- A Brief History of the Vampire Novel Seriously brief. There’s a 25 year gap between Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris here. I was devouring vampire novels in the early 90’s; one of my particular favorites was Michael Romkey’s I, Vampire which no one else seems to have ever read (I suspect that it may not have held up very well–I seem to recall it being pretty overwrought at the time I read it, and I was an overwrought teenager at the time).
- How not to write about libraries
- Do Consumer Reviews Have a Future? Not sure what I think about Vinjamuri’s proposed solutions to the problem of sock-puppeting (also, is it just me or is the mainstream media’s discovery of sock-puppeting and subsequent reporting on it just adorable?).
- Is This Book Bad, or Is It Just Me? The Anatomy of Book Reviews Really thought provoking essay about the anatomy of the book review. I know that for me, I’m reaching for something beyond just reaction and summary–that’s all I had room for in my reviews for RT, so there’s a pretty steep learning curve.
- An Open Letter to Convention-Going Butt Photographers
- An appreciation of the Besty-Tacy books I do love these books–I especially love the one where Betsy goes to Germany right before WWI breaks out and she is all, “O hai, is there going to be a war? Why are there all these soldiers around?” and then she has to try to get back to the US. There’s something about her relatively cluelessness that I find really charming (which is strange, because I don’t normally find that very charming).
- Spot on review of Mr. Impossible, my very favoritest romance novel EVER I love this book so much that I am pretty much incoherent when it comes to discussing it.
- An Open Letter to America’s Publishers from ALA President Maureen Sullivan regarding the refusal of half the Big 6 publishers (Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin) to provide access to ebooks by libraries in the US. I know when I last checked my local library’s ebook collection (about a year ago) everything they had was purchased in 2005 and was focused mainly on how to find employment.
- Women, Men And Fiction: Notes on How Not to Answer Hard Questions Note: The VIDA statistics cited look at most outlets that do review genre with one exception: They do not look at RT Book Reviews, which is mostly books written by women and reviewed by women.
Friday Links: Ugly Leggings Edition
Ugly leggings, balls, and trauma. Not necessarily in that order.
Seriously brief…I wonder how P. N. Elrod feels about being left out of the Vampire novel history.