Here are some tips posts I’ve bookmarked:

Book Expo America Tips for Writers by Jerry Simmons. This post was a useful overview of what the event is all about, with info like:

BEA is focused around the six big publishers, no doubt, without them the BEA would hold little relevance to the general public. As it stands today, the media is interested simply because of the celebrity authors and future bestsellers that are on display. Each of these big companies may spend well in excess of $1 million on this show so it is a big deal for them and they spend a lot of time in New York preparing.

Booth placement is key for this show and the sponsors do the best they can to make everyone happy. Size of the booth is indicative of how much money the sponsors are receiving from the big publishers. Having attended more than 20 I would have to say that the BEA as it now stands is as much representative of corporate publishing as anything else.

This post from Library Journal is librarian focused but I found it very useful.

After Seven trips to BEA, YA author Michelle Madow offers her best tips, such as:

10) If you see an author walking around at lunch looking for a place to sit, invite them to eat with you and your friends. In 2010 my brother spotted R.L. Stine looking for a seat and invited him to join us. We ended up eating together for an hour and having a great conversation! It was so interesting talking with R.L. Stine about his books, and learning about his writing process. He’s such a cool, nice guy!

Tips from BEA Event Director Steve Rosato, including eating a good breakfast, wearing sensible shoes, and having business cards. I actually did have business cards made up:

You guys know I got "Tripler" from "Triple R" right?

The black border won't appear on the finished version

The folks at Wastepaper Prose — readers and writers — have a very nice series of posts on BEA. I especially liked What the Heck Do I Do Now?

Ultimate BEA Party Guide 2012 (romance genre focused, some invitation only) from Andrew Shaffer. I’ve always wanted to attend a Lady Jane’s Salon:

Lady Jane’s Salon Monthly Romance Reading Series. Madame X. 94 West Houston St, Soho. 7pm-9pm. $5 cover or donated romance novel.

Romance reader and writer Katiebabs, also a seasoned BEA veteran, has a tips post from both points of view.

There is a BEABlogger Con, schedule here, on June 4. As I have mentioned here before, it is very author/industry focused. I declined an invitation to serve on a panel, as have many others, for that reason. A recent promo video, Get Your Swag Bag On is so insulting I don’t even know where to begin. Suffice to say that I am not attending BEA for the purpose of gorging myself on free books.

Here’s a partial list of bloggers attending BEA.

Thankfully, there is another option on the same day, the UNcon. Folks are suggesting topics they can lead discussions around. One of them is “authors on Twitter”, another is “negative reviews”. Both of those are more interesting to me than the topics on offer at the official con. that said, I’ll do what the people I most want to spend time with are doing, and right now that looks like BEA blogger con.

If you can’t make it to New York, you can participate in Armchair BEA:

So, what exactly does being a participant entail? First and foremost, you’ll be able to celebrate and participate in an event that happens each year in New York City, Book Expo America, from the comfort of your very own home, hopefully a snugly armchair! Secondly, and we hope equally as important, you’ll be able to meet new book bloggers and join together in a celebration of the wonderful community that comes out of book blogging. Last year we had over 600 participants, so you’re bound to meet some new great bookish friends! Lastly, it means participating, however you’re able to. This can be by posting, tweeting, discussing, or even by simply reading and commenting on participating blogs. Your level of participation is entirely up to you, but we hope you’ll find something to get you involved in this fabulous event!

Here’s a link to the brand new BEA Conference App and a link to the BEA show planner. I loved it that I could click on the events I want to attend and import them to the app and my Google calendar.

I’ve been struggling a bit trying to figure out what my goals are for the conference. Like every other blogger, I’ve received tons of emails from authors and publishers asking to set up meeting at booths, etc., and I’ve turned all but one down (I’m attending the Random House breakfast for “power readers”). As a blogger, I registered as “non editorial media.” I gather other bloggers are going to network, grow their blogs, and get industry news that will create great content. I’m most interested in seeing and meeting other bloggers, hearing what authors have to say about their work, and hearing what some publishers have to say about trends in various genres. I’m signed up to attend one breakfast, hosted by Stephen Colbert, and featuring authors like Jo Nesbo and Barbara Kingsolver, and I’ve noted the locations of a few of my favorite authors. I’m not sure about networking or growing my blog. I’m on the fence about the blog in general.

But one of the main things, for me — and my fellow working moms will especially understand this — is to be someplace where I’m not at anyone else’s beck and call. For three days, I don’t have to answer an email from a student or colleague, take an ethics call from the hospital, give a talk, make a snack, let the cats out, walk the dogs, pay a bill, straighten the family room, etc. etc. Just the freedom to walk through a crowd of people who do not need me for anything will be pure bliss. Between that and seeing old friends and new, I can’t wait for BEA.

I asked for, and received, a Kindle touch wifi 3g for my birthday a couple of weeks ago.

The 3G is a luxury, something that I absolutely did not need, since we have wifi in the house and my digital TBR pile is already insane. But, as the devil on my shoulder said, you never know!  I immediately paid the $40 to get rid of the sponsored ads and deals that appear at the bottom of the home screen, which I found very distracting, but I know others love this feature. I really love the Kindle Touch. I love the touch feature: no little click sound when I turn the page, easy to do at the gym while on a treadmill, highlighting and note taking is way way easier, and the whole device is just easier to work with overall. I like being able to adjust not just the text size, but the font and spacing. I purchased a way-too-expensive Kindle cover with integrated light, but it works great, evenly lighting the page and not adding too much weight. The only down side to the cover is that it is much harder to get the Kindle out of the cover now. I don’t like having the cover on when I don’t need the light.

