The Observer is really doing some excellent shoe-leather reporting on sub-cultures these days. Last week's awkward musing on Urbane Tomboys flummoxed us (aren't these girls just hipsters who wear boy clothes, and what does this have to do with feminism?) but Doree Shafrir's story on Nerds of Steel this week is a little bit more our thing. Hipsters or Ripsters? Buff, and Proud? Oh, yes, of course, of course. The publishing industry's collective boner for hottie authors doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So it makes sense that examples of current "nerdy beefcake poster boys" include a lot of literary lads: Conan O'Brien, Keith Gessen (N+1 editor and author of everyone's favorite new galley, All The Sad Young Literary Men), and up-and-coming buff dork Benjamin Nugent. Nugent penned a book called American Nerd: The Story of My People, which will come out in May. We. Must. Read. This.

Shafrir's piece was a fun romp, but we're a bit disappointed that there wasn't some kind of sidebar thing on female buff nerds. She glosses over it by noting that "female nerds can be 'buff,' but that makes for a sexy librarian/Tina Fey kind of paradigm."

Radar has some ideas for the new tribes the Observer should hunt down, but we think their next feature should focus on a group we're going to go ahead and call Book Tramps. More specifically: Slutty Ass Bitch Whores Who Read. We are very interested in this phenomenon, given the number of prostitutes with double-lives out there.

3/27/2008 12:14:15 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Since nobody is reading anything anymore except text-messages and blogs, then we guess it shouldn't matter which books make you smart and which make you dumb, at least according to this guy (link via Blog of a Bookslut). We prefer literature to statistics. After puzzling over this chart for a very long ten minutes, we still don't fully understand it or this list, which is supposed to explain the graph. Back to our lunchtime sandwich companion reading, currently Love in a Time of Cholera. We delight in it. Gabriel Garcia Marquez never fails to satisfy.

1/29/2008 3:12:39 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

In the spirit of politics and exhaustion, today's Publisher's Lunch newsletter threw another hissy over this brief New York Times piece on Barack Obama's "surprise best seller," entitled The Audacity of Hope.

Says the Times:

"But its rapid rise to the No. 1 spot on the New York Times nonfiction list next Sunday, placing the author, the freshman Democratic senator from Illinois, ahead of heavyweight authors like John Grisham, Bill O’Reilly and even Bob Woodward, is something of a publishing stunner."

Pub Lunch retorts:

"More Cutting-Edge NYT Journalism: Obama a 'Surprise Best Seller'; 'A Stunner'
Barack Obama's previous book was a NYT bestseller for over 40 weeks (including 4 consecutive weeks at No. 1) in 2004 and 2005. After his election to the Senate, Crown and Random House Children's made a $1.9 million deal with him. Three weeks ago he was adored on Oprah, featured on the covers of major magazines, and booksellers across the country were selling thousands of tickets to signings and turning away customers (breaking records set by Bill Clinton). Now, finally, the NYT takes notice. But that's not enough. They conjure it as 'a surprise best seller' and 'something of a publishing stunner' (And they credit reviews from likes of their own Michiko as having 'certainly helped drive sales.')

And they wonder why newspapers are in trouble."

Pub Lunch, you're usually so perky and upbeat. What's with all the NYT haterade?

Also, thanks to the Bookslut blog, we've only just discovered The Guardian's Digested Read feature. It's hilarious. Here's a stunning excerpt from the latest, concerning Victoria Beckham's new book, That Extra Half an Inch. Posh, we had no idea you were such a cad!

Quoth The Guardian:

"I have no qualifications to write this book; that's why I've got someone else to do it for me. But let me share my insights anyway. First I'd like to knock something on the head. The idea that, once you have a bit of money, you start wearing couture and stilettos all day and live on caviar and champagne is just nonsense. They've both got far too many calories."

And what sound advice! We heart bargain shopping, too!

"I'm a great fan of vintage T-shirts. A word about vintage, though: it's easy to get confused about the difference between vintage and second-hand and that's because they're basically the same. If you want to be safe, look for something that's ridiculously overpriced. Blouses and halter-necks don't really do it for me, though you can wear them if you want to look like you shop at Primark, but nobody should be without a £1,000 Chanel cardigan. Have a look in charity shops if you can't afford a new one."

Now, if only we had your motivation when it comes to not eating and looking like a living corpse and befriending Katie Holmes for NO APPARENT REASON except to suck her into your creepy fembot cult. Oh, we're just jealous? Well, maybe we are, Mrs. Becks. But just remember how you used to roll:

Enough said, yeah?

 

11/9/2006 1:07:57 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Young Catherine Earnshaw: The Kristen Cavalleri of
Yorkshire Moors: The Real Victorian England

Emily Brontë has a powerful heart of darkness

Via Blog of a Bookslut:

Jaemie Gallie of the Yorkshire Post reports that Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë's classic Victorian love story, is being adapted into a comic. Yorkshire-based poet and playwright Adam Strickson wrote the book. It's illustrated by Siku, one of the UK's leading graphic artists, who has worked for Marvel comics and 2000AD. The comic will be released next month as part of the Radical Brontës Festival.

"'I think the book is great,' said Mr Strickson. 'The visualisations are wonderful and I think Heathcliffe and Cathy are a bit sexier and sleeker than intended in the book but that is the style with this sort of thing."

Hmmm. Lascivious Heathcliff and Cathy cartoons? Er, we're not usually purists, but something about that feels...wrong. Oh, and yes, we cried at the end of the book, mmkuh?  Judge us if you must, but just LOOK:

"You teach me how cruel you've been -- cruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; they’ll blight you -- they'll damn you. You loved me -- then what right had  you to leave me? What right -- answer me -- for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart -- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine."

God. It's so good. Dialogue like that shouldn't be squeezed into a tiny cartoon talking bubble. 

RELATED:
File under WTF!!!: MTV's movie-musical version of Wuthering Heights, starring Erika Christensen and Mike Vogel, with an Aimee Osbourne cameo?! NO to the infinity. High School Musical has our forever approval, but not this. Never this.

8/28/2006 4:46:58 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |