Wynderlon

I have to wonder what Jane Austen would say if she traveled to the modern era only to find she’s been nearly deified as an author of wild talents; her book Pride & Prejudice adapted multiple times for the screen (as well as many others); a movie about her life taken from letters and conjecture; books by subsequent authors creating sequels to her worlds (some good, some involving Mr. Darcy turning into a vampire *gag*); finding that Elizabeth Bennet has been turned into a zombie hunter; realizing that her [supposed] hair is being auctioned off…

And perhaps most overwhelming: that her characters, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy have become the example of the perfect couple for hundreds, if not thousands, of women and probably quite a few men.

What would that be like? Especially for someone who had to struggle to even get her name on her own work without people disbelieving that she wrote it. Probably better we’ll never find out, she may just keel over from the shock of it. But I’d like to think she’d say something incredibly witty and go off to take a vacation in Bath.

I think I found this through Inkygirl. But, hey, if his mission was to interest someone in his book via an amusing, anecdotal music video…mission accomplished.

Of course, this is the opinion of someone who:

1. doesn’t like Apple products (please don’t send me emails/comments that start with “You iTouch/iPhone/iOther hating Nazi”)
2. doesn’t believe in DRM restrictions (if I don’t allow Big Brother to come into my house and swipe my paperbacks off my bookshelves, why would I let Amazon?)
3. doesn’t really have the money to afford a decent e-reader at about $250 a pop and then electronic versions of a book which can’t really be shared with friends easily and are still more expensive than a mass market coupled with a 30% off coupon from Borders or a used copy from Bookman’s.

Why am I talking about ebooks? Because I tried to find an e-reader program today to install on my computer so I could read some free ebooks I’d collected. And thus the headache began. I admit, I wanted a freeware version since I don’t read enough ebooks to warrant any kind of investment, but I did try many free trial softwares. And I came to an important conclusion: there’s too many different formats for ebooks and no program that adequately reads all of them. Even the ones that boasted reading “many different formats” ran into snags. I ended up having to download 3 separate programs. Some were very snazzy, but had sacrificed ease of usability for “oooh aaah” factor, while some were butt ugly, highly easy to use, but only allowed for one or two formats.

So until the day comes with someone makes an ebook reader with an ebook software that’s user-friendly and affordable, I think I’m gonna stick to the old school stuff of paper. And boy do I sometimes need my fix…in order to read what happened next in a new series I may be slightly addicted to, I drove down to Borders yesterday at 10pm (B&N changed their hours) and plunked down my money for the next book. Then spent five minutes in my car stroking the cover and going “My precious.” (not really…or did I? )

A Flickr user set up a challenge: design a cover for Lolita. The result? 164 covers for a story all about pedophiliac love. Or, you know, whatever theme you want to argue.

Some of the covers are disturbing, some downright artistic, and some look like they were slapped together in five minutes using Adobe Photoshop and stock imagery. However, it is interesting to see what people think of when they think Lolita. I tried to pick a favorite and couldn’t, although this one might win for sheer “Eeew” factor.

Maybe I just like my romance books smutty, or maybe I will freely admit that, to me, there’s little point of reading romance books unless there’s a sex scene or two. I mean, it’s not like they’re particularly unique as far as plot or characterization goes. There’s a few exceptions — just like in any genre — and I’m sure a lot of women have “that” romance book, the special one that holds a special place in their heart because it was the first or the best or something (for me, that’s A Patriot’s Heart by Stobie Piel. It was my first romance genre book. I still have the copy I bought), but lets be honest people.

Where am I going with this? I picked up a book by an author that I like, although I’m beginning to wonder why I like her. Her premises and ideas are awesome, but the execution always leaves me desiring more. When I picked up this book, it was a lesser known one. I didn’t even know she’d written a romance, but I decided to give it a try. Listen to this premise (in my words, cause I’m trying not to name names here) and tell me it doesn’t scream “romance genre”:

The main heroine is a librarian who, one day, witnesses a demon scarf down a child. After that, she vows to hunt the demon sucker down and manages to do just that by finding a treasure trove of demonology books in her library, making a sacred knife, and hunting the demon through the sewers. Unfortunately, making the knife and killing the demon causes a chain reaction of magic that not only piques the interest of the demon world, but the Order, a bunch of people who are fighting the good fight against demons to “keep humanity safe.” The Order sends two field agents to investigate, one is a hot, half-demon guy. Apparently, these half-demons will bond to one mate, to the point of getting rather territorial. Except the Order doesn’t allow their half-demons to bond. Oh, yes, and the demons want to sacrifice the heroine and use her blood to rend open a hole in to the demon world.

I’m sure you can guess where this is going. The amount of times it’s mentioned that hot, half-demon guy just wants to “drag her to bed” and do a lot of bonding (if ya get what I mean and I think ya do ), I was waiting with baited breath. Because, well, he was hot.

…And then the book ended sans lots of bedroom-bonding. WTF? I thought. All that build-up?! Damn tease! Sure, everyone survived. The dude I knew from page 20 was going to betray everyone betrayed everyone. The fight between demons-trying-to-sacrifice-heroine and main characters lasted a page or two (there wasn’t even an epic last battle, just an escape), and suddenly we’ve got an epilogue with the mention of meeting the folks and marriage…and no sex.

So if any romance genre author is reading this, please don’t tease the poor reader. If you’re going to go on and on about how hot-broad-shouldered-conflicted-hero really wants to drag heroine to the bedroom multiple times, then deliver on the goods.

Nobody likes a tease.

According to Comment Central, the strangest book is this gem called The English: Are They Human? I think I’d have to agree — it’s definitely an eye-catching cover due to the title. The book, itself, is showcased on AbeBooks.co.uk’s “weird book room” along with other gems like Is My Dog Gay?¹ and Help! A Bear is Eating Me!²

(When I IMed John the link to The English: Are They Human? his answer was, “No, we’re better than just mere mortals.” )

Anyway, I couldn’t help making a list, too. So here’s Himani’s 10 Strangest Books, In No Particular Order, She Found on the Internet Just Now³:

1. How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
2. The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods (Bwahaha!)
3. Pornogami: A Guide to the Ancient Art of Paper-Folding for Adults (Now you too can giggle like an elementary school kid as you fold paper into big penises!)
4. The Testicle Cookbook: Cooking with Balls (*gag* I think I saw an episode of Bizarre Foods that went like this)
5. How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
6. The Haunted Vagina (I’m actually curious as to what this book is about. How is the vagina haunted? Does it talk? Do things pop out of it and say “Boo!”? According to the book synopsis, a guy finds out that, unfortunately, his girlfriend’s vagina is the gateway to another world )
7. Children of the Matrix: How an Interdimensional Race Has Controlled the World for Thousands of Years and Still Does (except, despite the title, the book claims it’s extraterrestrial lizard people controlling humans, not robots, so they mixed up the TV show V and the movie the Matrix)
8. People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It (Sounds like a Stephen King novel)
9. Gangsta Rap Coloring Book (you too can have Little Bobby color in a Glock)
10. Dick: A User’s Guide (just in case you get lost)

I would just like to say there are some weird books out there. Some weird…scary books.