As I was making my decision on what new e-reader to purchase, Barnes and Noble came out with a new Nook Simple Touch with an integrated light called GlowLight. The reviews have been really positive, and I seriously considered it, but opted against it for three reasons: (1) some (although not all) reviewers report that the contrast is not as good, (2) I am always asleep before or at the same time as my husband anyway, so bedtime reading with the light off is not a major need (I actually use the light more for car trips when he’s driving), and, the big reason: (3) I’m enslaved to Amazon. Yes, I know it’s possible to get all my Kindle books onto a Nook with easy to use programs, but the thing is, I’ve had an excellent consumer experience with Amazon, whether it’s buying books, buying other items, returning items, or getting help with the Kindles. I have no reason to make the effort to move my entire digital library over to another company. If Amazon comes out with a comparable device, which I fully expect by the end of the the year, I’ll seriously consider it.

I also own an iPad2 (or, rather, I bought it, and now I fight my husband and two children for a chance to occasionally use it), and I do more reading on that than I thought I would, namely, because I always bring it to the gym for cardio. I like the fact that with one device, I can listen to music, watch video, read a book, and check my email.  But I like having a dedicated ereader for two reasons: (1) although there is no data that I could find to support the common claim that eyes tire faster or more markedly with an LED device than a e-reader, the e-reader just feels better to read on, and (2) because the iPad has all of those other possibilities, namely the internet, I’m more easily distracted away from my book.

When I first got my Kindle I became very anti-paper. It got to the point that I wouldn’t buy a book if I couldn’t find a digital version. Over the years, the pendulum has swung back, and I do buy and read paper books about 15-20% of the time now. I’m happy to have both on offer for most books, and I hope it stays that way.

Although you might not think so, given modern technology, it’s a lot easier to find the “stuck together” trope (I’m sure there is a much catchier real name for it) in contemporaries than in any other subgenre of romance.  In historicals, there’s too much accountability to other people, so the closest you usually get is the road romance. Being stuck doesn’t work for PNR or romantic suspense either, because it’s not exactly actiony.

I’d like to take a minute and point out the great cover for this one. The cover is what actually first caught my eye:

It’s not 100% accurate as far as the way these two are physically described in the text, but yippee for something unique and visually arresting, suggestive without being erotic, featuring fairly average looking people, and an image that fits the plot. Well done!

Unfortunately, this story clocks in at one of my least favorite lengths, the novella (this one is 72 pages).  I have a very definite idea of how long a romance should be: 200 or so pages if it’s a category, and about 300-400 pages if it’s a standalone. That said, Maher does a nice job packing a lot of story and emotion, not to mention heat, into 24,000 words.

Snowbound With a Stranger begins with a group of preparing to go on a mountain hike. Dannie Marino is a nurse in a busy Brooklyn hospital, and she’s burned out. Really burned out. If you don’t want to see the ugly side of nursing burnout, avoid this book. Early on, for example, Dannie thinks:

She’d had a patient last week — a woman she’d come to know well over the past several months — who was sick with complications from lupus. Two young kids at home. An immune system like a fucking sieve. Sick all the time with every virus that passed through her children’s school. Yet she never complained. Not once. Flirted with doctors. Put makeup on every morning, no matter how bad she felt.

For some reason it got to Dannie. Worse than the sicker patients, the more demonstrably suffering ones. That woman’s iron will agitated her. She found herself avoiding the lady’s room, looking for excuses to let someone else check in on her. What kind of nurse did that make Dannie? What kind of person?

Dannie is “thirty-eight, divorced, childless”, and very down on herself. She wants to go hiking to get out of her own negative space, away from the city and hospital noise, to find some peace. She notices right away a really handsome man in their group, but puts those thoughts out of her mind, until she makes a very stupid decision as a snowstorm is upon them to go off the trail to pee (this is the one thing in the book that bothered me. Most nurses I know are way too practical to make such a stupid move.). Eventually, the handsome guy rescues her, and takes her to the cabin the group had originally planned to hike to, only by now they’ve all hiked back to the parking lot and left the mountain.

Handsome guy is Lee, a social worker in an oncology unit, with his own tragic past and his own need to get away from it all once in a while. Lee and Dannie had been instantly attracted to each other, and now that they’re stuck for a couple of days in a mountain cabin, well… you can guess how they pass the time. The author does a great job with the sexual tension, and the sex scenes are not too many or too explicit for the story. There’s a lot of character development as they talk and figure out what made them both want to go on the hike, what demons from their past keep them from moving on, and what role their sexual attraction might have in all of that. Dannie is a tough one – she may even put some readers off — while Lee, who does have his own issues, is the more naturally open, warm and caring of the two.

I appreciated that Maher didn’t turn these regular folks into sexual super-people. They don’t jump immediately into bed and perform crazy out of character gymnastics. They actually talk about what they are doing. Dannie says:

“I’ve been a straight arrow all my life. Do you know that?” Dannie shook her head. “Good student. Married my high school sweetheart. Stayed faithful for fifteen long years, though it nearly killed me. He left three years ago. I don’t know the first thing about how to do this.”

The author even manages to work in some meta, as when Dannie says:

“I’ve read romance novels like this.” Her voice was shaky. “Two strangers trapped together somewhere getting it on. Every damn time the guy is an alpha, storngarming the heroine.”

Actually, Lee is not an alpha, which I think was the author’s point with this exchange. In the attempt to deal with some tough real life issues, the relative lack of humor, and the focus on average, flawed, and not overabundantly joyous people, this reminds me a bit of another snowbound book I really liked, Janice Kay Johnson’s Snowbound, and of Johnson’s writing in general, although Johnson writes longer superromances with a lot more angst and family issues and less sex.

I enjoyed Snowbound, although it didn’t rock my world. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance novella that rocked my world (no, not even the historical self-published author everyone else raves about), so take that with a grain of salt. If you like the snowbond theme and are interested in the real struggles of people who have been through a lot in life, you should check it out.

Snowbound with a Stranger is on sale May 28 in all the usual outlets. As I type this, see it’s $2.99 for Kindle, and $2.69 directly from Carina Press.

