Clipmarks | readforpleasure's 'rfp' clips

Barack Obama is Mr Darcy --Maureen Dowd

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:27:07 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Dowd reports that some women won't vote for Obama because he's skinny, some because he seems haughty. That's no sillier than voting for him because he resembles Jane Austen's most popular hero, Mr Darcy. I'm not wild about the train of thought that says women vote based on fictional heroes. However, it may be an uncomfortable truth, and not only about women. Much of voter opinion is based on looks, style, and media hype--not content.

I do give Dowd credit for making an unusual analogy. The "Pride & Prejudice" title fits the current politics in some ways, and Dowd correctly points out that the success of the Austen novel rests of changing the views of *both* sides.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chick-lit history. The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever, haughty, reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy.

The master of Pemberley “had yet to learn to be laught at,” and this sometimes caused “a deeper shade of hauteur” to “overspread his features.”

If Obama is Mr. Darcy, with “his pride, his abominable pride,” then America is Elizabeth Bennet, spirited, playful, democratic, financially strained, and caught up in certain prejudices. (McCain must be cast as Wickham, the rival for Elizabeth’s affections, the engaging military scamp who casts false aspersions on Darcy’s character.)

Can America

move past its biases to figure out if Obama’s supposed conceit is really just the protective shield and defense mechanism of someone who grew up half white and half black, a perpetual outsider

Can Miss Bennet teach Mr. Darcy to let down his guard, be more sportive, and laugh at himself?

Tags: rfp, politics

Salon on Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight"

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:10:38 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: A perceptive article. It's interesting that Miller mentions the placeholder theory, which holds that writing a flat character lets the reader insert him or herself into the role. That's an old theory and dated in some ways, but it's possible that teenagers do at times insert themselves into stories, imagining themselves as central characters.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

the Twilight books

are -- in essence and most particulars -- romance novels, and despite their gothic trappings represent a resurrection of the most old-fashioned incarnation of the genre. They summon a world in which love is passionate, yet (relatively) chaste, girls need be nothing more than fetchingly vulnerable, and masterful men can be depended upon to protect and worship them for it.

Bella is not really the point of the Twilight series; she's more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in order to render her a vacant, flexible skin into which the reader can insert herself and thereby vicariously enjoy Edward's chilly charms.

Twilight succeeds at communicating the obsessive, narcotic interiority of all intense fantasy lives.

it finds its voluptuousness in the hypnotic reduction of its attention to a single point: the experience of being loved by Edward Cullen.

Tags: rfp

Women & Literature: Call for Papers -River Walk Journal, 11/07

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:36:03 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure

Clip Source: www.personal.psu.edu

Women and Literature: Past, Present, Future

the creation of “Women’s Literature” courses is necessary

because those authors are still largely neglected in typical Literature courses. What is the current “place” for women in academia, particularly in Literature and Education, and what are!
the goals for the future? What milestones have been accomplished by women in the past that remain hidden in the shadows of history?

Editors of River Walk Journal online bi-monthly are seeking abstracts on the previous topics, 500 words or less. Finished papers should be 8000 words or less. Initial submissions of abstracts only will be accepted until January 31st, 2008, tentative publication date is set for the May/June Anniversary issue of the journal. Submissions with full contact information, CV, and cover letter should be sent to publisher_at_riverwalkjournal.org, with “Women in Lit CFP” in the subject line rtf and doc format file attachments only.

Tags: , books, gender, rfp

Advertising in library books -BBC, 11/07

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:04:34 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Thousands of inserts are to be placed into library books to promote the clients of advertising agencies.

The scheme

aims to cover the UK by the middle of 2008 with around 3m inserts being made available per month.

Guy Daines, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, had mixed feelings about the plan.

"Like every other public institution, finding other income sources is important for libraries and many have been offering readers free bookmarks sponsored by local firms for some time," Mr Daines said.

"Any product placement would have to be incredibly sensitive - in children's books, for example, or with adverts for something like a funeral director.

"There's also people's general dislike of junk mail to consider and the sheer time it will take for librarians to insert them all.

