there at a game, eating peanuts and hotdogs, drinking coke, and cheering for our team.
Staring at this customer I suddenly felt nostalgic for the game, the way it used to before my team traded all the good players (or they retired) and put together the group that made them the national joke they have now (or did last year at least, I hear they traded off half bad players after last season). I wanted to call my dad and say, “Let’s go to a game.” I wanted peanuts.
I wanted confirmation that this guy was, indeed, a basketball player because let’s face facts tall does not always equal professional ball player. It was entirely possible that he was just a guy who played a little practice ball and really, really loved Nike, or that I was over-estimating the worth of his entire ensemble. Employees from Nike come into my store all the time, he could have just worked there to score that much brand wear.
If you haven’t guessed, I was staring the whole time. I was trying not to. I went about my business, helped customers, rang people up, but my eyes kept going back to this guy. Was he or wasn’t he? He really did look familiar, but I could have been fooling myself. He could have had “one of those faces.”
Besides, he’d said thank you, which meant that he had manners, so he obviously wasn’t on my town’s team if he was, indeed, a basketball player.
And the logic circled around again, slowly making me crazy.
He finally approached the counter with his magazines, and I thought, finally, finally I’ll just look him right in the face and it will turn out that I sell stuff to his brother all the time.
Yes, I was still staring in that way that said I thought I knew who he was. I couldn’t help myself. I know it was rude, but I had to know!
And that’s when he did it. No, the it was not when he pulled out that Louis Vuitton wallet, although it was a great indicator that he had a liking for the finer things. He started staring back at me like he thought that I thought I knew he was, and that I should know who he was. There we were, locked in eye contact: me trying to figure out where the hell I’d seen him before, and him grinning a little like he was enjoying the hell out of this. I wasn’t going to break and admit defeat, oh no, I was going to get sneaky. Lowering my eyes to his purchases, I rang him up quickly, bagged the magazines and then told announced his total.
Ha, ha, sucker, I thought, pay with a credit card and I will have my answers.
Apparently not only was he polite (he thanked me again after the transaction), if a grinning fool, he also possessed some intellect.
He paid with cash.
I seriously thought he was going to start laughing at my complete disappointment when he handed over the bills. I know that I’m one of those people whose face show’s everything, and I stared at those dollars for a few seconds unable to process that they weren’t what I expected.
Where was the credit card? Rich people don’t carry cash!!! (Unless you are Brittney Spears and you’re bouncing checks).
Like I know that many rich people.
To his credit, he waited very patiently while I dealt with my disappointment, thanked me again, and then left…still grinning.
As he should. You may have won this time, Mr. Basketball Man, but next time, next time I will be more educated. I won’t say anything, but I will know.
I just have to remember to start reading Sports Illustrated again on my lunch break.
Now considering I have the worst memory for faces ever, and that I’m much more likely to remember someone because of their reading material, this was an odd thought on its own. Not that I think that he’d ever been in my store before. He hadn’t (I’m positive). So that left only one possibility: I’d seen him on TV.
Which must mean he’s famous, right? Yes, that’s how my mind works: TV = Famous (even if it’s the news at 11). I am a child of the eighties.
Still, I had no idea who he was, and rather than sound like an idiot by blurting something out, I just asked him if I could help him find anything. He said, “No, thank you.”
Ah, hah! So he had manners! A clue! Of course, that didn’t mean anything, but combined with the fact that he was wearing Nike gear worth more than I make in a month and was caring a wadded up practice jersey in a bag, I was convinced that I had a Famous Basketball Player in my store.
Ten or twelve years ago, this would have sent me into fangirl heaven. In those days basketball, not to mention my professional basketball team, was a sport worthy of support, and I knew all the rules. I might not have known the faces real well, of always had a problem with that, but I could call a game better than most refs. It was a bonding experience for my dad and I to sit there at a game, eating peanuts and hotdogs, drinking coke, and cheering for our team.
Staring at this customer I suddenly felt nostalgic for the game, the way it used to before my team traded all the good players (or they retired) and put together the group that made them the national joke they have now (or did last year at least, I hear they traded off half bad players after last season). I wanted to call my dad and say, “Let’s go to a game.” I wanted peanuts.
I wanted confirmation that this guy was, indeed, a basketball player because let’s face facts tall does not always equal professional ball player. It was entirely possible that he was just a guy who played a little practice ball and really, really loved Nike, or that I was over-estimating the worth of his entire ensemble. Employees from Nike come into my store all the time, he could have just worked there to score that much brand wear.
If you haven’t guessed, I was staring the whole time. I was trying not to. I went about my business, helped customers, rang people up, but my eyes kept going back to this guy. Was he or wasn’t he? He really did look familiar, but I could have been fooling myself. He could have had “one of those faces.”
Besides, he’d said thank you, which meant that he had manners, so he obviously wasn’t on my town’s team if he was, indeed, a basketball player.
And the logic circled around again, slowly making me crazy.
He finally approached the counter with his magazines, and I thought, finally, finally I’ll just look him right in the face and it will turn out that I sell stuff to his brother all the time.
Yes, I was still staring in that way that said I thought I knew who he was. I couldn’t help myself. I know it was rude, but I had to know!
And that’s when he did it. No, the it was not when he pulled out that Louis Vuitton wallet, although it was a great indicator that he had a liking for the finer things. He started staring back at me like he thought that I thought I knew he was, and that I should know who he was. There we were, locked in eye contact: me trying to figure out where the hell I’d seen him before, and him grinning a little like he was enjoying the hell out of this. I wasn’t going to break and admit defeat, oh no, I was going to get sneaky. Lowering my eyes to his purchases, I rang him up quickly, bagged the magazines and then told announced his total.
Ha, ha, sucker, I thought, pay with a credit card and I will have my answers.
Apparently not only was he polite (he thanked me again after the transaction), if a grinning fool, he also possessed some intellect.
He paid with cash.
I seriously thought he was going to start laughing at my complete disappointment when he handed over the bills. I know that I’m one of those people whose face show’s everything, and I stared at those dollars for a few seconds unable to process that they weren’t what I expected.
Where was the credit card? Rich people don’t carry cash!!! (Unless you are Brittney Spears and you’re bouncing checks).
Like I know that many rich people.
To his credit, he waited very patiently while I dealt with my disappointment, thanked me again, and then left…still grinning.
As he should. You may have won this time, Mr. Basketball Man, but next time, next time I will be more educated. I won’t say anything, but I will know.
I just have to remember to start reading Sports Illustrated again on my lunch break.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Real Chick Wit: Fun, Fabulousness, and Pipe-Cleaner Chickens
Two years ago, at the height of the Christmas season, I was busting open some boxes when I came across this book. At first I thought it was a children’s book, until I randomly opened to this page:
In case you can’t read the caption, it says, “Mary Katherine blamed it on Mary-Margaret and Mary-Margaret said it was Mary-Josephine. All Sister Agnes knew was that one of the girls was going down.”
At first I just saw the three chicks in bobby-socks staring down at the beer can. Oookay, I thought, beer in a catholic school would be bad. And then I looked in the background: the chicken tied to the bed, the poker cards on the floor, the miniature camera.
My immediate reaction: What kind of sick person comes up with this stuff?
My secondary reaction: I like it.
My tertiary reaction: I’ve got to show the boss!
Thus my store’s love affair with the chicken dioramas was born. Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same: the Life and Times of Some Chickens (by Sloane Tanen), was a huge seller that Christmas. Apparently my sick sense of humor was universal. Plus it was the perfect coffee table book to use as a conversation starter, that gift for the person who was impossible to buy for.
A week ago I was once again busting open freight when I stumbled across another book with pipe cleaner chickens. It was the follow-up: Going for the Bronze (Still Bitter, More Baggage)! Instant celebrations erupted throughout the store as we all stopped working so we could read it.
As you should also; it lives up to the original. I laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
So go. Buy. Now!
The chick compels you.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
The Secret Life of Joel Osteen
I didn't know much about Joel Osteen, just that he was a preacher and his book, Your Best Life Now, had been on the bestsellers list forever, but he seemed to remind me of someone.
