Bitchin' book news
Paulo Coelho hates seeing books neglected, gathering dust on his shelves. And so he leaves most of what he reads in parks, bus stations, his local Japanese restaurant, for random readers to find.
“One day the shelves in my apartment collapsed, and I saw all my books on the floor, and I thought to myself, why do I have these books, to impress my friends?” the author of The Alchemist said, explaining how he lugs bags of books around to give them away. “I feel a book must travel.”
I really enjoyed this article. I think Paulo Coelho is a fantastic writer. I’ve read all his books (except for the last one) and absolutely fell in love with The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage (highly recommend them, btw).
I think this is a wonderful idea. What do you ladies say, if one day this week we all go out with a book to leave somewhere we know it’ll be found: a park bench, a cafe, bus stop on the metro, etc. We can leave a little note written inside with the date/city and the reasons you’re giving it to the world. I think it would be fun. *g*
Professor Jean Webb, from the children’s literature research centre at the University of Worcester, insists that children’s books use fat kids to portray a greedy character who is also mean and unpopular. Professor Webb said the character of Dudley Dursley in J.K. Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter series was one such example.
“Dudley is a fat little rotter and his fatness is presented as a moral failing,” The Scotsman quoted her, as telling Times Educational Supplement. And, she insists that authors need to treat such characters with a lot more sensitivity, for they are leading to overweight kids in real life being demonised.
I think I’ll have to agree on this. How sad it must be to be that overweight child and have everyone stereotype you because that’s what they see on TV and read in books regarding fat little boys and girls. :(
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling says the seventh book in the boy wizard series, due for release in July, may not be the last in the series after all.
Despite insisting the story of Harry Potter would end after the release of the seventh book, the author has unveiled she has another instalment in mind. “I might do an eighth book for charity, a kind of encyclopedia of the world so I could use all the extra material that’s not in the books,” she has been reported as saying.
Errr, huh? *confused* WTF? *even more confused*
Ms. Reynolds is an about-to-be-published writer from Texas, her first novel comes out in November 2007. I came upon her blog while researching “men who read romance” and found this rather interesting article. I’ll quote some of here:
Just in case any of you are sneering at romance, take a look at these statistics regarding romance novels:
$1.2 billion in sales each year, 54.9% of all popular mass-market fiction sold, 39.3% of all fiction sold.
RWA reports: “With the expansion of romance novels into science fiction and military tales... male readership jumped from 7% of romance readers in 2002 to 22% in 2004.”
I had no idea so many men read romance novels!!! While working on my post I was actually thinking 1-2% LOL. Anyway, happily surprised about this! *g*
Labels: bibliophile’s affair, harry potter nutter, romance baby
You know, this Harlot and Trollop thing is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!! I'm going to stop oppening our email account! ***Grrr***
5/14/2007 08:48:00 AM
There it went again *grrrrr*
5/14/2007 08:48:00 AM
Girls,
I think the "Book travelling" is a great idea!
In my mind I'm already going through all the books in my shelves *pondering* ... but I can't really say to goodbye to any of them... *shakinghead* Geez, I am such an egoist!
But I'll do it, hoping that someone will actually read it and not throw it away... the poor book!
Oh my, maybe I won't be able to do it after all- I'd be worrying about the book the rest of the month!
5/14/2007 08:59:00 AM
Sarah, how about if we open a site for it? Maybe we can open "The sisterhood of the travelling books" *G* People can log on and say they found the book and maybe join in leaving other books... I think I read something like this before. Will google it and see if we can copy the premise :)
5/14/2007 09:04:00 AM
Have you seen PC's last book cover? Very interesting I think. Saw it in France. Cannot remember the book's name.
5/14/2007 09:25:00 AM
I love the traveling book idea. :D
I agree about overweight children usually being the "enemy" in children's books. I suppose it's like discrimination against experienced heroines?
5/14/2007 05:00:00 PM
Men who reads romance? That's refreshing :P
I learned a lot from reading romance from the basic relationship dramas and how to avoid them, to bedroom things. Ahem. I really think it will do men a lot of good if they too are reading good romance books!