Tags: library, marketing, books, rfp

3 Books on Male Sexuality... and Splooge --Chronicle, 9/07

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:16:27 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Reviewer Camille Paglia has been called a "feminist that other feminists love to hate," a "post-feminist feminist," and one of the world's top 100 intellectuals.

She describes three very different books on male sexuality, with thoughtful criticisms of each. I quoted from "Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man's Most Precious Fluid" by Lisa Jean Moore, simply because it's a funny passage. The other two books are Murat Aydemir's "Images of Bliss: Ejaculation, Masculinity, Meaning" and Angus McLaren's "Impotence: A Cultural History".

Clip Source: chronicle.com

By CAMILLE PAGLIA

Three provocative books on male sexuality recently published by university presses provide a good barometer of the current state of campus gender studies.

In Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man's Most Precious Fluid, Lisa Jean Moore, an associate professor of sociology and women's studies at the State University of New York College at Purchase, examines how the definition and meaning of sperm has changed depending on period and point of view. This book has, hands down, one of the most arresting first sentences I've ever seen: "It has been called sperm, semen, ejaculate, seed, man fluid, baby gravy, jizz, cum, pearl necklace, gentleman's relish, wad, pimp juice, number 3, load, spew, donut glaze, spunk, gizzum, cream, hot man mustard, squirt, goo, spunk, splooge, love juice, man cream, and la leche." What mesmerizing vernacular poetry!

Sperm Counts comes with its own marginalia: When the pages are flipped, a cartoon spermatozoon seems to race up and around the text.

Tags: gender, books, rfp

Boobs and Books --Scotsman.com, 9/07

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:23:49 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure

Clip Source: scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com

the Literary Editors High Council last week

were meeting, as usual, in our Ivory Tower of Envy (you see, the bloggers and aggrieved writers are right), planning the triumph of elitism and phoning up children to tell them Santa Claus is a fiction. We'd decided who was going to win the Booker, and it came to Any Other Business.

"So, Darth Caledonia," said one of my colleagues (we all call each other Darth, by the way)

"See for yourself, Darth Tory."

The Daily Sport was running book reviews.

Admittedly, they ran 274 fewer literary reviews than the number of pictures of breasts they printed, but it's books coverage nonetheless.

But why? Darth Sarcasm raised the Playboy Excuse ("I buy it for the articles") but that seemed unlikely - after all, no one seemed to know they had book reviews

Darth Highbrow observed there was no necessary reason why a love of books and a love of boobs were mutually exclusive. Perhaps, sequestered in our Ivory Tower, we had failed to notice an opportunity

Tags: books, reviews, rfp

"Girly" book covers discourage boys--Times, 9/07

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:47:38 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: The article highlights a couple of books with plots that should appeal to boys. It's a pity they're given bright pink covers. Surely that increases boys' resistance to reading, and especially their resistance to reading books with female protagonists. (For more on that, see:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1494932,00.html
and:
http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/09/why-women-read-more-than-men-or-not.html

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Attempts by parents and teachers to persuade boys to read more are being undermined by publishers whose insistence on using lurid “Barbie” pink covers on books is turning away young male readers in their droves.

Wendy Cooling, of Bookstart, a charitable programme that encourages children to read, said she was dismayed that publishers were now using gender-specific marketing for certain children’s books. Whereas girls were not put off boys’ books, which tended to have primary colours, few boys dared to be seen reading a pink or purple book, even though they might otherwise enjoy it.

“Publishers are getting the covers wrong. Some stories are perfectly attractive to boys, but they are needlessly put off,”

The latest national curriculum test results for 11-year-olds show that 87 per cent of girls, but only 81 per cent of boys, achieve the reading level expected of their age. At 14, the figures are 78 and 65 per cent respectively.

For young people, covers are crucial.

Tags: books, reading, marketing, gender, children, rfp

Patron Removes Kids' Sex Book From Library--PW, 9/07

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:25:05 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Karkos could have challenged the book through a formal process within the library and its board--and thus allowed the community to participate in deciding the fate of the book. Instead, she took it into her own hands to decide for everyone what is moral and what books should be available. By holding every copy of the book, she prevents anyone else from reading it and forming their own opinions. Regardless of the content of the book, Karkos' actions fly in the face of civil society and its crucial community aspects.

Clip Source: www.publishersweekly.com

With Banned Books Week, ALA’s observance of the importance of intellectual freedom, fast approaching (September 29–October 6), it’s only fitting that the brouhaha over a Maine resident’s efforts to remove a children’s book from local libraries is gathering steam

JoAn Karkos of Lewiston was so offended and “horrified” by the children’s book It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex & Sexual Health by Robie Harris, illus. by Michael Emberley (Candlewick, 1993) that she

checked out the copies from local public libraries and is now refusing to return them.

According to reports in the Lewiston Sun Journal, Rick Speer, director of the Lewiston Public Library,

sent her a library reconsideration form she could fill out, effectively challenging the book via the proper procedural channels. In addition, he has characterized her actions as theft.

But Karkos is not backing down.

she also wrote a letter to the editor of the Sun Journal

Tags: books, ethics, sex, rfp

15th-Century Fanfic, Time Mag. 8/07

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 06:31:40 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure

Clip Source: www.time.com

There are 316,983 fan fiction works based on Harry Potter alone on Fanfiction.net.

Go back almost 600 years. In 1421, for example, John Lydgate, perhaps longing for just one more tale, wrote an obscure piece entitled The Siege of Thebes, a continuation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The 1970s saw the dawn of fanzines, a pre-Internet form of user participation albeit distributed on mimeograph paper.

At Hitwise, we're tracking over 700 sites in our Entertainment/Books and Writing category, which includes author websites and writing and literary review sites. Fanfiction.net is the largest site in market share of visits,

ranked in the 159th position of over 1 million websites, putting Fanfiction.net ahead of sites such as Apple.com.

Top 10 Internet Searches Containing "Fan Fiction"

1. Harry Potter
2. Bonanza World
3. Adult
4. Gunsmoke
5. South of Nowhere
6. Clark and Chloe
7. Supernatural
8. Firefly
9. Triple H
10. CSI

the highest percentage of female visitors (64.3%) is AdultFanfiction.net

Tags: fiction, writing, rfp

Junot Díaz on Genre & Literary Fiction, 9/07

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 03:37:28 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure

Clip Source: www.newwest.net

By Jenny Shank, 9-21-07

Junot Díaz gave an engaging reading from his new novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to a packed house at the Boulder Book Store Thursday night. Díaz is that rare literary novelist who inspires ardor in his fans

Díaz bantered with him a bit about comics, then instructed the audience to “always read a genre, because all of the scary shit about people--that’s where folks let it out. You’d have no idea what our culture is about if you only read literary fiction. In literary fiction, people don’t even seem to have bodies. But the horror section is all about bodies, our fear of having them harmed.”

He said he’s always telling his students, “Talk to me about Roth and all those crazy fools, but you’ve got to bring that Stephen King.”

Tags: fiction, literary, genre, rfp

East African Views on Sci Fi, 9/07

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 02:28:34 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: I'm intrigued with the developing world's view of western sci fi. Our technology-centric culture, and our western mythologies, must sound foreign in more ways than one. (Note that this article is actually from Kenya, one of the more developed African nations, with strong universities and reasonable internet access.)

Clip Source: allafrica.com

Kenya: Does Fiction Inform Science? That is the Nagging Question

East African Standard (Nairobi)

Science fiction is one of the literary genres that have received scanty criticism, especially from Africa.

Many reasons abound for the near negligence of science fiction by African literary scholars. Perhaps, because it is a genre that still sounds foreign to us since most of its authors come from the west.

Search for Tomorrow: Science Fiction Literature and Today's Student openly laments on the critics' failure in appreciating this genre.

This genre draws from three literary forms that permeate literature: the myth, fantasy, and utopias.

When Science Invaded Fiction makes some startling remarks on the origin of the genre

as a direct consequence of industrial revolution.

as industrial development progressed the world's frontiers shrank and once exotic locations became less novel.

it was the desire for adventure and fantasy, and the need for new venues that provided the impetus

Tags: fiction, rfp, science fiction

What Are Libraries For?--Bookworm, 9/07

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:57:00 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Found on Classical Bookworm.