Can't you see him emerging from behind he curtain at the front of his church, spewing a rain of doughnut crumbs with each open-mouthed breath. The TV viewing audience and the congregation would be stunned into silence, shocked by the obese, dirty man standing in front of them, unable to believe what their eyes were telling them: that this form should be inhabited by the spirit of their savior. And Short/Glick, realizing his mistake, would then raise his arms high to the Holy Lord, and say, "The Power of Jesus has made me a changed man!"
The possibility is almost enough to make me want to watch Osteen's show.
I know Short can only keep up the charade for so long, and I want to have a video tape recording when the time is right.
C'mon, give into the Temptation, Man! Let the world know who you really are! Embrace yourself! Give us the joy of wetting our pants with mirth!
So, um, yeah, this is what I think about as I toil away between the stacks of books: decode the conspiracies that lead to today's bestsellers. Knife of Dreams, Breath of Snow and Ashes, Harry Potter, I've got explanations for them all except for one, and really, Mary Magdalene being the actual chalice? A Catholic cover-up? Da Vinci hiding some sort of "code" in his paintings? Who comes up with this stuff?
It's a crazy world out there, folks, and there is only one thing we can rely on: Martin Short trying to screw with our heads.
So heed this, Martin, we're on to you, and we're waiting (record button ready) for you to make a mistake. Bring it on.
But who? Who could it be? I puzzled over it for days until it finally hit me!
Martin Short! It was all there: the hair, the eyes, the nose, the smile. It's a wonder that it escaped me for so long, what with all of those similarities. I mean, really, what are the odds that two people looked that much alike? And on top of it, looked like that!
Could Joel Osteen be the illegitimate son of Martin Short? Or was it something more? We were talking about Martin Short here, master of disguise.
Maybe Martin Short was Joel Osteen!
Suddenly it all made sense. Martin Short was fooling everyone, pretending to be a Preacher Man, making money off the masses through his bestselling book (and journal and reader's guide), not to mention suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder! I mean, this was the man who gave us Ned Nederlander from the Three Amigos!, Frik from that really long-ass TV movie about Merlin, and Jiminy Glick from the Jiminy Glick Show. My, how hard it must be, juggling personalities and realities as you move back and forth between sets. Really, it was just a matter of time before Short forgot what TV set he was on and came out before Osteen's congregation looking like this!
Can't you see him emerging from behind he curtain at the front of his church, spewing a rain of doughnut crumbs with each open-mouthed breath. The TV viewing audience and the congregation would be stunned into silence, shocked by the obese, dirty man standing in front of them, unable to believe what their eyes were telling them: that this form should be inhabited by the spirit of their savior. And Short/Glick, realizing his mistake, would then raise his arms high to the Holy Lord, and say, "The Power of Jesus has made me a changed man!"
The possibility is almost enough to make me want to watch Osteen's show.
I know Short can only keep up the charade for so long, and I want to have a video tape recording when the time is right.
C'mon, give into the Temptation, Man! Let the world know who you really are! Embrace yourself! Give us the joy of wetting our pants with mirth!
So, um, yeah, this is what I think about as I toil away between the stacks of books: decode the conspiracies that lead to today's bestsellers. Knife of Dreams, Breath of Snow and Ashes, Harry Potter, I've got explanations for them all except for one, and really, Mary Magdalene being the actual chalice? A Catholic cover-up? Da Vinci hiding some sort of "code" in his paintings? Who comes up with this stuff?
It's a crazy world out there, folks, and there is only one thing we can rely on: Martin Short trying to screw with our heads.
So heed this, Martin, we're on to you, and we're waiting (record button ready) for you to make a mistake. Bring it on.
Monday, October 24, 2005
SBD: Romance Expert Redux...
We’ve started a sign-up for a romance emailing list exclusive to my store. In it the customer will receive advance warning about street dates (and changing street dates), chances to win Advance Reader Copies, information on hot new titles, and discounts specific to our business only. In future months, if anyone is interested, I plan to expand it to include short author interviews, as well as listings for local romance signings.
It’s perfectly free, all you have to do is sign up your email…
…Which I will then harvest and turn over to the company, so they’ll stop threatening to lower my store standing and take away my raise.
And you thought I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart, or for my love of the genre.
Or perhaps it was my deep my desire to be the Romance Expert slipping free once again?
Ha, Ha! Poor, innocent consumer, don’t you realize that the name of the game is email collection these days? My company places more importance on that than sales and percent over last year combined! If I do not collect one or more emails for every hour I work, I’m a loser who is “not trying hard enough.”
I obviously don’t love the company.
So I better watch out,
I better not cry,
I better not pout,
I’m telling you why,
The company is watching my asssssss.
Shades of Big Brother, comrade.
The sad fact of the matter is that I would love to do this for my customers under normal circumstances. It’s an idea that I’ve been kicking around for awhile to provide them with an extra level of customer service (and the first step to building my book empire). It just angers me to no end though that I have been forced into following up because I want to save my raise (not that it will be that big anyway).
Sure, it will be useful. The Romance email that the company does professionally always seems to be a couple weeks behind with its picks and announcements, even though the buyer has access to this information months in advance. And my ladies seem excited (although I’ve got to come up with a snappier signup sheet because the one I have is just blah). I just hate that it had to come to this.
Don’t they read Fast Company? Don’t they know that email collection is rapidly going out because people are getting wise to the schemes? Or, at least, couldn’t they make it a little easier for them to sign up because having people write? Not pretty. Handwriting, especially legible handwriting, has gone the way of the dodo bird thanks to computers. All of which means that even if I get someone to submit their information, the brain trust in charge of entering it into the system may not be able to read it (and considering that these are the same people who have come up with eight million different ways to abbreviate words, names, and titles that bear absolutely no relation to however they did it before, I don’t have a lot of faith. Is it too much to ask for one set standard guideline? Do I need to spend five minutes trying to figure out what they did to shorten “America” this time?).
Argh! This isn’t particularly funny or even ranting on romance, so much as me just being frustrated (or flustrated as my father says). I really want this email list-serve—or however we end up setting up—to succeed, but not because I need it to so that I get my their email. I would have done it without the threats hanging over my head, but now I don’t have a choice.
And it’s tainting my experience.
Don’t they know it’s practically the season of giving (they should, they’ve been shipping Christmas books to me since August), and instead of focusing inward, they should be looking outward to help their fellow (wo)man? Not slamming her down with unrealistic goals regarding email collection.
Is that too much to ask?
I mean, it’s not like we don’t have enough to deal with, what with the holiday season, and a person quitting, and three weeks worth of deliveries that we can’t put out because they won’t give us a comprehensive returns list!
At least give a girl an office hour and an internet connection so she can do this at work, or chip in for the Comcast bill I’ve got to pay in blood every month.
You’ve got to give to receive.
Even if all you want is an email.
Soooo...wanna help a girl out and hand over your email address?
*blinks innocently*
I'll tell you about all sorts of cool romance type stuff...
It’s perfectly free, all you have to do is sign up your email…
…Which I will then harvest and turn over to the company, so they’ll stop threatening to lower my store standing and take away my raise.
And you thought I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart, or for my love of the genre.
Or perhaps it was my deep my desire to be the Romance Expert slipping free once again?
Ha, Ha! Poor, innocent consumer, don’t you realize that the name of the game is email collection these days? My company places more importance on that than sales and percent over last year combined! If I do not collect one or more emails for every hour I work, I’m a loser who is “not trying hard enough.”
I obviously don’t love the company.
So I better watch out,
I better not cry,
I better not pout,
I’m telling you why,
The company is watching my asssssss.
Shades of Big Brother, comrade.
The sad fact of the matter is that I would love to do this for my customers under normal circumstances. It’s an idea that I’ve been kicking around for awhile to provide them with an extra level of customer service (and the first step to building my book empire). It just angers me to no end though that I have been forced into following up because I want to save my raise (not that it will be that big anyway).