I received this debut novel (Grand Central, Feb 2012, 304 pages) from the author, and while it took me a few weeks to open it up, once I did, I couldn’t put it down.  These Days Are Ours is a snapshot of a few months in the life of Hailey, a recent college grad trying to find work and love in New York City six months after 9/11. the setting is captured perfectly, not just in terms of 9/11, although I thought that was weaved expertly into the story, but by references to the clothing, music, bars, cocktails, and other cultural references of the day. Hailey is extremely privileged — her mother is the publisher of Details and her step-father a “highest-up” at Conde Nast — but she doesn’t want to use her family’s connections to find work. But with a group of friends to go clubbing and shopping with, and a cushy landing pad in her family’s Fifth Avenue penthouse, Hailey’s job search is a bit desultory. In the meantime, Hailey has an extreme crush on Brenner, a recent Princeton grad with a prestigious fellowship and a future as a human rights lawyer. She and Brenner hooked up once, and Hailey would like to renew their acquaintance. Then she meets Adrian, a transplanted Pennsylvanian and recent Brown graduate who is solidly middle class but perhaps a better match for Hailey in the ways that matter.

These Days are Ours is not easy to categorize.  It’s written by a woman, with a woman protagonist, all of the reviews I’ve read are by women, and it has a Reading Group Guide at the end, which suggests “women’s fiction.” There’s the urban haute bourgeoisie* setting, the embarrassing flounces, the youth of the protagonist and her friends, a few scenes at Barneys, and several mentions of high end brand names, which suggests “chick lit.” And finally there’s a strong romance plot — Hailey and her two suitors are much more memorable than any of the assorted friends she hangs out with — and a HFN (“Happy For Now” in romance genre lingo). It’s listed by the publisher as “fiction” and that’s probably the way I’d categorize it, too. Given the controversy around the new HBO show Girls, I should make explicit what is probably obvious by now: there are no people of color in this book. (*ten points if you get the reference)

There isn’t much plot, and those looking for a meditation on 9/11 should look elsewhere. The reason to read These Days Are Ours is Hailey. The story is told from her first person point of view. She’s very much a character emerging from adolescence into adulthood. When we first meet Hailey, she makes it clear that marrying Brenner, whom she barely knows, is the key to her happiness. Through her admiration of Brenner, or rather, an idealized and 90% fictitious version of Brenner, we learn that Hailey’s parents’ divorce devastated her, and created schisms with her father, brother and mother that remain unhealed. Brenner’s social identity (like Hailey, a wealthy Jewish New Yorker) makes him a suitable match, but the fact that he has everything Hailey wants for herself — a crystal clear career path, a “perfect” family, and a sense of calm confidence — make him more of a foil than a romantic partner.

Hailey knows that she shouldn’t complain about the divorce because it happens to everyone, and that she shouldn’t fret about not having a job because she could just ask her parents, and she shouldn’t whine about feeling at loose ends after college because, after all, she went to college. Then there’s the little fact that in a Manhattan still covered in ash, the last thing she should be thinking about is herself. Trying to balance the extreme narcissism of youth with the more outward looking demands of adulthood is Hailey’s major challenge. She has to learn not to view everyone as either a hindrance or a help to her own interests but to see the world — and herself — from others’ point of view. I loved Hailey. I thought she was funny, smart, insightful, immature in believable ways, and deeply flawed.

Haimoff’s writing reminds me a bit of Nick Hornby, who once said, “Nothing happens in the books… I’m creating a person who’s a lot like the person who’s reading the books.” Hailey’s challenges, while unique to her character and situation, bring out more universal themes. Here are two examples, both from early on in the novel:

(1) Hailey spots a rival for Brenner’s affection:

The first time I saw her, she was wearing a denim jacket. People didn’t even wear denim jackets in 1998. But the day I saw her in a denim jacket, I thought maybe that was what was it. The denim jacket. Or maybe it was the pashmina scarf she wore the time after that, the periwinkle one that brought out her eyes. Maybe it was her fake-looking perfectly aligned teeth that she rarely showed, but when she did, made time freeze. Or maybe it was her hair. That perfect golden ad-campaign hair that, no matter how beautiful we all were in our own ways, we would have traded for in a heartbeat.

All of us felt our looks diminish around Victoria. The girls with silky brown hair and huge, almost black eyes; the slender dark girls with the dulce de leche skin and long lashes; the girls with birdlike faces and smoking bodies with great laughs and perfect nails. All of us had played with the same Barbies, saw the same cartoons, read the same fashion magazines. We all knew that she was the best one.

(2) Hailey stares out her window at Central Park, aware that Brenner’s apartment is on the other side. She actually fantasizes about another terrorist attack, one that will bring them running towards each other across the park:

He in his overcoat, me with windblown hair. It would  be wild how, with all the people in the city, it was the two of us who found each other. But that’s how it would be, and it wouldn’t feel strange. We would tell our kids about it when we talked about the great terrorist attacks at the turn of the millennium.

I enjoyed These Days Are Ours and I recommend it, with a couple of caveats, beyond the obvious one that this is not the book for you if you find rich white young people who complain about their lot off putting: I got the sense that Haimoff had to sacrifice depth at times for pacing and tone, and Hailey’s friends, while ever present, were so indistinct that I cannot recall their names or anything else about them. But I appreciated this novel for the compelling protagonist, terrific dialogue, wry humor, and the window into a world I know almost nothing about.

Finally, the title is a lyric from a Paul Simon song, “The Obvious Child”, off of The Rhythm of the Saints (1990):

And in remembering a road sign
I am remembering a girl when I was young
And we said these songs are true
These days are ours
These tears are free
And hey
The cross is in the ballpark
The cross is in the ballpark

When asked about that last line, Simon apparently answered, “The cross, the burden that we carry, is in the ballpark, it’s doable.” As a 43 year old middle class suburban mom, I may have little in common with Hailey, but that’s a lesson I think we all have to learn and re-learn throughout our lives.

1. I decided to take a break from Twitter, so I deactivated my account. I believe I’ve got a month to reactivate it, but I don’t mind starting over if need be. I love Twitter, but it’s too much of a time suck right now. How do I know this for sure? Well, I signed up for Rescue Time, a free program that tracks what you are doing on the web. Suffice to say I did not like the results over the past few weeks. The thing about Twitter is that it always feels like a really short break. But adding up those many short breaks a day is a terrifying thing.