Clip Source: arb0rv1tae.typepad.com

Libraries and the "R" Word

A new public library is about to open not too far from where I live, and the local ~~advertising flyer~~ newspaper has devoted a full page and a half to the story. "This is great!" I thought, until the new head librarian used the dreaded "R" word:

"Libraries need to be relevant to their community. The whole idea is to give people the service they want — not what we think they should want," said Parker.

"We really wanted to keep this collection fresh and new, with nothing more than two years old with some exceptions for classics," Parker said.

The literacy collection — classics simplified and shortened for those who are trying to read or improve their reading skills — has 482 titles.

To be fair, this library is meant for social work. It is located in a depressed neighbourhood that has the lowest library use rate in the region. Many of their contituents are just learning English, and they are also trying to give teens a safe, positive place to hang out after school.

Tags: reading, rfp

L'Engle: Too Complex for Grown-ups--Salon, 9/07

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:48:50 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Isn't that the ultimate sign of mastery: "L'Engle wrote with the complexity of the best adult authors and poets, only she did so in a way that a sixth grader could understand."

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Madeleine L'Engle wrote children's books that were too complicated for grown-ups.

As an author, she danced with demanding philosophical questions and toyed with quantum physics. She wrote about faith with devotion, dabbled in ethics, psychology, myth, art, politics and nature. And she blended everything into stories that describe the crushing complexity of a child's life in this century. Her books are timeless, but at the same time contemporary.

L'Engle wrote with the complexity of the best adult authors and poets, only she did so in a way that a sixth grader could understand. A sixth grader could follow her logic, embrace her characters, sense the themes of good and evil, man and nature, science and faith, and, without feeling overwhelmed by the book, simply enjoy a good read. But when that sixth grader turned into a seventh, or eighth, or ninth grader, or -- God forbid -- an adult, she or he might find even more.

Tags: rfp, books, authors

Bitter author diatribe--Huffington Post, 9/07

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:21:15 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: An interesting mix of some painful truths... and some plain ol' bittercakes.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

When some of my clueless friends ask me about my book, they rarely express interest in its substance. But they're dying to know whether it's a hit. I get the weird impression that, if it's a hit, only then would they actually consider buying it.

The winner takes all.

inflammatory garbage being written these days can pass for a "book." Such "books" have no detectable ideas or thoughts, and yet these so-called books seem to be what many readers want. Like political campaigns, negativity sells books, and the more inflammatory, thoughtless, and ideological the better.

I use big words sometimes and what some might call obscure literary references. I occasionally write in complex sentences, too. Maybe that's part of my problem. I refuse to dumb it down, and I'll persist in the belief, until the day I give up writing altogether, that readers are smart, that Americans want to read, and that they have attention spans of more than 30 seconds.

Tags: books, reading, rfp

Bob WhEarley, newspaper editor & romance novelist--Houston Chron, 9/07

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:02:59 GMT

clipped by: readforpleasure
clipper's remarks: Whearley wrote five romances in 1986-88:
http://www.romancewiki.com/Fran_Earley

Clip Source: www.chron.com

Houston Chronicle

Robert 'Bob' Whearley, former Chronicle news editor
Remembered as an 'old-style' newspaperman

Robert "Bob" Whearley, a former Houston Chronicle Sunday news editor who worked for at least 10 newspapers, died Aug. 30

His newspaper career ranged from reporting to column writing to copy editing.

His son said Whearley wrote several romance-mystery novels, which were published by Harlequin's Intrigue series. He used the pseudonym "Fran Earley" from portions of his wife's first and last names.

Jay Whearley said his father made his son and wife, Frances, swear never to reveal his association with romance novels. But the word did get out among some of his friends who would later tease him.

"I'd joke to him about it sometimes," Jay Whearley said. "But one time he quietly held up a royalty check he'd just received in the mail for a Portuguese-language reprint of one of the books, and said, 'Laugh at me now, pal.' "

Tags: rfp, books, authors