Sure, it will be useful. The Romance email that the company does professionally always seems to be a couple weeks behind with its picks and announcements, even though the buyer has access to this information months in advance. And my ladies seem excited (although I’ve got to come up with a snappier signup sheet because the one I have is just blah). I just hate that it had to come to this.
Don’t they read Fast Company? Don’t they know that email collection is rapidly going out because people are getting wise to the schemes? Or, at least, couldn’t they make it a little easier for them to sign up because having people write? Not pretty. Handwriting, especially legible handwriting, has gone the way of the dodo bird thanks to computers. All of which means that even if I get someone to submit their information, the brain trust in charge of entering it into the system may not be able to read it (and considering that these are the same people who have come up with eight million different ways to abbreviate words, names, and titles that bear absolutely no relation to however they did it before, I don’t have a lot of faith. Is it too much to ask for one set standard guideline? Do I need to spend five minutes trying to figure out what they did to shorten “America” this time?).
Argh! This isn’t particularly funny or even ranting on romance, so much as me just being frustrated (or flustrated as my father says). I really want this email list-serve—or however we end up setting up—to succeed, but not because I need it to so that I get my their email. I would have done it without the threats hanging over my head, but now I don’t have a choice.
And it’s tainting my experience.
Don’t they know it’s practically the season of giving (they should, they’ve been shipping Christmas books to me since August), and instead of focusing inward, they should be looking outward to help their fellow (wo)man? Not slamming her down with unrealistic goals regarding email collection.
Is that too much to ask?
I mean, it’s not like we don’t have enough to deal with, what with the holiday season, and a person quitting, and three weeks worth of deliveries that we can’t put out because they won’t give us a comprehensive returns list!
At least give a girl an office hour and an internet connection so she can do this at work, or chip in for the Comcast bill I’ve got to pay in blood every month.
You’ve got to give to receive.
Even if all you want is an email.
Soooo...wanna help a girl out and hand over your email address?
*blinks innocently*
I'll tell you about all sorts of cool romance type stuff...
Saturday, October 22, 2005
A good author experience
Marie Bostwick, the author of Fields of Gold, dropped in the other night to sign our stock.
Nice lady.
She took the time to talk with the coworker and I as we bandaged ourselves up behind the counter (stripping 300 lbs of magazines will give you a lot of paper cuts, there was talk of a transfusion), gave us some DVDs for book clubs to use, and gossiped with us about Jane Green (her neighbor).
Booksellers, if you didn’t know, love gossip. Love it. I once went to a training seminar where they kept going on and on about how gossiping at the work place is bad. You shouldn’t gossip about your coworkers. You shouldn’t gossip about writers. You probably shouldn’t even gossip about the latest in the Jen/Brad/Angelina developments. We all sat there nodding our heads and taking notes like good little employees, and then went to lunch and gossiped our heads off. There’s something about working in a bookstore that causes this voracious need for knowledge of any kind, even if it is supposition. We Must KNOW!
So Marie’s talk about Jane Green, despite the fact that neither the coworker nor I make it a habit to read her books, was fun to hear. I, for one, didn’t know that she now lived in the states, and had for many years. The one Jane Green that I had read, I picked up years ago in England, and I was unable to identify with the character (which I think had more to do with my total life experience at that point than the writing). It seems that Jane is continuing to distance herself from the Glam-lit subgenre of Chick-lit, and instead embracing her mommy side (as in Mom-lit, although I’m sure she’ll be playing Mom to her four kids too).
Marie shared some other funny stories, but I think I’ll save them for when I write something on ranking systems.
Until then I may just pick up Bostwick’s book and give it a try. I’m always looking for more recommendations to add to our book club brochure, and her DVD Q & A as well as her offer to do a call-in session makes her a wonderful candidate.
Nice lady.
She took the time to talk with the coworker and I as we bandaged ourselves up behind the counter (stripping 300 lbs of magazines will give you a lot of paper cuts, there was talk of a transfusion), gave us some DVDs for book clubs to use, and gossiped with us about Jane Green (her neighbor).
Booksellers, if you didn’t know, love gossip. Love it. I once went to a training seminar where they kept going on and on about how gossiping at the work place is bad. You shouldn’t gossip about your coworkers. You shouldn’t gossip about writers. You probably shouldn’t even gossip about the latest in the Jen/Brad/Angelina developments. We all sat there nodding our heads and taking notes like good little employees, and then went to lunch and gossiped our heads off. There’s something about working in a bookstore that causes this voracious need for knowledge of any kind, even if it is supposition. We Must KNOW!
So Marie’s talk about Jane Green, despite the fact that neither the coworker nor I make it a habit to read her books, was fun to hear. I, for one, didn’t know that she now lived in the states, and had for many years. The one Jane Green that I had read, I picked up years ago in England, and I was unable to identify with the character (which I think had more to do with my total life experience at that point than the writing). It seems that Jane is continuing to distance herself from the Glam-lit subgenre of Chick-lit, and instead embracing her mommy side (as in Mom-lit, although I’m sure she’ll be playing Mom to her four kids too).
Marie shared some other funny stories, but I think I’ll save them for when I write something on ranking systems.
Until then I may just pick up Bostwick’s book and give it a try. I’m always looking for more recommendations to add to our book club brochure, and her DVD Q & A as well as her offer to do a call-in session makes her a wonderful candidate.
Friday, October 21, 2005
The Dirty World of Book Stripping
There are books beneath the table
And books on the floor
Books to the ceiling,
And blocking the door
The are books piled in boxes
(some Seuss’s foxes).
There are many in bins
To add to my sins,
There are books everywhere
From the floor to my chair
Won't someone please get them out of my hair?
Okay, poetry? Not my strength. Luckily this was something I realized early in life, saving myself a lot of angsty prose in high school. College just reaffirmed my belief when I took a 400 level Spanish poetry class…in Spanish.
(Oh Pablo Neruda, I love you. I really do. I just don’t understand you; not well enough to write a five page paper on your use of imagery. Please forgive me. I was just as clueless with Lorca. Que triste!*)
But we’re not here to talk about my love-affairs gone wrong with famous Spanish poets. No, we’re here to talk about the dark, seedy underworld of book stripping where the covers are cruelly torn from the binding, and your pages of words are tossed into a mass book grave (a.k.a. a cardboard box) to be thrown away. No one wants to believe it happens. No one wants to know that their favorite author is dumped in a compacter with all the food court leftovers and non-recyclables. But it takes place everyday in bookstores across America.
Now to qualify, this only happens to mass market paperbacks (and the newer Premium or Quality paperbacks, whatever they’re calling them. I call them the books that mess with my entire shelving system), trade-sized and hardbacks still get sent back to the distributor (and from there to the publisher) whole and healthy. I would love to spin you some fairytale about how it’s only the damaged mass markets, the ones with missing pages, or cover defects that no one would ever love anyway so really we were doing a service by putting them out of their misery. That’s not true. I would then love to tell you that it’s the books that are marked for return, and even then the bookseller in charge of stripping them feels remorse—heartbreak even—for destroying something the author worked so hard on.
I feel, however, that we’ve come too far for me to lie to you.
The truth (and nothing but the truth so help me God) is that we booksellers strip books for a variety of reasons. We strip books because they are damaged. We strip them because the pages have yellowed with exposure. We strip them because the company tells us to as part of a Returns list.
And sometimes, we strip them because we have absolutely no room. Frontlist, backlist, it doesn’t matter; they all disappear with the sibilant sound of paper ripping.
But why? Why do we have to strip books at all? Why can’t we just send them back like we do the Trade and the Hardcovers?
I was once told in a publishing class that the reason cover stripping came about had to do with a Supreme Court decision. I don’t remember when or what it was called (I would have to look at my notes), but I remember that it had to do with machinery. The basic gist of the ruling was that some (steel?) companies were claiming tax (I can’t remember if it was exemptions but we’ll just use that word) exemptions on stock that they had in their warehouses. The Court ruled that they could do that, but only up until a point (I believe some where purposely producing stock that they couldn’t sale to claim the exemptions) and anything over that point would be subject to taxes (or a fine, sorry to be so vague). This directly affected the book industry because they too had a whole bunch of stock sitting around in warehouses. The most disposable of this stock, and the hardest to store due to the ease of warping, was the mass markets.
