All passion spent?

The Guardian has an article about adding a "good sex" award to the "bad sex" award in literature. When I started reading, I had assumed that the author was going to rave about the quality of sexual writings in books today, but boy was I wrong. I think that's what she wanted to say, but then I get the end of the article and I think she's making that a point, whether she intended to or not, that a lot of sex in literature seems empty and hollow.

Sadly enough -- God, I'm going to sound like my mother now -- I think society is starting to treat sex as a commodity, similar to $50 DVD players and pre-packaged salads that stay fresh for two weeks. Sex has become about the act and not about the reasons, the motivations, the fears and dreams behind it. We've whitewashed all th personal stuff right out of there and all that's left is merely flesh slapping together like seals. Yawn. The first time is titillating, the second time is "eh", and by the gazillionith times (and you count how many times sex is introduced into your world in one 24-hour period), it's well, empty and hollow. A lot of writers (romance writers not included in this diatribe) don't touch on the emotional connections that sex can create. The younger generation talks about "hooking up". Everybody gets off and then goes home to their safe and respective beds. But when you do that, you lose the scariest parts of intimacy. The morning-after breath, the wet-spot dilemmas, the moment the tension is diffused with a stupid joke that nobody else in the world will ever think is funny, but that you'll remember forever. These little shared secrets are when our hearts and minds are most exposed, not when you're legs out. That's intimacy.

Great love affairs were not formed because of organ-blowing orgasms. They were fired and tempered through all the moments that follow after sex. So many people poo-poo romance as a genre, because "it's all about the sex". Well, pardon me, but no. Romance novels, above all, get it right. With everyone else, it's all about the sex. With romance, it's all about the heart.

Stepping down from my soapbox.

And now, for something completely different. We have the perfect trifecta of conspiracies, all coming to light this week. Coincidence? I think not. Around the world, tin-foiled crowned heads are bobbing in unison, saying, "we knew it, we knew it all along."

a) An internet game where you get to recreate the "assassination" of JKF. It's an X-Files episode gone wild.
b) Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself, Oliver Stone, has a new movie out this week about, yes, Alexander, who may, or may not have straddled two ponds on the way to conquering the world.
c) and yes, now we have the next great conspiracy, coming to bookstores near you in 2005, probably from Tom Clancy. The medical records of the "late" Yasir Arafat. Poisoned? Not poisoned? Dead? Not dead? You be the judge.

Happy Turkey Day!
Kathleen

Publishers Weekly on Romance

Publishers Weekly (subscription, sorry) put out their spotlight on the romance industry this week and talked to some influential booksellers about where the romance market was right now. First of all, news flash, paranormal is hot. Sigh. I bet you didn't know that, did you? Okay, you already knew, but what I thought was interesting is that publishers are trying their durndest to increase profit margins, and so what's going on? The move to trade paperback (those "bigger" paperbacks, with the softcovers). Trade is the new pink. Margins are higher, ergo, let's go to trade. However, the booksellers talked about how buyers are being more particular, and to quote from the article:

Chances are those covers are on mass market paperbacks. While publishers are offering more and more trade paperbacks and even hardcovers in the category, readers resist their higher prices. "Romance readers indicate that they prefer the mass market format for romance novels," says Grimshaw of Waldenbooks.

"Mass market will always be the favorite because the ladies can put it in their purse. Trade paperback is still the cost of two mass markets, and more for the buck is always going to win out," says Baker of Waldenbooks.

Greene of Borders refers to the increase in trade paperback titles as "a publisher thing" and notes that sales for such titles have generally been disappointing.

"This is an economically depressed area," says Schreckengost of the Book Depot. "It depends on the popularity of the author, but it is a little harder to sell those trades. If it's an unknown author, you're taking a bit of a chance."

"They don't want to pay for the trade," says Anderson of Books Connection. "It kills me when I go to buy a book and it's only out in trade. That's as bad as it being only out in hardcover."

"Pricewise, they want mass market," says Buck of Vintage books. "People are more willing than they were to get the trade paperback, but they still come out with a huge stack of mass markets."

Hardcover is even further out of reach. "The romance readers I have are voracious," says Greene of the Naperville Borders. "If they're going to spend $20 on a hardcover, they could get four to five mass markets for the same amount. It's much more reasonable to assume they're going to buy a mass market."

From a sales standpoint, trade is more attractive to booksellers as well. So, what's going to happen as the shift in format occurs? Sales volume will go down, revenues will go out. Mass market gets phased into a niche category. And for readers, they will be spending more money on books, but reading less. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I just don't know. I don't have any qualms about buying trade, but I've never bought books in huge quantities, so it's not a huge issue. Anyone willing to weigh on in this? Are you still buying mass market paperback? How do you feel about trade paperbacks? Ripped off, or do you feel like you're getting a Lexus with a Honda pricetag?

In Today's Book News....

Okay, I shouldn't poke fun at Madonna's literary efforts, but here's a link from USA Today about her next book. Wealth is overrated? Yes, but wouldn't that moral be more effective if she didn't like, uh, live in a castle?

According to the NY Post, (which we all know never lies), the Pope's September book has only sold about 18,000 copies. The Pope? And Jon Stewart's September book, "America," (it's hysterical, by the way), has sold 1.4 million copies. Now, wait a minute. Surely those numbers are wrong? I mean, aren't we a country of Bible-beating, right-wing red-states??? I know we are, because I saw it on CNN. Jon Stewart, beating out the Pope? Hmmmm….. You know, if Jon Stewart can get a foreword from Thomas Jefferson, maybe the Pope could get a foreword from God?

Not much else going on that's exciting in the book world.
Toodles…
Kathleen

A Political landscape riddled with blood and body parts....

So, the election is done, the campaigning is over, yes, life will move forward, although a lot of people don't think so. For some reason, I just get sucked up into the whirling vortex that is the political season, and thank God, it only comes every four years.

• Authors of the world seem incredibly political, here we have Jane Smiley's rant


• And who some illustrious novelists of the U.S. are voting for


• Galley-cat's take on whether the election will change literary culture

As you can see by the above, we are all doomed to Armageddon, or the world falling off a cliff, whichever comes first, perhaps a tsunami flooding the fly-over regions.

My first fiction prediction for 2006. From the 99.997% fictional left: A multitude of tomes focusing on presidential assassinations, a testosterone-driven president having to deal with his inner-pink, or a terrorist enclave from Cuba coming in surreptitiously and nuking the U.S. with bombs smuggled while the U.S. was occupied elsewhere. From the .003% fictional right: a Monty Python fist coming down on the blue states and wiping them off the planet.