Can somebody stop me from having the "Romance is not all generic drek" conversation again? In another forum?

teeth start to grind...joins Betsy in pounding head...

I hate those conversations, I really really do. I should be used to them by now, but, bleah.

"Of course, I don't read the stuff myself, because I might get a hideous fictionally-transmitted disease..."

Betsy, feel like trading? I have Internet Publishing's self-proclaimed "I Have the Answer to Everything!" girl in another forum, defining the difference between mysteries and thrillers. According to her definition? Georges Simenon and Ruth Rendell don't write mysteries.

I forwarded her definition to my editor who, unlike said poster, actually knows something about mysteries. My editor said "Nonsense. What she's talking about are classic cozies. Everything you cited (that was Rendell, Simenon, Allingham's Tiger in the Smoke) is a mystery. We've come a long way since Dame Agatha."

Now the annoying one shall act all hurt and hair-swirly. Peeeeyuke.

Dude! From "Publisher's Lunch":

Blogger, geek, and the actor who portrayed Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Wil Wheaton's three books, two of them originally self-published, DANCING BAREFOOT and JUST A GEEK, almost unbearably honest tales of life, love, and the rigors of being an ensign on the Starship Enterprise, and WIL WHEATON'S WEBSITE DESIGN, to O'Reilly & Associates, for publication beginning in spring 2004."

This pleases me a lot, for some reason.

Question for the literary hivemind: I have an almost-11-y.o. niece who reads a lot, is capable of reading higher than her age level, but is settled into a nice comfort zone of rereading her old Boxcar Kids books. I'd like to have her reading higher level books, but other than Nancy Drew (which I bought her last year and have no idea if she ever read), I can't think of any decent mystery books at that higher age range. My sister thought that maybe she might like something completely different, like the Alcott classics (Little Women, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Jack & Jill) we were reading at that age and younger.

Any ideas?

I was reading Agatha Christie at that age, I think.

The Westing Game or The Tattoed Potato and Other Clues or any other book by Ellen Raskin (I'm not sure what age level they're at though). The Sally Lockhart books by Philip Pullman are good too.

Jesse, as was I. It was the quirks that caught me: Poirot's mustaches and morning chocolat, Ms. Marple being all pink and inexorable. But I really loved the Tommy and Tuppence ones best at that age. Not sure why.

Enid Blyton is good for a precocious reader who likes mysteries.

If you want contemporary, I'd strongly recommend Wendelin Van Draanen's Sammy Keyes Mysteries. I think the first one is either Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man or Sammy Keyes and the something Hotel.

Sammy is a total hoot. She is a 7th grader who always finds herself in trouble and at the center of something that needs solving.

I remember enjoying 1 minute mysteries around then, if that's what it's called.

And The Westing Game! Good call.