I’ve been trying out some other productivity tools. Freedom is a good (free) program, for Mac users, that turns off the web for a set amount of time. It’s great when I need to write a draft of an ethics consult or a syllabus (For PC users, Self-control does the same thing).

When I’m writing a paper or presentation, though, I need the internet. So, I downloaded Anti-Social, another Mac program, by the same people who brought us Freedom. Anti-Social, which costs $15, blocks a predetermined set of known time wasters (the usual suspects, including Twitter and Facebook), and then any other sites you enter in, for a set amount of time. The nice thing about Anti-Social (as opposed to browser specific programs like Leechblock, which only works when you are in Firefox) is that you can’t get around it by opening another browser.

I do have Leechblock, and one nice thing about it is that you can set it to give you a certain amount of time on a specific site. You see the timer counting down in the right hand corner of the browser bar. After that, you can’t get into the site until the next day. Or… you just open Safari. (You can see why I needed Anti-Social)

This article from The 99 percent lists a few other productivity tools.

Anyway, I did not expect my break from Twitter to alarm so many people (who then emailed me). I’m sorry I didn’t tweet about it first!

2. Classes ended Friday, and now it’s just two final exams and the usual end of semester chores. This academic year has been marked with greater than usual involvement in theses. I directed an honors thesis of a biology student in bioethics. It was the first time a bio student was allowed to write an ethics thesis at my uni, and everyone was pleased with the results. He’s heading to medical school, and I feel so proud of him for having made ethics a central part of his undergraduate education. I believe it will make him a better physician.

I also sat on a master’s committee in rhetoric. That student wrote on the history of sex reassignment surgery from its inception in the 1930s to about the 1970s. She focused on the way medical discourses helped to create the “transgender person.” Fascinating stuff.

Third, I’m directing a PhD in feminist bioethics. She’s working on the intersection of law, politics, and medical discourses in abortion “counseling.” This student was named our college’s outstanding T.A this year and I’m so proud of her.

And finally, a master’s student in English showed up on my office doorstep asking to do an independent study on feminist perspectives on urban fantasy. It’s like manna from heaven! We’re going to set up a reading list and try to get a lot of it done this summer. I hope to blog about it.

Whenever I complain about my current job, I have to remember that if I were at a larger university with loads of faculty specializing in these areas, I would never get to be involved in so many wonderful projects.

3. Reading, etc. 

I’m reading a bunch of books at one time:

The classic Fabio cover

Savage Thunder, Johanna Lindsey, romance ($3.99 on Kindle)

The Sheik, E. M. Hull, romance (free for Kindle, also available free all over the web)

These Days Are ours, Michelle Hamioff, general fiction (sent to me by the author)

Virginia Lovers, Michael Parker, general fiction (sent to me by the publisher)

I’ve also been watching Mad Men. I am about six episodes into season 1, and am enjoying it quite a bit. Great for long cycles at the gym.

Finally, we saw Pirates! yesterday and LOVED it. So funny. I’m still chuckling over one pirate named “The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate” (he’s a woman) and another called ”The Pirate who Likes Kittens and Sunsets.” The film is based on a series of books by Gideon Defoe.

Have a great week!

I’d like to make three points about it, from my own point of view as a philosophy professor who specializes in feminist ethics, and as someone who does a good amount of clinical ethics work outside the academy:

(a) The important of the apology: I’ve seen some bloggers asking what the point is of an apology. Of course, no apology has the power to reverse time and undo the moral wrong that has been committed. But I don’t view ethics as a ledger you keep clean. Ethics is a way of being in community. The Story Siren’s plagiarism created rifts in the community. In particular, it damaged the trust on which the book blogging community is based. A good apology can help begin the process of moral repair. What we got from The Story Siren, beginning from the moment she asked her victims to keep quiet, continuing when she deleted her own plagiarism post, and then again when she reworded her own (already inadequate) second apology post, was the kind of apology that seeks to repair personal damage and restore personal social status, much like the celebrity and politician apologies we see on TV every week.

A restorative apology is not focused on the self, but on re-building community. Since The Story Siren appears to be moving on, business as usual, I doubt one is forthcoming. I’m sorry that she has opted not to take this opportunity for educating and strengthening the book blogging community.  I won’t bore you with my idea of the elements such an apology would contain, but I will make a prediction based on my many years as an ethics consultant working with health care providers who have made medical errors: without a meaningful attempt to take responsibility and restore trust, The Story Siren will never fully recover. With them, she may become more admired and influential than ever.

(b) Blogging is writing: I’ve been distressed to see the many defenders of The Story Siren who have claimed that there is nothing new in blogging, so there’s no possibility of plagiarism. My own undergraduate students sometimes say the same. Putting aside the question of plagiarism and “common knowledge”, I see this as part of a general view of blogging that it is somehow not writing. My fellow academics will defend their blogs by talking about how it helps them “with their writing”, by which they mean … other writing: journal article writing, monograph writing, grant writing, etc. Authors will say blogging helps them “with their writing”, too. By “writing”, they mean novel writing, short story writing.

But blogging IS writing. It may not be the same kind of writing as writing a novel or a journal article, but it is writing. I’m sorry that so many YA bloggers think so little of what they do. It’s as if, to some of them, creating blog posts is like taking a piss. You’ve got to go, and it just flows naturally. But that’s not my experience as either a creator or reader of blog posts. I see bloggers talking about how they are wrestling with a difficult post, editing a review for the tenth time, killing themselves trying to make sure their tone and words are appropriate for their post. Even The Story Siren’s “apology” post nods to the effort book blogging takes by making reference to the “pressure” she was under.

When I look at the book blogging community (by which I mean everyone who writes about books), by and large, I see a hard working, reflective, self-aware group of writers.

(c) Women and moral autonomy: Perhaps the most distressing facet of this whole thing is the tendency to characterize legitimate ethical questions and well-grounded moral judgment as jealousy, hatred, pettiness, or some other selfish and nonrational phenomenon. I have seen the same thing happen in the romance community. I think I’m uniquely situated given that my main job is teaching the history of ethical theory, and my other job is to help manage ethical conflicts in a large hospital, so I’d like to share what this looks like to me.