Thus stripping was born. The cover torn from the book was sent back to the publisher to prove that it wasn’t sold, and the rest of the book was thrown away. This is also why there’s always that little box on the copyright page that reads,
The people around me in my class expressed shock at this practice. People destroy books? Monthly? Are they Nazis? How can they live with themselves?
I will tell you what I told them. Yes, we strip books. We do it almost daily, not monthly. No, I’m not a Nazi. In fact, I’m pretty sure members of my family hid from them. And I live with myself quite well, thanks.
Sometimes I even find it therapeutic.
Oh, the gasps of horror. Oh, the looks of pity for my poor, simple-minded statement. I was Satan. I was misguided.
Didn’t I understand that I was destroying someone’s baby?!
Yes. Yes I do. I understand exactly what I’m doing, probably better than anyone in that class.
I’m getting rid of old stock. I’m getting rid of books I can’t sell. I’m getting rid of returns.
There is no guilt associated with standing in my back room, methodically stripping the covers. It’s relaxing, rhythmic. No customers asking weird questions. No coworkers asking what to do or where to find something. No noise but the hum of the A/C, the hiss of paper against paper and the distance rumble of the mall workers echoing footsteps in the back corridors.
The only time I feel any remorse at all is when I strip a book because there is absolutely no room. No room on the shelf. No room in overstock. No room on the shelves in the back. And still I have boxes on the floor waiting to be unpacked from yet another 100 box shipment, and my bins are full, and the company has decided that books must be overstocked vertically only (instead of stacking then horizontally, which would create more space) because that’s more “attractive” even though they’ve removed half of my overstock shelves to replace them with wall signs. Suddenly I have to make a choice, a choice I would not otherwise have to make: put out all of those new releases even though only half their number will sell, and destroy all the author’s backlist; or put out a selection of every title, only to destroy everything in equal number?
And while I’m making this decision, I have to keep these facts in my mind:
It’s a balancing act, a guessing game that none of us like to play because what if we’re wrong? What if tomorrow the author whose books I just stripped turns up on Oprah?
The answer to that, by the way, is “I am so screwed.” The power of the Oprah is not to be messed with.
So again, why strip the books?
I don’t have a choice. No room means something has to go. The arrival of 100+ box shipments every Friday, the lack of a returns list for two months (I love my company, I love my company, I love my company), and the oversized quantities of some of the titles I have make the decision for me.
It’s strip or die, really.
So last Thursday, we stripped nine boxes of mass markets to clear out the bins: fiction, romance, science fiction/fantasy and mystery. No one was safe.
Each box holds approximately 48 books, so around 432 books were stripped that morning. The rampage continued through this week as more product arrived.
Those were 432 books that never saw the sales floor.
I would like to assure you that each title was represented somewhere, that there was at least one book on the shelf and one in overstock, but in the end I can’t. I’m really not sure. Towards the end we were just guessing.
I would say, “Los libros, pobrecitos,” in honor of that long ago poetry class, and my own horrible attempt, but I had a Spanish Prof once that used that word, “pobrecitos,” pretty sarcastically.
And I don’t mean this to be sarcastic. It’s a fact of the book business life. I accepted that when I started with the company five years ago, but for the first time in a long time I felt guilty as I ripped the cover off of book after book.
I felt that maybe authors were a little justified in claiming that booksellers were never giving their stories the face time they deserved, that we were uneducated morons making split judgments on someone else’s life work. I could have stripped all the copies of some author’s debut novel by accident. I could have destroyed too many copies of a book that was destined to make it onto the bestsellers list.
I don’t know. It’s all a blur. A blur that will take place again today with another 100+ box shipment and no room on my floor.
I’ll tell myself it’s so we can be up to fire code. I’ll tell myself that it’s the result of the buyer not paying attention to the reality of my shelf square footage, and their strange fascination with sending me twelve copies of Tuesdays with Morrie (doesn’t everyone who actually wants to read that book own it already?). I’ll tell myself that it’s not my fault.
But a part of me will think differently. A part of me will mourn a little, and wonder at the injustice of some Supreme Court ruling years ago that won’t just let me box these books up and send them back so that someone else can have them. A part will accept the fact that I have become a little more corporate than I’ve wanted to, and that’s why I’m not desperately trying to put these books out anyway.
That is the part of me that wanted to inform you, both author and reader, that today your books will be stripped to make room for more books that will probably be stripped tomorrow.
I’m sorry.
For the first time in a long time, I really am sorry.
*I apologize for the lack of accents, MS Word is not cooperating.
And books on the floor
Books to the ceiling,
And blocking the door
The are books piled in boxes
(some Seuss’s foxes).
There are many in bins
To add to my sins,
There are books everywhere
From the floor to my chair
Won't someone please get them out of my hair?
Okay, poetry? Not my strength. Luckily this was something I realized early in life, saving myself a lot of angsty prose in high school. College just reaffirmed my belief when I took a 400 level Spanish poetry class…in Spanish.
(Oh Pablo Neruda, I love you. I really do. I just don’t understand you; not well enough to write a five page paper on your use of imagery. Please forgive me. I was just as clueless with Lorca. Que triste!*)
But we’re not here to talk about my love-affairs gone wrong with famous Spanish poets. No, we’re here to talk about the dark, seedy underworld of book stripping where the covers are cruelly torn from the binding, and your pages of words are tossed into a mass book grave (a.k.a. a cardboard box) to be thrown away. No one wants to believe it happens. No one wants to know that their favorite author is dumped in a compacter with all the food court leftovers and non-recyclables. But it takes place everyday in bookstores across America.
Now to qualify, this only happens to mass market paperbacks (and the newer Premium or Quality paperbacks, whatever they’re calling them. I call them the books that mess with my entire shelving system), trade-sized and hardbacks still get sent back to the distributor (and from there to the publisher) whole and healthy. I would love to spin you some fairytale about how it’s only the damaged mass markets, the ones with missing pages, or cover defects that no one would ever love anyway so really we were doing a service by putting them out of their misery. That’s not true. I would then love to tell you that it’s the books that are marked for return, and even then the bookseller in charge of stripping them feels remorse—heartbreak even—for destroying something the author worked so hard on.
I feel, however, that we’ve come too far for me to lie to you.
The truth (and nothing but the truth so help me God) is that we booksellers strip books for a variety of reasons. We strip books because they are damaged. We strip them because the pages have yellowed with exposure. We strip them because the company tells us to as part of a Returns list.
And sometimes, we strip them because we have absolutely no room. Frontlist, backlist, it doesn’t matter; they all disappear with the sibilant sound of paper ripping.
But why? Why do we have to strip books at all? Why can’t we just send them back like we do the Trade and the Hardcovers?
I was once told in a publishing class that the reason cover stripping came about had to do with a Supreme Court decision. I don’t remember when or what it was called (I would have to look at my notes), but I remember that it had to do with machinery. The basic gist of the ruling was that some (steel?) companies were claiming tax (I can’t remember if it was exemptions but we’ll just use that word) exemptions on stock that they had in their warehouses. The Court ruled that they could do that, but only up until a point (I believe some where purposely producing stock that they couldn’t sale to claim the exemptions) and anything over that point would be subject to taxes (or a fine, sorry to be so vague). This directly affected the book industry because they too had a whole bunch of stock sitting around in warehouses. The most disposable of this stock, and the hardest to store due to the ease of warping, was the mass markets.
Thus stripping was born. The cover torn from the book was sent back to the publisher to prove that it wasn’t sold, and the rest of the book was thrown away. This is also why there’s always that little box on the copyright page that reads,
“The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped” book.”
The people around me in my class expressed shock at this practice. People destroy books? Monthly? Are they Nazis? How can they live with themselves?
