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Category: Reading

Posts in which we talk about reading habits and preferences

Reading, Judging, Objectivity

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Hi. It’s me. Maybe you missed me yesterday? Well, I did! My brain was involved in a historical I was reading for the annual RITA contest and it didn’t come up for air. I have two extreme ways of being: completely focused, or completely not! Well, anyway…I thought I’d crack open that old discussion about rating/reviewing books.

Here are the rules I try to play by:

Be Objective. This means that I take your personal preferences out of the mix. If there’s a type of romance I don’t care for, I don’t judge on that basis. I look at how this romance compares to the standard of its type.

Don’t be a copyeditor. It isn’t the copyeditor you are judging, it’s the author’s work. A few typos, grammar errors or inconsistencies I can overlook. (I might add that I am doing ‘first round’ judging–the finalists will be judged a second time).

Look for something special that makes the book stand out. That may be the use of historical detail; the characters; the way the story draws me in and keeps my interest; the way the story explores its theme, taking me deeper throughout; the writing itself; the way the story plays out, keeping me engaged until the end–so that when I close the book I feel that it kept its promise and did not let me down.

It is difficult sometimes. We all have little things that we dislike that may or may not be an issue for anyone else–that may in fact be expected in the kind of romance we are reading. Yes, we do talk about clothes in traditional Regencies–not always, but we do. We often are writing about the upper classes in England. They had money, society was important, and they wore fashionable clothes, and sometimes it is expected that we tell what they were wearing. A judge may dislike references to fashion, but she should consider the genre.

I have a problem with cliches–little ones, like “her feet were encased in white satin shoes” instead of “she wore white satin shoes,” and various parts of a woman’s finery being referred to as “a confection of …,” and so forth. Just little word combinations that were fresh once but that have been repeated many times. But I don’t let this throw me when judging. I look at the big picture.

Having said all this, I still struggle. So…I would like to hear what you all look for in a book when reviewing it or judging it. What standards do you hold yourself to? Where do you draw the line between objectivity and subjectivity?

And finally…what do you think makes a winning book?

Laurie, with more questions than answers!

LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE
Signet, January 2006

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Sponge, Sand Glass, Strain-bag, Mogul Diamond?

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Last week, I talked about getting started again after a long break. I did start again, but I am in the middle of writing a scene I absolutely hate, and I am not sure if that means the idea behind the scene stinks, or if my writing stinks and the idea is good, or what. So I am going to finish writing the scene, gritted teeth and all (my heroine DOES get to knock someone out, which is cool, but the hero doesn’t arrive until later, late bastard), but meanwhile, my brain has been doing its best to keep me away from productive time at the keyboard.

So I’ve pulled out a fun book to browse through, Nicholas Parsons‘ The Book of Literary Lists (I cited a Barbara Cartland quote on my own Diary yesterday; click here to read it). And discovered this:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s Four Classes of Book Reader

Sponges, who absorb all they read and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied.
Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

I wish I were a mogul diamond, but I think I must confess to being a sponge: I read a lot, and don’t always think too hard about what I’ve just read. Sometimes I read just to keep my mind occupied, sand-glass style, but I do retain more than nothing. My mom is a sand-glass–she can barely remember what’s happening WHILE she’s reading the book, but she reads all the time, and is an even faster reader than me, and I am pretty darn fast.

So–do you think Coleridge is right in his categories? What kind of reader are you? And, as a bonus question, if you were to read a scene where the previously meek heroine decks a guy, would you hate it?

Thanks for sharing–

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

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What are your books about?

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What are our books really about? Is there one central theme common to the books you write, or to the books you enjoy reading?

This has been on my mind ever since I and some other romance writers were interviewed for a local news bureau’s story on St. Valentine’s Day. Note that we were all St. Valentine Day losers–there was a distinct lack of caviar, chocolate, champagne or heart-shaped hot-tubs in our lives, and the reporter adopted that arch “I’m only writing about romances” tone we’re all so tired of hearing. Her first question to me–and she didn’t include this in the interview–I thought was the most interesting one. She asked me, in a rather patronizing tone, whether romances were “only about people falling in love and getting married, and about families.”

And I asked her what other sorts of stories there were. I believe that’s what all stories are about, when it comes down to it. Even in Beowulf the monster has a mother. If you’re interested in the whole storytelling-myth-archetypes topic, check out Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey, or, if you’re feeling really brave, you can tackle Joseph Campbell whose whole area of scholarship was on the subject.

If I had to give a quick definition of what I write about (naturally I have this suspicion that I’m writing about the same people all the time and/or I’m writing about myself, both of which are to a certain extent true), I’d respond that I like to write about people discovering their true identity.