The history of Western moral philosophy, as diverse as it is in other respects, is, by and large, a history in which women are absent. Beginning well over two thousand years ago, and continuing through to the twentieth century, moral philosophers have claimed that women cannot be moral agents for a variety of reasons including their powerful emotions, their weak wills, their inability to grasp rational moral principles, their biology, and their social roles as caretakers. A moral agent, by the way, doesn’t just take morally praiseworthy and blameworthy action, but also makes moral judgments about other moral agents. I’m not going to throw quotes at you, but before you dismiss them for being philosophers, recall that these men, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, etc., are products of societies which largely agreed with them.

I wish I could say that the opinion that women aren’t fit to identify ethical issues and make moral judgments — that is, act as full participants in the moral community — is a relic of the past. But I can’t, because I’ve seen too many times the way women’s legitimate ethical concerns are brushed off as … jealousy, hatred, pettiness, or some other selfish and nonrational phenomenon. How else to explain that when a male physician refuses to perform a procedure he thinks is unsafe or unwise, he is applauded for his conscientious objection, but when a female nurse attempts to do the same, she is reprimanded? The physician gets kudos, while the nurse “needs more education.” I’ll spare you many, many variations on that theme I have seen in my career.

My point is that the very ability to name something as an ethical issue, and to hold others accountable for it, requires a certain amount of social power. Historically, and at present, some groups have less of that power than others. I’m sorry to see some women participate so eagerly in a tradition that casts women as morally stunted, selfish children, unable to think past their own out of control emotions.

Thanks to everyone who has written in the past week on this.

I watched John Hughes’ 1986 film Pretty in Pink on TV last night, and I just so happened to be reading You Couldn’t Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation by Susannah Gora (Crown, 2010) at the same time. Credit to Gora, especially Chapter Six,  ”SITTING PRETTY: Ringwald and Hughes Reteam for Pretty in Pink, a Rose-Tinted Look at Teenage Love” for most of the list below.

1. The poster. The Breakfast Club (1985) was released just a year prior to Pretty in Pink (1986), and its poster featured the characters staring unsmilingly at the camera (Annie Leibowitz’s camera, to be precise). According to Gora, this was a departure from teen film posters which tended to emphasize the funny or silly, even when they contained serious elements (see, for example, the poster for Fast Times at Ridgemont High).

2. The Ringwald-Hughes reteaming, sort of. Ringwald had already starred in Sixteen Candles (1984) and The Breakfast Club, both written and directed by John Hughes. As he had done with those films, Hughes wrote the part of Andie Walsh for Ringwald. But he left directing duties to first time director Howard Deutch, who was until then best known for cutting film trailers. The studio, Paramount, wanted a bigger name for the female lead, someone like Jennifer Beals, who was famous for her role as the welder-exotic dancer in Flashdance (1983). Luckily, Beals turned them down.  Can you imagine an actor best known for this shower scene as Andie?

3. They wanted Charlie Sheen for the role of Blane McDonnagh. Or, if not Sheen, some lantern-jawed jock type. When Andrew McCarthy showed up, at Ringwald’s request, Hughes and Deutsch were puzzled:

“‘Him!? He’s just sort of this little shy, twerpy guy.’

After the audition, Ringwald went up to Hughes and Deutch and said, “That’s the kind of guy I would fall in love with.”

McCarthy grins thinking back on it. “I wasn’t gonna outcool a guy,” he says. Vulnerability and humility were what he “had to offer. And so I accentuated that.” (Gora, Kindle Locations 2696-2703)

4. They wanted Anthony Michael Hall for the part of Duckie. But Hall had been in four Hughes films in two years (Vacation, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club) and wanted to try new things. He also felt the “two guys and a girl” plot was a rehash of Sixteen Candles. What did he make instead? Out of Bounds. Never heard of it? Me neither.

5. James Spader won the part of Steff by being a jerk in the audition process, walking in with a cigarette, putting it out on the floor, acting like an arrogant jerk (Gora, loc. 2779). He had starred in Tuff Turf (1985), a teen music-dance film the cheesy likes of which today’s teens will never know. Unless… they click here to see Spader’s character leap out of bed, in his boxers, holding two pistols, and shoot a fly off an Einstein poster on his bedroom wall (scroll ahead to 8:10 or so. It’s worth it, I promise.). I had a huge crush on Steff as a teen and felt then, as now, that all of the sex appeal of McCarthy and Cryer together wouldn’t fill one one Steff’s ever present silver flasks. Was there ever an actor who could rock a linen suit, unbuttoned shirt, loafers, no socks, and Bonnie Bell lip gloss like Spader? And he wore this to school!

6. Bit parts. Did you know that Gina Gershon had a small role in Pretty in Pink, as one of the rich bitches? That “comedian” Andrew Dice Clay was in it, playing a bouncer? That it’s the future vampire slayer, Buffy Summers — Kristy Swanson — who winks at Duckie at the end? And that Dweezil Zappa, who was Molly’s boyfriend at the time shows up briefly, too? Here’s a 1986 People pic of Molly and Dweezil.

7. A tragic death. Alexa Kenin, who played Andie’s mouthy friend who smoked in gym class, died before the film released, and it is dedicated to her and to a set decorator. According to the website findagrave.com, she was either beaten to death or died of an asthma attack.

8. The music. Hughes himself listened to music –namely British new wave bands like Depeche Mode and the Psychedelic Furs — that wasn’t yet well-known in the US. Ringwald loved that kind of music, too. Although Director Deutch wanted American rock, and would have preferred the Eagles, Hughes won out. I have to agree, watching the film again last night: the soundtrack was excellent.

