Sunday, October 7, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
SHADES OF AWFUL
SHADES OF AWFUL
As you may know by now, I read "Publishers' Weekly" and other book review sources, dutifully recommending books I think a small town library should have on its shelves.
My word is not gospel and those who run the library are well aware of my many prejudices and preferences. (See "What the Old Lady
Reads," "What the Old Lady Doesn't Read" elsewhere in these pages).
Although I skirted mentioning them one way or the other to the library, I confess I read the "Shades of Gray" S&M volumes, so I find the piece in the July 19, 2012 "London Review" by Andrew O'Hagan, especially delicious. Titled "Travelling Southwards," it looks back to earlier "bonkbusters," including novels by Jackie Collins, Sidney Shelden, Harold Robbins and Danielle Steel. Then O'Hagan moves along to Judith Krantz. "Each era gets the erotic writing it craves, or deserves," he says.
There certainly is bad writing throughout the Gray trilogy: "My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves." You can put up with this stuff maybe for the first one, but reading all three becomes annoying. Throughout, there are commercial tie-ins. Characters use only high end brands and every time they get cleaned up, they use body wash. O'Hagan says the books invite the reader "to be submissive, too, not to punishment, but to a 1980s-style dominance of money and power and products. "
That the "Shades" books are banned by certain public libraries because they are deemed "porn," is a mistake -- they should be banned because of awful writing. I'm sure she's aware of such criticism but never mind -- E. L. James is crying all the way to the bank.
* * *
* * *
As you may know by now, I read "Publishers' Weekly" and other book review sources, dutifully recommending books I think a small town library should have on its shelves.
My word is not gospel and those who run the library are well aware of my many prejudices and preferences. (See "What the Old Lady
Reads," "What the Old Lady Doesn't Read" elsewhere in these pages).
Although I skirted mentioning them one way or the other to the library, I confess I read the "Shades of Gray" S&M volumes, so I find the piece in the July 19, 2012 "London Review" by Andrew O'Hagan, especially delicious. Titled "Travelling Southwards," it looks back to earlier "bonkbusters," including novels by Jackie Collins, Sidney Shelden, Harold Robbins and Danielle Steel. Then O'Hagan moves along to Judith Krantz. "Each era gets the erotic writing it craves, or deserves," he says.
There certainly is bad writing throughout the Gray trilogy: "My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves." You can put up with this stuff maybe for the first one, but reading all three becomes annoying. Throughout, there are commercial tie-ins. Characters use only high end brands and every time they get cleaned up, they use body wash. O'Hagan says the books invite the reader "to be submissive, too, not to punishment, but to a 1980s-style dominance of money and power and products. "
That the "Shades" books are banned by certain public libraries because they are deemed "porn," is a mistake -- they should be banned because of awful writing. I'm sure she's aware of such criticism but never mind -- E. L. James is crying all the way to the bank.
* * *
* * *
NEW BOOKS UNDER $75.
NEW BOOKS UNDER $75.
The August 20, 2012 "Publishers Weekly" introduces a crop of expensive books that make you wonder if the publishers need their heads examined.
There doesn't seem the slightest possibility that "A Journey Around Our America: A Memoir of Cycling, Immigration, and the Latinoization of the U.S." by Louis G. Mendoza (Univ. of Texas) $55. (234p) will make back a fraction of the investment by the press. The review is good so
that will help -- but the cost puts it beyond everyday reach.
In the same issue of PW, we find the review of a coffee-table art book ($60) about symbolist landscape painting. Art books are always expensive but how much they sell is something else. There may be a lot about Symbolism I don't understand. Also -- $50. for an illustrated volume about Georgia O'Keefe and her houses in New Mexico. OK. Another art book.
In the "Lifestyle" (ugh) section of the same PW, $50. for a patisserie
cookbook and $65. for the secrets of Asian cooking. Such expensive
volumes will put a dent in the book budget of even the most ambitious
and richly funded public library. I ask you: how many home cooks wanting to turn out a perfect croissant are going to get in the car, drive to the library, check out a big cookbook, lug it home and find some way to prop it up on the kitchen counter when all they need to do is Google.
There is one book for $19.95 reviewed in this PW that I'd get in a minute: "Living with Less: How to Downsize to 100 Personal Possessions" by Mary Lambert. CICO Books, (144p). September, 2012.
This is an antidote to those disgusting hoarder programs you see on TLC. Lambert assures us we can all make it through life with less stuff. She offers a couple of warm-up tests just in case you really are a hoarder in serious need of intervention. Then she says look around and pick 100 items you can do without. Kitchen and bathroom stuff doesn't count but underwear does. I not sure about the vacuum cleaner. I looked around our living room/dining room and before I even included the chair I was sitting in, I was up to 35.
I've always been a big thrower-outer. My closet is a little on the pathetic side and because we now live in a flat, there is no room to keep things we don't use. Still. There is no way I'd be able to winnow my relatively uncluttered life to 100 "things."
My inspiration (until Lambert came along) has always been the story (NYT?) of the LA woman who got dumped by her husband and then set about to rid herself of everything except: a couple of black trousers, several tops and jackets, two or three pairs of shoes and a BMW.
This kind of extreme divesting leaves Lambert in the dust.
The August 20, 2012 "Publishers Weekly" introduces a crop of expensive books that make you wonder if the publishers need their heads examined.
There doesn't seem the slightest possibility that "A Journey Around Our America: A Memoir of Cycling, Immigration, and the Latinoization of the U.S." by Louis G. Mendoza (Univ. of Texas) $55. (234p) will make back a fraction of the investment by the press. The review is good so
that will help -- but the cost puts it beyond everyday reach.
In the same issue of PW, we find the review of a coffee-table art book ($60) about symbolist landscape painting. Art books are always expensive but how much they sell is something else. There may be a lot about Symbolism I don't understand. Also -- $50. for an illustrated volume about Georgia O'Keefe and her houses in New Mexico. OK. Another art book.
In the "Lifestyle" (ugh) section of the same PW, $50. for a patisserie
cookbook and $65. for the secrets of Asian cooking. Such expensive
volumes will put a dent in the book budget of even the most ambitious
and richly funded public library. I ask you: how many home cooks wanting to turn out a perfect croissant are going to get in the car, drive to the library, check out a big cookbook, lug it home and find some way to prop it up on the kitchen counter when all they need to do is Google.
There is one book for $19.95 reviewed in this PW that I'd get in a minute: "Living with Less: How to Downsize to 100 Personal Possessions" by Mary Lambert. CICO Books, (144p). September, 2012.
This is an antidote to those disgusting hoarder programs you see on TLC. Lambert assures us we can all make it through life with less stuff. She offers a couple of warm-up tests just in case you really are a hoarder in serious need of intervention. Then she says look around and pick 100 items you can do without. Kitchen and bathroom stuff doesn't count but underwear does. I not sure about the vacuum cleaner. I looked around our living room/dining room and before I even included the chair I was sitting in, I was up to 35.
I've always been a big thrower-outer. My closet is a little on the pathetic side and because we now live in a flat, there is no room to keep things we don't use. Still. There is no way I'd be able to winnow my relatively uncluttered life to 100 "things."
My inspiration (until Lambert came along) has always been the story (NYT?) of the LA woman who got dumped by her husband and then set about to rid herself of everything except: a couple of black trousers, several tops and jackets, two or three pairs of shoes and a BMW.
This kind of extreme divesting leaves Lambert in the dust.
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