When the going gets tough, the tough buy cheap books..

1. Dang, Smartbitches, they lured me into another book buying spree...the books were between $1.99-7.99, but still. I swear, my drug of choice, appears to be pulpy genre books. I find them comforting. When I was between the ages of 12-16, I used to get bags full of books from my Aunt and my Grandmother, and they were genre reads. Romance novels, mystery novels, science fiction and fantasy. And when I visited my Grandparents, I'd sit in a chair with a stack of books, and just read one after the other, happily ensconced in that other world. The books weren't literary masterpieces, and I can't remember most of the titles...but I loved them.

It somehow pushed the world away if just for a little while.

The worst part about the book buying spree, is I may not read half of what I bought. I have over 400 books on my Kindle, and over 1000 in my apartment, 75% of which I've yet to read. I don't know how this happens...I appear to hoard books. Other people go to libraries. Co-worker has become a trustee at his local library, which is a good thing since he's a huge genre fan. Also, I may convince him to add the novel I wrote to his libraries shelves. Getting a book you wrote into a local library isn't as easy as it sounds. My father has yet to accomplish it. This is actually the reason I stopped going to the library. I took the library's rejection of my Dad's books personally. If they can shelve Stephanie Meyer and El James, they can shelve my Dad's and my book.

And...I went back and bought more books for $2.99-$4.99. Remember when paperbacks only cost $1-5? Just me? Once upon a time I worked at the Little Professor Book Store in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. I loved selling books. Actually, my favorite part was helping people find a book they were looking for, or un-boxing new books. Unfortunately the owners hired more people than were necessary to run the book store. So I was weirdly in competition with the owner in helping customers find books. He'd order me to go sit behind the cash register and work it (which I sucked at) or do inventory (not a heck of a lot better.)

2. This quote was found on the same podcast that caused the impromptu book buying spree...of ahem pulpy romance novels recommended on the site.

Carrie: The main character in Fast Women is a divorcee, and people who have read that book will know what I mean when I say that two of the women to whom I have given that book went on to what we call having a Riley moment, which is a reference –

Sarah: Having a Riley moment?

Carrie: Yes, it’s a reference to a stage that is described in Fast Women. It’s the transitional, casual sex that divorcees have before they move on to a real relationship, just to prove to themselves that they still got it.

I may be wrong about this, but I'm willing to bet "Riley Moment" refers to Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer...and ahem Buffy/Riley during that show.

Proof Jennifer Cruisie was a Buffy fan. Although I already knew that, having read two of her books. [She's okay. I'm not a huge fan of contemporary, mainly because I don't find them relateable or believable. My suspension of disbelief works better in a novel that is removed from my own experience. This is true of television and film as well. The closer it is to my own experience, the more likely I'll stumble upon something that will annoy me or will be difficult to handwave. OTOH, I rather like books that are close to my "emotional" experience, just not to my "intellectual" or "physical" experience.

Romance novels I read to appease my heart and emotions...so my mind can flutter into silence.

3. Rather loved this bit...and it's so true. Reminds me a little of a response I wanted to give to a crazy book meme that I saw a while back about being upset with people who don't like the same book you do or a book you recommended.

Sarah: Are there books that you guys have recommended that have the, have always worked? Like, these, this is, this is definitely going to work for you.

RHG: I don’t think there is such a book.

Sarah: I haven’t found it.

Carrie: Yeah, I haven’t found it.

Sarah: That’s really a trick question, ‘cause I have not found one that is, works for every reader.

RHG: And thank God, ‘cause I think that book would be real boring.

Sarah: Yep. And –

RHG: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and it’s funny; if I think about the different reader interests like a big Venn diagram, there are some books that will hit the most overlap, so if you like contemporary romance with smart characters and good dialogue and great worldbuilding and people who have interesting jobs, I can think of, like, four books right away that are going to work for you. But there, there’s, there’s no one book in a subgenre that works unilaterally for every reader, and I always feel bad for people on Twitter that I see, like a couple of years ago, Lord of Scoundrels went on sale for, like, the first time ever. It was like $1.99, and I think it sold so many copies –

Carrie: Oh!

Sarah: – that it hit the New York Times, like, a week later, because everyone on Twitter was like, you must buy this now! And there was this very quiet group of people on, on Twitter saying, I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t really like it. I, it didn’t work for me.

RHG: [Laughs]

Sarah: And I was like, I’m really sorry, ‘cause, you know –

RHG: Aw.

Sarah: – like, a good eighty percent of the world seems to have loved that book at this moment, so it can be very alienating to be like, nope. Nope, that didn’t work.

I think this true. As a writer, I remind myself that not everyone will like or relate to whatever it is I'm writing. I had a fight with myself today. ( Read more... )

In re-reading the above quote, I find I have more to say on it. It can be very alienating to dislike something everyone else loves, or vice versa. Sometimes it is worse the other way around. ( Read more... )

As I write all of this, it occurs to me that I would have made a piss-poor academic or English Lit Professor. Stuck with a curriculum or a stack of books I'm told are worthy by some long dead dusty authority. I don't know. Path not taken...the plans laid out but never followed.

4. Smartbitches podcast is cracking me up. It's hilarious.

( not work safe and also for those who..well, are sensitive about these sort of things )

Also according to the podcast, Orcas are not whales but actually dolphins. I did not know that.

Elyse: Is she sexually attracted to a whale?

Sarah: Well, yes, ‘cause he’s the Orca King!

RHG: Orcas aren’t whales.

Elyse: Aren’t – dolphin, sorry. Sorry!

RHG: I’m just saying.

Elyse: They’re the wolves of the sea, Redheadedgirl.

Sarah: Wait –

RHG: Just saying.

Sarah: – orcas are not whales –

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: – despite being called killer whales. They’re actually dolphins.

RHG: Right.