The songs that the kids in Pretty in Pink are listening to, says music critic Rob Sheffield, “are by bands that only obscure, gloom-obsessed, gloom-obsessed, big-hair New Wave-y kids were listening to at the time—yet the movie presents that as the lingua franca of Midwestern American adolescence.” (Gora, Kindle Locations 3225-3226)

That said, there were two things I didn’t like about the soundtrack. One problem was having the Psychedelic Furs re-record “Pretty in Pink” to sound more upbeat and less dramatic than their original version. Thankfully, the lyrics remain pretty dark:

Richard Butler explained the song’s meaning to Mojo magazine November 2010: “The song was about a girl who kinda sleeps around, and thinks it’s really cool and thinks everybody really likes her, but they really don’t. She’s just being used. It’s quite scathing.”

The second really wounded me: failing to use Nik Kershaw’s 1984 original version of “Wouldn’t It Be Good”, opting instead for a new version with the Danny Huston Hitters. WTF??!!! “Wouldn’t It Be Good” was my favorite song and video of 1984.

One more bit of music trivia: did you know Suzanne Vega wrote “Left of Center” for the film, and for Andie specifically? I did not!

9. I liked Andie a lot on a re-viewing of this film. Boy, was she tough. I hadn’t remembered that. She supported her father emotionally and financially. She helped Duckie with his homework and Iona with her man problems. She was way more mature and strong than either male lead. Here she is, ripping Blane a new one for dodging her phone calls after asking her to the prom. And Blane actually cries! He was pretty milquetoast, it has to be said, pinballing the entire film between a domineering bff and a usually pissed-off redhead.

She goes to the prom alone. Nuff said.

10. The clothing. Ugh. For all the Andie’s vaunted fashion sense, I never liked how she dressed.  I understand it even less now. I am prepared to acknowledge this as a personal failing. But… could she have looked any more matronly than in the gray getup she wore on her date with Blane?

And, while I realize her prom dress showcased her grit and creativity and nonconformity, and I do love the neckline, couldn’t it at least have fit her body?

Ok, have at me *ducks.*

11. The ending. Everyone knows by now that Hughes’ screenplay called for a different ending. As Gora writes:

[Andie] is reinvigorated when she and Duckie reunite at the prom, in an “us against the world” climax. “It was sort of romantic,” Cryer says of the sequence, “but mostly, they were friends. There was not a kiss.” In that last shot, with Duckie and Andie twirling together in the center of the dance floor, oblivious to the stares, the movie seemed to be saying: there will always be Blanes in the world, but in this moment, that doesn’t matter. (Gora, Kindle Locations 2888-2891)

Test audiences booed. Gora says “60%” wanted Andie to end up with Blane. So they reshot the ending, having Blane show up alone, looking remorseful, and tested both versions with audiences, with the new one winning handily.  The new ending, although not favored by the director and others behind the scenes, had many advantages: it pleased the target market, was therefore more commercial, capitalized on the sexual chemistry between Ringwald and McCarthy, and, perhaps less plausibly, sent the message that economic divides could be bridged by love. On the negative side, it made the film fluffier, more of a fantasy, and sent a mixed message about both McCarthy’s and Ringwald’s characters. Are audiences supposed to forgive Blane’s after a ten second speech (“You said you couldn’t be with someone who didn’t believe in you. Well I believed in you. I just didn’t believe in me. I love you. Always.”) and puppy dog eyes? Was Andie truly strong and self-respecting or not? To this day the director, Howard Deutch, regrets it:

“I thought the new ending was heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. I thought it was unfair and wrong, and that’s not what the movie was intended to be. It felt,” he says, searching for the right word, “immoral.” (Gora, Kindle Locations 3045-3047)

12. Duckie. As much as I didn’t think Blane deserved Andie, I never understood how anyone could think Duckie was appealing as a love interest for Andie. To me, he was like an annoying little brother. He wore lederhosen and porkpie hats, for goodness sakes!

To the filmmakers, Duckie was the heart of the movie, but to me, Duckie was, at best, comic relief, and at worst, a deeply annoying scene chewer. Apparently, Ringwald agreed with at least part of my assessment:

“Actually,” Ringwald continues, holding nothing back, “I think he seemed gay. I mean, if they remade the movie now, he would be, like, the gay friend who comes out at the end. He wouldn’t be winking at a blonde [Kristy Swanson], he would be winking at a cute guy…I feel bad saying that I really fought for Robert Downey, Jr.,” Ringwald allows, “because it sort of seems like I don’t appreciate Jon’s performance, which I totally do—it’s just, it really did affect the movie.” Cryer is indeed aware of Ringwald’s feelings surrounding all of this. He points out that on the 2006 “Everything’s Duckie” edition DVD of Pretty in Pink, “Molly dropped the bomb that she would’ve been fine with the original ending if Robert Downey, Jr., had played Duckie…But since it was me, she just couldn’t see it. It was like, wow, so I’m that unattractive? Thanks, Mol!”(Gora, Kindle Locations 2935-2941)

I agree 100% with Ringwald. If they had cast Downey, the original ending would have worked perfectly.

13. Blane’s prom scene hair. They had to call the actors back to reshoot the new ending. By then, McCarthy had shaved his head and lost tons of weight for another role, so they used a wig. It’s truly appalling. I wasn’t able to find a good image, but here’s a link to the scene (skip to 2:01).