I will tell you what I told them. Yes, we strip books. We do it almost daily, not monthly. No, I’m not a Nazi. In fact, I’m pretty sure members of my family hid from them. And I live with myself quite well, thanks.
Sometimes I even find it therapeutic.
Oh, the gasps of horror. Oh, the looks of pity for my poor, simple-minded statement. I was Satan. I was misguided.
Didn’t I understand that I was destroying someone’s baby?!
Yes. Yes I do. I understand exactly what I’m doing, probably better than anyone in that class.
I’m getting rid of old stock. I’m getting rid of books I can’t sell. I’m getting rid of returns.
There is no guilt associated with standing in my back room, methodically stripping the covers. It’s relaxing, rhythmic. No customers asking weird questions. No coworkers asking what to do or where to find something. No noise but the hum of the A/C, the hiss of paper against paper and the distance rumble of the mall workers echoing footsteps in the back corridors.
The only time I feel any remorse at all is when I strip a book because there is absolutely no room. No room on the shelf. No room in overstock. No room on the shelves in the back. And still I have boxes on the floor waiting to be unpacked from yet another 100 box shipment, and my bins are full, and the company has decided that books must be overstocked vertically only (instead of stacking then horizontally, which would create more space) because that’s more “attractive” even though they’ve removed half of my overstock shelves to replace them with wall signs. Suddenly I have to make a choice, a choice I would not otherwise have to make: put out all of those new releases even though only half their number will sell, and destroy all the author’s backlist; or put out a selection of every title, only to destroy everything in equal number?
And while I’m making this decision, I have to keep these facts in my mind:
- The sale of a frontlist title generates sales for the backlist, however, the frontlist moves faster (in theory).
- People love to pick up backlist titles when sales are going on (buy three books get the fourth book free for example).
- The company often sends me massive amounts of a frontlist title all in one drop, expecting me to keep some back to refill the section and the displays, so they don’t have to do multiple deliveries.
- Any titles that I strip that are not on the returns list, will not be sent back to me until I scan out my stripped covers.
- The computer will only tell me how many books were sent to me, not how many were stripped and how many are actually on the shelf.
It’s a balancing act, a guessing game that none of us like to play because what if we’re wrong? What if tomorrow the author whose books I just stripped turns up on Oprah?
The answer to that, by the way, is “I am so screwed.” The power of the Oprah is not to be messed with.
So again, why strip the books?
I don’t have a choice. No room means something has to go. The arrival of 100+ box shipments every Friday, the lack of a returns list for two months (I love my company, I love my company, I love my company), and the oversized quantities of some of the titles I have make the decision for me.
It’s strip or die, really.
So last Thursday, we stripped nine boxes of mass markets to clear out the bins: fiction, romance, science fiction/fantasy and mystery. No one was safe.
Each box holds approximately 48 books, so around 432 books were stripped that morning. The rampage continued through this week as more product arrived.
Those were 432 books that never saw the sales floor.
I would like to assure you that each title was represented somewhere, that there was at least one book on the shelf and one in overstock, but in the end I can’t. I’m really not sure. Towards the end we were just guessing.
I would say, “Los libros, pobrecitos,” in honor of that long ago poetry class, and my own horrible attempt, but I had a Spanish Prof once that used that word, “pobrecitos,” pretty sarcastically.
And I don’t mean this to be sarcastic. It’s a fact of the book business life. I accepted that when I started with the company five years ago, but for the first time in a long time I felt guilty as I ripped the cover off of book after book.
I felt that maybe authors were a little justified in claiming that booksellers were never giving their stories the face time they deserved, that we were uneducated morons making split judgments on someone else’s life work. I could have stripped all the copies of some author’s debut novel by accident. I could have destroyed too many copies of a book that was destined to make it onto the bestsellers list.
I don’t know. It’s all a blur. A blur that will take place again today with another 100+ box shipment and no room on my floor.
I’ll tell myself it’s so we can be up to fire code. I’ll tell myself that it’s the result of the buyer not paying attention to the reality of my shelf square footage, and their strange fascination with sending me twelve copies of Tuesdays with Morrie (doesn’t everyone who actually wants to read that book own it already?). I’ll tell myself that it’s not my fault.
But a part of me will think differently. A part of me will mourn a little, and wonder at the injustice of some Supreme Court ruling years ago that won’t just let me box these books up and send them back so that someone else can have them. A part will accept the fact that I have become a little more corporate than I’ve wanted to, and that’s why I’m not desperately trying to put these books out anyway.
That is the part of me that wanted to inform you, both author and reader, that today your books will be stripped to make room for more books that will probably be stripped tomorrow.
I’m sorry.
For the first time in a long time, I really am sorry.
*I apologize for the lack of accents, MS Word is not cooperating.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
The irony of it all...
After all those people asking about the Nicholas Sparks book, I didn't sell a single one on its release day. I did, however, sell massive amounts of Amy Tan's newest, Saving Fish from Drowning, without even trying. Most conversations went like this:
Customer (holding up Tan's book): What have you heard about this?
Me: Well, I haven't read--
Customer: Nevermind. I don't know why I'm asking. She hasn't disappointed me yet. I'll take it.
Me: Oh...okay. Do you want any chocolate or bookmarks with that?
Sadly they didn't really seem that tempted by my blatant add-on pitch, but hey, they bought the book from us instead of Costco (which is where most of the Sparks readers were going, a customer told me the next day, after she failed to get me to knock another dollar off the price. Apparently they had it for less).
Customer (holding up Tan's book): What have you heard about this?
Me: Well, I haven't read--
Customer: Nevermind. I don't know why I'm asking. She hasn't disappointed me yet. I'll take it.
Me: Oh...okay. Do you want any chocolate or bookmarks with that?
Sadly they didn't really seem that tempted by my blatant add-on pitch, but hey, they bought the book from us instead of Costco (which is where most of the Sparks readers were going, a customer told me the next day, after she failed to get me to knock another dollar off the price. Apparently they had it for less).
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Let Me Tell You About a Guy I Know… (Blind Date Reading Series)
Jeff introduced me to this guy the other day and he’s perfect for you.
Jeff? You know Jeff. Jeff Lindsay? He’s a writer, I think. You met him the last time we got together for that thing at that place…
Yes, Jeff. The guy with the hat. Exactly. Can I continue? Thank you.
Aaaaaanyway, Jeff introduced me to this guy and he’s just perfect for you. Perfect. Total sweetheart. Good looking but completely oblivious to the fact that that slutty LaGuerta woman was hitting on him the entire time. And he’s very laid back, very Hawaiian shirt laid—
Please. Don’t give me that face. You know you like Hawaiian shirts. I caught you checking out that guy the other day. Besides, it doesn’t matter what they wear as long as they have a sense of humor, right? And this guy? Total smiler, big joker, not afraid to laugh. Hell, half the time I didn’t even get the joke, but he was just grinning away and—
Of course he has a job! I wouldn’t set you up with a beach bum. What kind of friend would that make me? Don’t answer that. I can’t believe you still haven’t forgiven me for Ricardo. I had no idea that he was an unemployed himbo when I introduced you. I thought he was a bartender! Not that you have to worry about any of that with this guy, he’s completely legit, in law enforcement even.
No, he’s not a cop. Do I look like I want go through that again? He works for Metro Dade County as a blood splatter analysis, which means no late night phone calls to go out a scene or weird hours. His sister’s a cop though, and he doesn’t seem to mind that she has a more powerful job. I’m telling you, laid back! Perfect! I can hear wedding bells now.
What? His name? You mean I haven’t told you his—I’m such an idiot. His name’s Dexter, Dexter—
You’ve heard of him?
Wait a minute, you’ve heard he’s a what?
Whoa. Whooooa. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to—Was it Doakes? I bet it was Doakes. That conclusion jumping, bastard!—but he’s not like that, not like that at all. Dexter’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. He’s dealing with that whole sociopath thing really, really well. I mean look how well adjusted he is. And he loves kids! How can a man who loves kids be bad?
