But on a merit basis.

Yes, exactly. I'm a Georgette Heyer junkie for that reason - her research is meticulous, her sense of time and place stone perfect, her writing lively. She makes me happy as hell, mostly.

But during the kerfuffle at the NYTBR, their man in charge said something about "of course, we'll continue to review the latest from Franzen" (and a couple of others)...

Really? Why? That's parochial crap - why are these people autrmatically going to get the consideration? Suppose they're writing garbage, while someone in West Podunk is writing great stuff? It's the Ladies Who Lunch mentality, and I don't think it's good for publishing. I don't think it ever has been.

(and me out for the afternoon, hoping to have not started a kerfuffle, because all opinion stated by me are mine only)

Franzen. Not all that. IJS. "Mildly amusing" would be what my review would say. If anyone cared...which, maybe...I'm gonna go to Amazon.com and slag "The Corrections" probably not till tomorrow, though.Not just for Deb, because it was the most overrated thing I've read in years. I gave it to goodwill after reading it once...that never happens. Cause I'm broke...buying books is a committment. I gave JF my heart...he gave me a pen...um, the Corrections.

I hated The Corrections. Miserable, nasty people living miserable nasty lives. Most of what I read is books-on-tape, and the topper was that it was read in a miserable, nasty tone of voice by Dylan Baker. (If you are an author, do not let him do your book on tape.)

I was talking books to someone at a party and he and his wife had a topper: the book was so nasty, it took them forever to listen to, and they ended up with something like a $25 book fine. Begs the Q, why didn't they just rewind it and return it, but it was the capper our mutual hate-on for the book.

Sometimes for me, nasty=funny. I'm callous and strange. But I was led to believe that it was also screamingly hilarious and everything and it wasn't. "Bridget Jones" was funnier and she's got three jokes...and I need to let go now, don't I? But I spent money I shouldn't have, because I was depressed and looking for schadenfreude."I can't face the day unless I know somebody is more miserable than me."

It's an odd thing - I'm not saying there aren't people who ought to get looked at automatically, but there again, that has to do with longevity and weight of honours and consistency of work. I'm not a Norman Mailer fan, for instance, but I can totally see why he'd be an automatic. Ditto Phillip Roth. I like about half his stuff, but so what? He's worked his ass off and produced for decades, and his stuff always makes people think. I can get behind that, as a reason to make him automatic.

But why the trendier stuff? Because it's popular with the New York review circle, and because they're buddies with the reviewers? OK, fine, whatever. Just damned if I'm going to be able to take "well, Johnathan and I had truffled risotto at Tavern on the Green last week" seriously as a reason to shoot a given author to the top of the pop charts at NYTBR.

And I realised why I mentioned Yale, earlier. It's because my closest personal acquaintance in the NY literary mafia teaches at Yale.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray -- it's a YA novel set in 1895, featuring a 16-year-old girl sent to boarding school when her mother dies, who realizes that she has visions.

I read this at first as WRITTEN in 1895, and was fascinated by the concept. Then realized that's not what you said. Dang. (And welcome!)

I can see how the "happily ever after" bit could get annoying and disrespected. And sometimes it's so lame and tacked on (could someone PLEASE restrain a lot of romance novelists from writing any more freakin' epilogues that try to prove that not only are the happy couple happy, but so are their children??). But really, that's part of why I LIKE romance novels. It's comfort food--I know exactly how it goes, and I like it that way, when I'm in that mood....

And hey, if it freaks people out when when me and my Harvard-educated dyke friend are trading trashy romances? More power to us, I like to freak people out.

More power to us, I like to freak people out.

(loving meara)

Thanks for the compliment on Tey, deb, but I got my title from the same source as your secondary confirmation (i.e. Murder(ess) Ink) - I was just curious having read about that novel if the book that (I think) Betsy had mentioned was the same book.

But it's all good - I've got 2 interesting mysteries to look for.

Ken, add "Brat Farrar" by Tey to the list. Also? An unbelievably great corker called "The Franchise Affair" that in its own way, is a forerunner to the kind of smalltown malice portrayed so well in Minette Walters' "The Ice House".

Deb, Roth's "I Married A Communist" is really good, and he surprised me too. It's political, not about The Sex..but that's not surprising...this one had a twist, too. So, yes, my literary crush list now has a 70+ category.