14. Classy. The 1970s and 80s inaugurated period of quickly widening class distinctions in the US. There’s been some interesting academic work on the Hughes films, a lot of it focusing on the way the romance narratives intersect with class distinctions. Here’s a bit from an article called “Postfeminist Cliques? Class, Postfeminism, and the Molly Ringwald-John Hughes Films” by Anthony C. Bleach from Cinema Journal (Vol 49, Issue 3, 2010, pp. 24-44):

Like Bernstein, Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner suggest that Hughes’s teen films have “the makings of a socialist discourse,” as they “make class differences the basis of their romance plots.”‘ What his films actually accomplish with this “subliminal” discourse seems to be equivocal, though. On one hand, Ryan and Kellner claim that his films appear to “mobilize persistent populist anger against unjustifiable differentials in the distribution of wealth” by using romance narratives that show teenagers from different classes superseding class differences in order to join together. On the other hand, these same films can’t seem to think outside of these class differences: “none . . overtly advocates a leveling” of them. What Hughes seems to be saying in his films is that “the metaphor of romance . , . promotes the persistence of class differences by suggesting that they ultimately make no difference.” Regardless, his films do express “a desire for such leveling” of class differences, although on a “personal/emotional” level rather than on a “structural/rational” one…

Jon Lewis also discusses the ways Hughes’s teen films emphasize the importance of individual solutions to class differences: “Hughes’s little dramas of class warfare end . . . with the triumph of individuality”^ Lewis claims, importantly, that it is the female protagonist whose place in the narrative allows her to upset the social order of things. He argues that the protagonist’s “populism,… [her] democratic benevolence, coordinates a victory of romance over cynicism.”"‘ Further, he claims that Hughes’s teen films insist “on the clairvoyance and persistence of the feminine.”" These critics suggest that one reason why Ringwald and these films are endlessly remembered today might be because a young woman is the one figure across the films who attempts to navigate the class differences of her social milieu.’

15.  “Seminal! Iconic! Generation-defining!” Really? I like Gora’s book, but there are a lot of overblown claims like these:

there is one generation who was particularly, and permanently, affected by these movies: the post–Baby Boom cohort born in the late 1960s and 1970s, labeled Generation X. For these people who came of age in the 1980s, this cinematic world and its players made an indelible mark upon their formative years. (Gora, Kindle Locations 246-248)

“these are the films that define every teenage generation.”

“Maybe the reason today’s teens relate so deeply to these films is because the movies helped create the very notion of the teenage experience as we know it.”

“the shared experience of a generation forever changed by the movies of their youth.”

These films “captured and defined something that is very powerful and meaningful to people.”

I was a white suburban middle-class heterosexual American high school girl from 1983-1987 — the target audience if there ever was one –  and I would deny every one of these claims. This is actually the first time I’ve seen Pretty in Pink in at least 20 years, and I only watched it because it was on TV. I can’t recall if I saw these movies in the theater or on video.  I certainly wouldn’t say they had a big impact on my life or on my friends’ lives. It’s been enjoyable re-watching some of these old Hughes films, but no different than re-watching Terminator or Blade Runner or Lucas or The Sure Thing or any of the other movies I saw at the same time.

That said, it’s been fun taking this little trip into film history. I’m working on a post on Some Kind of Wonderful. Stay tuned!

1. I know that guy: the hero, Tom, is so well-characterized I feel like I could walk by him any minute. Not so much his exciting history or his great looks — that’s the stuff escapist novels are made of — but the little things he did that seemed so real. Like going on a cross country biking trek wearing cargo shorts and an old Nirvana t-shirt, buying beer and chipped ice instead of water at a rest stop, taking his hands off the handlebars to stretch, swinging out into the traffic lane so he can look back and see the heroine, refusing to use a GPS, being open to detours and fun little hole-in-the-wall pit-stops.

2. Unique setting: the hero and heroine are cycling from Oregon to Virginia on the TransAmerica Trail. Have you ever read a romance novel that took place almost entirely on two wheels?

3. It’s funny: Here, Tom’s arguing with his sister Taryn about going on the bike trip:

“Please, Tom. You can’t ride your bicycle across the country alone. It’s insane. You’ll end up being slaughtered by a serial killer.”

“Taryn, I’m thirty-five, single, tattooed, and antisocial. I’m the serial killer.”

“Okay, point taken. But you could get hit by a car and bleed to death by the side of the road.”

“How would riding with another person prevent that?”

“It wouldn’t, but he could call me on his cell phone so you could tell me you love me with your dying breath.”

4. Sexual tension so hot you could fry an egg on your Kindle. 

A deep crease appeared between his eyebrows, and he frowned. “Let me make sure I have this right. You want to sleep with me, but you don’t want to want to?”

She tilted her head in acknowledgment.

“Why not?”

When she didn’t answer right away, he reminded her, “Cards on the table, Marshall.”

“I didn’t want everything to get complicated,” she admitted finally. “The ride’s the important thing, and I don’t need a boyfriend or a  …   whatever you’d be afterward. I’m not looking for all that.”

He nodded again, silently considering her explanation. She still needed answers of her own.

“So why are you here?”

“For you.”

The way he said it— flat, expressionless— it was the least romantic declaration she’d ever heard. But then he reached out to cup her chin, his hand warm and gentle, long fingers curving around to her jaw. She leaned into the touch. When their eyes met, she saw a fierce desire that matched hers, and something else she couldn’t name, something that spoke to the part of her that didn’t like being so out of control. Whatever this was between them, he was in it, too, and he didn’t have any more of a handle on it than she did.

5. A philosophical theme: Tom is reading Walden, and Lexie, the heroine, teaches Thoreau to her high school students. They have different views about how to interpret it (Tom thinks it confirms his own solitary lifestyle, while Lexie thinks it’s an exhortation to live fully). It’s not “hit you over the head” philosophizing. It just works for the setting and the characters.

6. A terrific fight between the hero and heroine. You know how you’re reading a romance, and the hero is being a jerk, and you invent in your head the things the heroine should just friggin’ say to the hero? Lexie does it. And, she gets wince-inducingly mean, which I liked because it meant she’s human too, not a perfect partner.

7. A real moral dilemma. The decisions Tom made in the past really were hard ones. I do ethics consulting in the health care field, and I always have to say to people that I’m not the ethics police, ready to hand out tickets for obvious infractions. A true moral dilemma is one where good people who want to do the right thing can’t figure out what that is. I  don’t think the choices Tom made were no-brainers. They were truly tough, and someone was going to get hurt no matter what.

8. A heroine who grows, too. Whenever you have a wounded hero, it’s his book, and this is no exception. But I thought Knox did a good job with Lexie, too. Some red flags went up for me at the beginning when Lexie seemed pretty jaded by her teaching job. I felt this wasn’t getting addressed much in the book, but at the very end, when certain things happen, I could look back and see what Knox was doing…. telling Lexie’s story in a more subtle way.