Serial Killer?
You think I’m trying to set you up with a serial killer?
That hurts. First of all, that’s never been proven. Ever. Hypothetically speaking, even if it were to come out that maybe, I said, maybe Dexter killed some people. I’d ask myself who they are. Maybe the people he’s killing, and again this is totally hypothetical, but maybe it’s just possible that they are in fact the serial killers. They are the evil ones, which then means that Dexter would be providing a service. Because most serial killers are never caught, and this is Miami. We have more than most. Don’t believe me then just watch CSI: Miami sometime.
Yeah, Caruso drives me nuts too. I tend to just blank him out, or count his acting crutches: glasses, hands on hips, walkie-talkie.
So about Dexter…
Oh, c’mon. How can you still have objections? He’s practically a saint! A good-looking, funny, children-lovin’ saint! And he may be performing a valuable service for our community!
Don’t you even want to meet him? He’s perfectly good at controlling his dark passenger as long as it’s not a blood moon or that he’s gone too long between kills. Hypothetically, of course. Not that you should be worried in the slightest because you’re not a serial killer, right? You’re safe.
And single. Safe and single…just like he is.
C’mon. Please give Dexter a chance. Anybody has to better than Ricardo, right?
Jeff? You know Jeff. Jeff Lindsay? He’s a writer, I think. You met him the last time we got together for that thing at that place…
Yes, Jeff. The guy with the hat. Exactly. Can I continue? Thank you.
Aaaaaanyway, Jeff introduced me to this guy and he’s just perfect for you. Perfect. Total sweetheart. Good looking but completely oblivious to the fact that that slutty LaGuerta woman was hitting on him the entire time. And he’s very laid back, very Hawaiian shirt laid—
Please. Don’t give me that face. You know you like Hawaiian shirts. I caught you checking out that guy the other day. Besides, it doesn’t matter what they wear as long as they have a sense of humor, right? And this guy? Total smiler, big joker, not afraid to laugh. Hell, half the time I didn’t even get the joke, but he was just grinning away and—
Of course he has a job! I wouldn’t set you up with a beach bum. What kind of friend would that make me? Don’t answer that. I can’t believe you still haven’t forgiven me for Ricardo. I had no idea that he was an unemployed himbo when I introduced you. I thought he was a bartender! Not that you have to worry about any of that with this guy, he’s completely legit, in law enforcement even.
No, he’s not a cop. Do I look like I want go through that again? He works for Metro Dade County as a blood splatter analysis, which means no late night phone calls to go out a scene or weird hours. His sister’s a cop though, and he doesn’t seem to mind that she has a more powerful job. I’m telling you, laid back! Perfect! I can hear wedding bells now.
What? His name? You mean I haven’t told you his—I’m such an idiot. His name’s Dexter, Dexter—
You’ve heard of him?
Wait a minute, you’ve heard he’s a what?
Whoa. Whooooa. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to—Was it Doakes? I bet it was Doakes. That conclusion jumping, bastard!—but he’s not like that, not like that at all. Dexter’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. He’s dealing with that whole sociopath thing really, really well. I mean look how well adjusted he is. And he loves kids! How can a man who loves kids be bad?
Serial Killer?
You think I’m trying to set you up with a serial killer?
That hurts. First of all, that’s never been proven. Ever. Hypothetically speaking, even if it were to come out that maybe, I said, maybe Dexter killed some people. I’d ask myself who they are. Maybe the people he’s killing, and again this is totally hypothetical, but maybe it’s just possible that they are in fact the serial killers. They are the evil ones, which then means that Dexter would be providing a service. Because most serial killers are never caught, and this is Miami. We have more than most. Don’t believe me then just watch CSI: Miami sometime.
Yeah, Caruso drives me nuts too. I tend to just blank him out, or count his acting crutches: glasses, hands on hips, walkie-talkie.
So about Dexter…
Oh, c’mon. How can you still have objections? He’s practically a saint! A good-looking, funny, children-lovin’ saint! And he may be performing a valuable service for our community!
Don’t you even want to meet him? He’s perfectly good at controlling his dark passenger as long as it’s not a blood moon or that he’s gone too long between kills. Hypothetically, of course. Not that you should be worried in the slightest because you’re not a serial killer, right? You’re safe.
And single. Safe and single…just like he is.
C’mon. Please give Dexter a chance. Anybody has to better than Ricardo, right?
Monday, October 17, 2005
SBD: Broad generalizations about male "romance"…
It’s Smart Bitches Day again, and this time I’ve got something to talk about—a bit off topic, but I think it works. It’s been on my mind for awhile, but as I was unpacking boxes on Friday, I was tipped over the edge.
The new Nicholas Sparks’ book had arrived (set for release tomorrow).
Staring down at the soft focus cover with its ivy green and silhouette of a tree, I could barely control my heebie-geebies as I thought, “I wonder which character is going to bite it this time?”
Because I don’t get it. I don’t get why this schmaltzy, purple-laden prose sells so well, or why the women who read it swear that he is all that is holy and NOT ROMANCE.
Okay, on that last point, I agree. He’s not romance. Sure he has a love story, and the characters have to overcome barriers to be with one another. That part is true, but he violates a basic tenet of romance by killing off one of his protagonists in almost every damn book. It’s how he legitimizes himself as a fiction writer. “See, it’s a love, a love against all odds, which they fight, fight, fight for, but the female lead dies therefore voiding all chances of a ‘happily ever after,’ ergo, not romance. It’s fiction, man, fiiiiiction.”
It’s why I don’t read his books.
This makes me part of a minority, I know, the five million customers that have come into my work asking for this new book—completely ignoring the large sign I have up with the street date on it—have pounded that into my head. That the man is successful and making money is great, more power to him, but why he is successful, I don’t understand.
If you want to depress yourself read a newspaper. If you want to depress yourself about love, read divorce statistics.
People just love him though, and they feel free to read him much more openly than any romance writer I know (with the possible exception of Nora Roberts) even though they know what’s coming! For example: a friend of mine (training to be a pharmacist) was in an intro class for the Safeway pharmacy program, and being the wonderfully OCD person that she is, she would arrive early every day. One morning after she’d sat down, another girl arrived, took her seat and pulled out a book. Not unusual, my friend was reading herself. My friend, however, was not sniffing out loud and almost crying. She was on the verge of asking emotional girl if she needed a tissue and a shoulder to cry on when she caught sight of the book being read: Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember.
Let me ruin the ending for you: the female protagonist dies of a debilitating disease. Tissues all around. Puffy eyes. Runny noses. The works.
Perhaps not the most appropriate reading material when you are moments away from meeting your bosses. If someone is going to see me bawl in public, it’s going to be because someone died or I won something really great and I’m all, “Ohmigod-I-just-can’t-believe-it-now-they-won’t-forclose-on-my-home-and-we-can-finally-get-little-Timmy-some-help.” It is not going to be because some author hooked me with the same emotional twist he pulls time and again. I thought tragic love went out with the romantics.
I accept that my favorite authors who will catch me with a plot twist or an emotional swell that will make me melt, but they don’t abuse the privilege. It’s not done with a heavy hand. They don’t sit down and think to themselves, “How can I make my readers cry today?”
And maybe Sparks doesn’t either, but given the books he’s written—and those written by others in the same sap-lit genre (Nicholas Evans, James Patterson)—I’m beginning to wonder. Of course I could be looking at this all wrong. They’re male. This is a legitimized form of emotional masturbation. They’re addicted due to hormonal urges they can’t control.
I’ve heard it happens.
I’ve also heard it makes your palms hairy and blinds your eyes.
One can only hope.
So romance ladies, listen up! You want more readers? You want to reach a larger audience? You want to stop being pigeon-holed as the preferred book for Midwestern housewives?
It’s easy; just kill off one of your protagonists.
Think about it, the end of each novel is now so much easier! If you’ve written yourself into a corner where the odds are just insurmountable, all you have to do is kill the female protag, and you’re good. She’ll live on forever as the perfect woman for the male protagonist, if only in his heart. A woman who cannot be surpassed, whose faults fall away in death. Really, I can’t believe that more people aren’t doing this.