5/14/2007 05:29:00 PM
See how i specify GOOD romance books? We don't want our men to actually copy the idiot heroes' actions! LOL
5/14/2007 05:30:00 PM
I love the traveling book idea, should we do it any day this week? How will we know if someone found it?
I had no idea men read romance novels! The only one I knew was a french guy in my junior year of college.
He found me reading a Nora Robert's book in class one day and confessed to me that when he moved to the states on his freshmen year he found a box full of "the love and romantic books" ROTFL and he was bored, had no tv, internet, cable for weeks and wanted to improve his english so he read them all. He admited to liking them but being confused by "some of zee words" LMAO. I think he was probably refering to the purple prose!!!
5/14/2007 05:56:00 PM
RE: I love the traveling book idea, should we do it any day this week? How will we know if someone found it?
Trollop and i are talking about it. I promise we will let you guys know when we've already finalized everything. ;)
5/14/2007 06:04:00 PM
Re: he found a box full of "the love and romantic books" ROTFL and he was bored, had no tv, internet, cable for weeks and wanted to improve his english so he read them all. He admited to liking them but being confused by "some of zee words" LMAO.
I can't help but picture this in my head and laugh myself stupid LOL I can imagine the poor french guy reading about moist triangles of love, volcanic hot deltas, spears of love and thick iron rods and looking for the terms in the dictionary and ending up being more confused!!! LOL LOL LOL
5/14/2007 06:56:00 PM
When I go to my local library I always see a couple of men hovering around the romance section. There was one who I acutally saw reading Johanna Lindsey..
But something happened with another man that really made me angry. He walked over to the romance shelves and said to his wife (presumably) "Here Honey, there's all the trash you could want."
I wanted to slap him...
5/14/2007 07:45:00 PM
I love Paulo Coelho. Trollop, I think your idea is a very good one. :D
5/14/2007 07:48:00 PM
"Here Honey, there's all the trash you could want."
Gabrielle, this is what I hate. Prejudice against romance when they have never read a romance novel!
5/14/2007 07:49:00 PM
Petra, I completely agree! It was so stupid.
He had no idea what he was talking about but he felt that he could make judgements.
5/14/2007 08:34:00 PM
I actually got excited after reading Deathly Hallows won't be the last HP book! And then.... encyclopedia?
5/14/2007 08:44:00 PM
Trollop, the leave a book somewhere idea is fab! I'm in whatever you girls decide on.
5/14/2007 10:31:00 PM
I suppose I'm pretty selfish in that I would never part with any of my books. Well, not the ones I like anyway, and leaving a book that I don't like for others to read is kinda stupid. And anyway, I usually reread every book I buy, so giving it away would mean that I would have to buy it again, and I already spend a silly amount of money on books, so, though this is a really sweet idea, I would never do it. And since I live in rainy Norway, that's probably a good thing.
5/15/2007 06:05:00 AM
Like all normal book lovers, I keep books I love. But because of rereading, books become worse for wear so I usually get a second copy. I won't mind sharing some of them. I guess it's like donating books. And that also mean I'll get some free space for new books on my bookshelf.
5/15/2007 08:27:00 AM
I love Coelho's idea (and his books, too!)...unfortunately, I don't have enough books to leave all over the city. Plus I'm a huge fan of re-reading! :)
I'd heard that HP rumor a while back. It'd be nice if she actually wrote "Hogwarts, A History"!
5/15/2007 04:29:00 PM
Good idea for book karma. I'll do it.
It's always tall and skinny, short and fat. You don't often hear the bad guy being a hot stud except in vampire books where most vampires are so fuckable. Most bad guys/girls are fat and greasy or tall and lanky with pimples and stuff. Not all ugly people are bad and not all bad people are ugly.
WTF JKR? 8th is made up of what? Like I won't read it anyway, confused or not...lol.
Guys should read romance so they can get ideas, like homework or something.
5/15/2007 06:12:00 PM
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