How about you? Do you find common themes in the books you write or the books you find memorable reads?

Janet

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That Moment

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Recently, I’ve read a few too many romances where the heroine basically falls in love with the hero because he’s so hot. She doesn’t necessarily think in those words (in some of the books, she’s a Regency or Victorian or Medieval woman), but there’s not much going on between her and the hero except constant physical attraction, the desire to act on it, the desire not to act on it, the shock of acting on it, the guilt or elation of acting on it, and oh boy, those muscles! Et cetera et cetera ad infinitum…

Seems to me, if that’s all love were about, all the women in the country would be in love with Russell Crowe and would live out the rest of their lives in misery because they couldn’t have him. Do I want to read a 300-page book about how my next door neighbor is totally in love with Russell, and loves his abs, and loves his legs, and really really really wants him to touch her??? Um, no, sorry.

But that’s how some of these books I’ve read recently have struck me. The heroine and hero in the book have no greater emotional connection, no more true bonding, no more actual understanding of each other as human beings, than would my neighbor have with Russell.

What do I like in a romance? I like that moment when, as a reader, your heart melts. When you just love the hero to death, and want him to be happy so badly, and know the heroine can truly make him that happy, and he her as well. I love that moment when the hero does something that’s so kind, or so true, or so real, that your brain and heart shout YES!!! Yes, that’s it. That’s love.

After all, what’s to stop my neighbor from changing her taste to Antonio Banderas, or Josh Holloway, or Naveen Andrews tomorrow? What’s inspiring about that? Sure, they’re gorgeous to look at (as these pictures prove), but I can’t really believe in a relationship based on nothing but the physical. The way I see it, that’s not a relationship . . . and it just isn’t that interesting to read about.

Recently, I was watching the TV show House, in which the seriously cranky Doctor House (the inimitable Hugh Laurie) was hoping that his old flame, Stacy (Sela Ward) would come back to him (despite his unending bad temper, and an ego the size of the national debt). And suddenly, there was one of those moments. The two were waiting in an airport on business for a delayed flight, and when Stacy sat down, she found that House had gotten her a cup of coffee… And not just any coffee, but the kind she liked, done the way she liked… That little moment, showing that even years after their relationship ended, he cared enough about her to remember how she liked her coffee, and the casual, comfortable way he got it for her without any show or fuss, really melted my heart.

So… What moment in a book, TV show, or movie melted your heart? Is there a scene where a character’s action really touched you? How about something a character said? Or a moment or moments that made you want to shout, Yes! That’s it! That’s love.

Please share!!!

Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — available now from Signet Regency!

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Near misses with the classics

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Last week I blogged about favorite books when I was a kid including at least one writer loathed by teachers. That got me thinking about books forced upon me at school that nearlyput me off the authors for life. And in fact I recently re-read one of them, Cranford, and loved it (thanks, Pam Rosenthal, for suggesting it). I was wondering what other books, or authors, others encountered at the wrong time and place, school or elsewhere, and how you’ve come to terms–or not–with them.

Cranford by Mrs. Gaskell was chosen by educators for its length, I think. It’s a very short novel, mainly a series of vignettes about life among the spinsters of a small provincial English town in the 1840s. I can’t really find any other reason to inflict it on a bunch of teenage girls who were fantasizing about marrying John, Paul, George, or Ringo. We were totally clueless about what the novel was even about or when it was set. I had the vague impression it was set in America, as there was a reference early on to “the railroad” and not railway–apparently an early Victorian term. I think we’d have responded much better to Wives and Daughters (yes, I’m always going on about Wives and Daughters), which is so romantic (but long), and with a decidely modern outlook on mother-daughter relationships. And then there’s always the hero and his famous knobstick in North and South (which I tried to re-read recently but found heavy going).

Continuing the catalogue of literary disasters, we were also inflicted with Silas Marner by George Eliot. Guess what: it’s short. It’s a very difficult book. It’s particularly tedious if you’re trying to guess the inseam measurement of Mick and the boys. Now I think we would have loved the teenage angst of Mill on the Floss (not my favorite), or Dorothea and her toyboy Ladislaw in Middlemarch. Or even the uberhot Daniel Deronda (though he is fairly boring) and naughty Gwendolyn Harleth.


Sadly, Thomas Hardy was represented by Under the Greenwood Tree. I still have no idea what it was about. I remember a lot of smock-clad yokels pontificating away about life, the universe, and everything, and a scene the teacher (bless her heart) described as being extremely risque, when the heroine appears at an open window with her hair down (the hopeless tart). It’s so sad. To think we could have had the rampant romanticism of Tess of the d’Urbervilles or Far from the Madding Crowd (both made into terrific movies).

Tell us about your near misses!

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