I mean it’s Instant Sales! And an emotional hand-job!
You could be responsible for getting off a nation without writing any of those dirty sex scenes.
Standards of decency will be upheld. The masses will rejoice. You’ll get one hell of an advance!
Besides, if one lone bookseller commits suicide, but there is no one around to hear it because they are reading your book, does she really make a sound?
The new Nicholas Sparks’ book had arrived (set for release tomorrow).
Staring down at the soft focus cover with its ivy green and silhouette of a tree, I could barely control my heebie-geebies as I thought, “I wonder which character is going to bite it this time?”
Because I don’t get it. I don’t get why this schmaltzy, purple-laden prose sells so well, or why the women who read it swear that he is all that is holy and NOT ROMANCE.
Okay, on that last point, I agree. He’s not romance. Sure he has a love story, and the characters have to overcome barriers to be with one another. That part is true, but he violates a basic tenet of romance by killing off one of his protagonists in almost every damn book. It’s how he legitimizes himself as a fiction writer. “See, it’s a love, a love against all odds, which they fight, fight, fight for, but the female lead dies therefore voiding all chances of a ‘happily ever after,’ ergo, not romance. It’s fiction, man, fiiiiiction.”
It’s why I don’t read his books.
This makes me part of a minority, I know, the five million customers that have come into my work asking for this new book—completely ignoring the large sign I have up with the street date on it—have pounded that into my head. That the man is successful and making money is great, more power to him, but why he is successful, I don’t understand.
If you want to depress yourself read a newspaper. If you want to depress yourself about love, read divorce statistics.
People just love him though, and they feel free to read him much more openly than any romance writer I know (with the possible exception of Nora Roberts) even though they know what’s coming! For example: a friend of mine (training to be a pharmacist) was in an intro class for the Safeway pharmacy program, and being the wonderfully OCD person that she is, she would arrive early every day. One morning after she’d sat down, another girl arrived, took her seat and pulled out a book. Not unusual, my friend was reading herself. My friend, however, was not sniffing out loud and almost crying. She was on the verge of asking emotional girl if she needed a tissue and a shoulder to cry on when she caught sight of the book being read: Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember.
Let me ruin the ending for you: the female protagonist dies of a debilitating disease. Tissues all around. Puffy eyes. Runny noses. The works.
Perhaps not the most appropriate reading material when you are moments away from meeting your bosses. If someone is going to see me bawl in public, it’s going to be because someone died or I won something really great and I’m all, “Ohmigod-I-just-can’t-believe-it-now-they-won’t-forclose-on-my-home-and-we-can-finally-get-little-Timmy-some-help.” It is not going to be because some author hooked me with the same emotional twist he pulls time and again. I thought tragic love went out with the romantics.
I accept that my favorite authors who will catch me with a plot twist or an emotional swell that will make me melt, but they don’t abuse the privilege. It’s not done with a heavy hand. They don’t sit down and think to themselves, “How can I make my readers cry today?”
And maybe Sparks doesn’t either, but given the books he’s written—and those written by others in the same sap-lit genre (Nicholas Evans, James Patterson)—I’m beginning to wonder. Of course I could be looking at this all wrong. They’re male. This is a legitimized form of emotional masturbation. They’re addicted due to hormonal urges they can’t control.
I’ve heard it happens.
I’ve also heard it makes your palms hairy and blinds your eyes.
One can only hope.
So romance ladies, listen up! You want more readers? You want to reach a larger audience? You want to stop being pigeon-holed as the preferred book for Midwestern housewives?
It’s easy; just kill off one of your protagonists.
Think about it, the end of each novel is now so much easier! If you’ve written yourself into a corner where the odds are just insurmountable, all you have to do is kill the female protag, and you’re good. She’ll live on forever as the perfect woman for the male protagonist, if only in his heart. A woman who cannot be surpassed, whose faults fall away in death. Really, I can’t believe that more people aren’t doing this.
I mean it’s Instant Sales! And an emotional hand-job!
You could be responsible for getting off a nation without writing any of those dirty sex scenes.
Standards of decency will be upheld. The masses will rejoice. You’ll get one hell of an advance!
Besides, if one lone bookseller commits suicide, but there is no one around to hear it because they are reading your book, does she really make a sound?
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Author walks into a bookstore…Ouch!
So forget everything I’ve ever said about my store and good customer service. It’s all been wiped away in seconds. We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up on some author hit list*. Imagine if you will the following scene:
Mr. McFamous Author walks into my store, sporting a heavy brogue and lots of tweed.
(Heads straight to the counter and announces himself.)
Coworker: Hello, can I help you?
Author: I’m Mr. McFamous Author. I’m here to sign my stock.
Coworker: Wonderful, let me get them for you.
Author: You’ve read my books?
Coworker: Oh yeah, I liked them.
Author: Liked them.
Coworker: Sure, I reread them whenever I’m in the mood for a little light reading.
Author (gasping): Light reading?
He leaves soon after, and only signs the two hardbacks we have of his in stock (ignoring the massive amount of his paperbacks that we had in several different places).
******
My Boss told me this story the other day (the actual incident took place on my day off).
Me: She actually said that?
Boss: Yep.
Me: And you didn’t stop her or cut in?
Boss: It was like watching a car crash. I was just frozen.
Me: Sweet Jesus.
On the bright side, it turns out that my coworker did engage whatever little bit of tact she had.
Coworker: C’mon, it’s true. When did you read him?
Me: Third grade-ish.
Coworker: See. He’s starter fantasy. I don’t see why he was so bent out of shape about it.
Me: Please tell me that you didn’t say that to him.
Coworker: Of course not. I didn’t even tell him what I was really thinking.
Me (choking on my tea): Really thinking?
Coworker: That after the first three books all the characters are the same, just different animals. Read one and you’ve read them all.
And that, kids, is about as tactful as she gets.
*For all I know there could still be an author hit list and we could be on it. If that’s the case, I would just like to say I had absolutely nothing to do with this. Nothing. It was only after making sure that said author did not have a blog that I decided to post this at all.
Mr. McFamous Author walks into my store, sporting a heavy brogue and lots of tweed.
(Heads straight to the counter and announces himself.)
Coworker: Hello, can I help you?
Author: I’m Mr. McFamous Author. I’m here to sign my stock.
Coworker: Wonderful, let me get them for you.
Author: You’ve read my books?
Coworker: Oh yeah, I liked them.
Author: Liked them.
Coworker: Sure, I reread them whenever I’m in the mood for a little light reading.
Author (gasping): Light reading?
He leaves soon after, and only signs the two hardbacks we have of his in stock (ignoring the massive amount of his paperbacks that we had in several different places).
******
My Boss told me this story the other day (the actual incident took place on my day off).
Me: She actually said that?
Boss: Yep.
Me: And you didn’t stop her or cut in?
Boss: It was like watching a car crash. I was just frozen.
Me: Sweet Jesus.
On the bright side, it turns out that my coworker did engage whatever little bit of tact she had.
Coworker: C’mon, it’s true. When did you read him?
Me: Third grade-ish.
Coworker: See. He’s starter fantasy. I don’t see why he was so bent out of shape about it.
Me: Please tell me that you didn’t say that to him.
Coworker: Of course not. I didn’t even tell him what I was really thinking.
Me (choking on my tea): Really thinking?
Coworker: That after the first three books all the characters are the same, just different animals. Read one and you’ve read them all.
And that, kids, is about as tactful as she gets.
*For all I know there could still be an author hit list and we could be on it. If that’s the case, I would just like to say I had absolutely nothing to do with this. Nothing. It was only after making sure that said author did not have a blog that I decided to post this at all.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The Winners of the 2005 Quill Awards are here!
The people have voted, the ballots counted and the results are in. Here are your 2005 Quill award winners*.
Book of the Year - presented by Brian Williams
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Arthur Levine/Scholastic
Debut Author of the Year - presented by Kim Cattrall
The Historian
Elizabeth Kostova
Little Brown & Company
Audio Book - presented by Tony Roberts
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show
Time Warner AudioBooks
Children's Illustrated Book - presented by Elmo
Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook
Shel Silverstein
HarperCollins Children's Books
Children's Chapter Book/Middle Grade - presented by Jules Feiffer
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Arthur Levine/Scholastic
Young Adult/Teen - presented by Anthony Rapp
Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
Ann Brashares
Delacorte Press
General Fiction - presented by Erica Jong
The Mermaid Chair
Sue Monk Kidd
Viking Press
Graphic Novel - presented by Jonathan Lethem
Marvel 1602 Volume I
Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove
Marvel Comics
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller - presented by Stephen J. Cannell and Annie Parisse
Eleven on Top
Janet Evanovich
St. Martin's Press
Poetry - presented by Robert Klein
Let America Be America Again: And Other Poems
Langston Hughes
Vintage Books
Romance - presented by Candace Bushnell
44 Cranberry Point
Debbie Macomber
Mira Books
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror - presented by Tamara Tunie
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
Christopher Moore
William Morrow & Company
Religion/Spirituality - presented by Matthew Modine
Peace is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End
Deepak Chopra
Harmony
Biography/Memoir - presented by Nick Hornby
Chronicles: Volume One
Bob Dylan
Simon & Schuster
Business - presented by Maria Bartiromo
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow & Company
Cooking - presented by Rocco DeSpirito
Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes
Rachael Ray
Clarkson Potter
Health/Self Improvement - presented by Dr. Joyce Brothers
He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
Simon Spotlight Entertainment
History/Current Events/Politics - presented by Tony LoBianco
1776
David McCullough
Simon & Schuster
Humor - presented by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show
Time Warner Books
Sports - presented by Len Berman
Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season
Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King
Scribner
The awards show will air on 14 NBC/Universal-owned stations on October 22nd from 7 to 8 pm (or so PW tells me). I’ll be interested to see what they cut and what they show, especially with Jon Stewart giving the opening monologue. Okay, so really I’m just interested in seeing Jon Stewart, but my desire to have his little Jewish babies aside, I want to know what they will and won’t show on public TV. I also want to know how good some of these presenters are. The mix of comedians, authors, and television personalities (how does one get Elmo up on stage? And Candace Bushnell giving out the romance category award? She didn’t pull a Marilyn Manson and go up on stage in just a thong, did she?), could actually make this a pretty interesting program.
Congratulations to all the winners, especially Christopher Moore. Not that I had any doubt that he wouldn’t win his category. I mean, hello, the man had a dumb blond angel, a talking fruit bat, and a zombie Santa! What more could a reader want?
Please don't answer that question.
*While I didn't add links for the books, all are available from your local bookstore.
Book of the Year - presented by Brian Williams
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Arthur Levine/Scholastic
Debut Author of the Year - presented by Kim Cattrall
The Historian
Elizabeth Kostova
Little Brown & Company
Audio Book - presented by Tony Roberts
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show
Time Warner AudioBooks
Children's Illustrated Book - presented by Elmo
Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook
Shel Silverstein
HarperCollins Children's Books
Children's Chapter Book/Middle Grade - presented by Jules Feiffer
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Arthur Levine/Scholastic
Young Adult/Teen - presented by Anthony Rapp
Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
Ann Brashares
Delacorte Press
General Fiction - presented by Erica Jong
The Mermaid Chair
Sue Monk Kidd
Viking Press
Graphic Novel - presented by Jonathan Lethem
Marvel 1602 Volume I
Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove
Marvel Comics
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller - presented by Stephen J. Cannell and Annie Parisse
Eleven on Top
Janet Evanovich
St. Martin's Press
Poetry - presented by Robert Klein
Let America Be America Again: And Other Poems
Langston Hughes
Vintage Books
Romance - presented by Candace Bushnell
44 Cranberry Point
Debbie Macomber
Mira Books
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror - presented by Tamara Tunie
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
Christopher Moore
William Morrow & Company
Religion/Spirituality - presented by Matthew Modine
Peace is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End
Deepak Chopra
Harmony
Biography/Memoir - presented by Nick Hornby
Chronicles: Volume One
Bob Dylan
Simon & Schuster
Business - presented by Maria Bartiromo
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow & Company
Cooking - presented by Rocco DeSpirito
Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes
Rachael Ray
Clarkson Potter
Health/Self Improvement - presented by Dr. Joyce Brothers
He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
Simon Spotlight Entertainment
History/Current Events/Politics - presented by Tony LoBianco
1776
David McCullough
Simon & Schuster
Humor - presented by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show
Time Warner Books
Sports - presented by Len Berman
Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season
Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King
Scribner
The awards show will air on 14 NBC/Universal-owned stations on October 22nd from 7 to 8 pm (or so PW tells me). I’ll be interested to see what they cut and what they show, especially with Jon Stewart giving the opening monologue. Okay, so really I’m just interested in seeing Jon Stewart, but my desire to have his little Jewish babies aside, I want to know what they will and won’t show on public TV. I also want to know how good some of these presenters are. The mix of comedians, authors, and television personalities (how does one get Elmo up on stage? And Candace Bushnell giving out the romance category award? She didn’t pull a Marilyn Manson and go up on stage in just a thong, did she?), could actually make this a pretty interesting program.
Congratulations to all the winners, especially Christopher Moore. Not that I had any doubt that he wouldn’t win his category. I mean, hello, the man had a dumb blond angel, a talking fruit bat, and a zombie Santa! What more could a reader want?
Please don't answer that question.
*While I didn't add links for the books, all are available from your local bookstore.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
It's a Pirates! life for me...
Stop the presses! Er, haul the main sail!
Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab is available from Amazon! That my store doesn't have it yet is just one more example of the suckiness that is corporate America, but that shouldn't stop the world from worshipping a man with an author's bio like this:
Does that not fill you with the commercialistic need to buy! buy! buy!?
No?
Perhaps a summary might help:
Be the first kid on your block to have the newest in Pirate satirical fiction. Wow them at parties with your Ham knowledge. Revive some sort of respect for Melville!
This is your chance to be part of the new pirate craze, so don't be left behind.
In the future (as in way, way in the future) I'll manage to get up my review of Pyrates, and even some other novels that aren't quite so heavy on the funny.
Hopefully.
Not that you'll care because you'll be reading Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab, right?
Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab is available from Amazon! That my store doesn't have it yet is just one more example of the suckiness that is corporate America, but that shouldn't stop the world from worshipping a man with an author's bio like this:
Gideon Defoe, who lives in London, is the author of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. The pirate books are just the first stage of his plan to topple the global economy and create a glorious workers’ utopia.
Does that not fill you with the commercialistic need to buy! buy! buy!?
No?
Perhaps a summary might help:
They’re back!!! The Pirate Captain and his irascible crew of scoundrels return in their soggiest saga yet.Fresh from their mishaps with Charles Darwin and the evil Bishop of Oxford, the Pirates set sail in a bouncy new vessel——purchased on credit.
In order to repay his debts, the Pirate Captain is determined to capture the enigmatic White Whale, hunted by the notoriously moody Ahab, who has promised a reward.Chaos ensues, featuring the lascivious Cutlass Liz, the world’s most dangerous mosquito, an excerpt from the Pirate Captain’s novel in progress (a bodice ripper, of course), whale ventriloquism, practical lessons in whale painting, a shanty-singing contest in a Las Vegas casino, and a dra-matic climax in which the Pirate Captain’s prize ham saves the day!
Move over, Herman Melville.
Be the first kid on your block to have the newest in Pirate satirical fiction. Wow them at parties with your Ham knowledge. Revive some sort of respect for Melville!
This is your chance to be part of the new pirate craze, so don't be left behind.
In the future (as in way, way in the future) I'll manage to get up my review of Pyrates, and even some other novels that aren't quite so heavy on the funny.
Hopefully.
Not that you'll care because you'll be reading Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab, right?
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