9. A bit of jealousy: I am sorry to admit I am a sucker for this, but there it is. In my own defense, I hate the kind of cro-magnon jealousy in books like the last category romance I read (you know, when the hero has to bare his teeth and start throwing insults when the heroine — whom he has just met —  so much as smiles at an old — male — friend). But a little jealousy when, some time after their relationship has begun in earnest, the heroine dances with other guys, or goes on a dinner date with another guy? Love it!

I couldn’t put this one down. I had my Kindle on my lap at stop signs, propped on the treadmill at the gym, in my hand while my gray hair was being turned to brown, and fell asleep with it on my stomach last night. I’ll be checking out Knox’s back list for sure. (Edited b/c this was her debut! — I think…)

You can read the first chapter here.

Kenda started Lurv a la Mode in January 2008. Lurv is a book blog focused on romance, especially paranormal romance, with some young adult, fantasy, and sci fi as well. Apparently, work, motherhood, and running one blog were not challenging enough, so in June 2010, Kenda, with her sister, started a food blog, Full Fork Ahead. Full Fork Ahead is a beautiful blog that manages to make complicated, delicious recipes seem doable for the average cook.

I have two blogs, but I can never seem to get the other one going. I was curious about what managing two blogs was like for Kenda, so I emailed her a list of questions. It’s taken me several weeks to actually get this post up, so I have to thank her for her patience.

1. You have run a successful book blog focused on PNR/SFF for the last few years. How has your book blog, and/or your attitude towards that blog, changed over time?

First of all – thanks for thinking my blog is successful! That’s a pretty subjective topic these days (what with the inclusion of publishing/their PR/ARCs in the mix; status-mongering follower counts, etc.) and I tend to want to measure my success with it lately in terms of how happy it’s making me, since it’s my personal space online. And that ties directly with my recent attitude towards it lately, which has, honestly, been one of neglect. I’ve tried to step back since the beginning of 2012 to decide what’s most important to me when it comes to book blogging. I used to work a lot more advanced reading copies and author promo into my posts (usually instigated solely by me, not contact from a publisher rep; the ARCs I do occasionally get unsolicited), but I’ve eased off that – a lot – because of my awareness of the publishing industry in general, and more importantly maybe, what they expect of bloggers, has added way too much stress to blogging for me.

I’m trying to get back to what makes blogging fun for me. No more catering to publishing whims, or, rather, worrying about them. And no more paying attention to talk such as “book reviews don’t matter” and “bloggers don’t make a difference” or other such noise. I’m not online to make things easier for publishers anyway and I’m not here so that the negativity surrounding blogging can have a field day while it picks at bloggers. I let that negativity in, I let it get to me. No more.

2. In your opinion, how has the book blogging landscape changed within your niche over the past few years? Or has it?

I started out blogging primarily thanks to my romance reading, but it’s shifted more the last couple of years to fantasy and a little scifi. I’m getting back into YA as well. I still try to read all of these but thanks to being in a few niche genres reading-wise, I think it’s safe to say that we are all way too varied to pin down trends within these blogging communities themselves (um, or maybe I’m too irregular a blogger lately to notice them). I do think we bloggers influence each other a lot, though, and that’s when you might see in influx of blogs that seem as though they’re all excited about the same things at the same time.

And honestly, as much as I try to stay on top of what other bloggers are up to in each of the niches I enjoy, there’s just so many of us out there! I honest-to-sparkle-ponies believe that this gives blog readers a lot of great variety to choose from in regards to personal styles, voice and the like when it comes to blogger opinions of books.

3. How has the soaring popularity of YA changed things for PNR readers/bloggers?

Twilight. Oh how I love/loathe you.

I’ve been reading a few older YA books, most recently Howl’s Moving Castle by the late Diane Wynne Jones, and realized that, at least in part, older YA seems so much better than what is being put out today to resemble to colossal success of Twilight madness. While I think it’s great that YA has soared in popularity – it’s getting young folks to read (and older – hoorah!) – I’m not a fan of most of the newer, trendier YA fiction topics. If I see one more angel/mysterious boy/TSTL parental reference I might scream.

That aside, there’s no doubt it’s sprung a fresh excitement for blogging on the subject. And heck, as much as I disliked the 2nd and 3rd Hunger Games books it’s, again, getting folks reading and passionate about books. How has it changed things? Maybe it’s made books feel more accessible to the average reader, and with social media being so popular, it certainly feels as though YA publishers know exactly what they’re doing in connecting with these readers online, maybe made them feel more a part of the whole publishing equation. A lot of people seem to like the appearance that their opinion is being considered by a company whose goods they like (and the results when said company actually does listen).

4.  You started a new food blog, Full Fork Ahead, with your sister. How is that going? Any surprises?

Full Fork will be TWO years old soon! My word – it’s a lot of work. That wasn’t really a surprise, but still. Work, when it piles up, just tends to catch a person unawares. I think the only reason that’s OK with me in the long run is because a. it allows me to spend time with my sister, who is a wonderful inspiration and supportive of anything I want to try, and b. finding inspiration in food itself is fun, and doing/talking about something that makes people so happy (not unlike books!) feels very rewarding when folks react to what we do.

Food blogging has been fun and yet another avenue of stress relief and creative outlet-ing. I halfway hope that it turns into something more one day – and that my sister and I can manage any additional workload that might bring then!

4b. What would you say is the focus of your food blog?

We test recipes that are already out there. I guess you could say we’re kind of like a recipe review site, similar to book blogging, really. We pick out interesting recipes, things we might not have been brave enough to try prior, and we cook ‘em up, photograph them and relay our opinions in the posts – as well as any shenanigans that might pop up. Sometimes we might put out a FFA original, but for now we are not developing recipes so much as we are appreciating being adventurous with other people’s creations.

5. What is the difference between managing a book blog and managing a food blog?

At their most basic levels, there’s probably not a lot of difference – you pick out what interests you and you read it/cook it, take notes on the reading/take pictures of the cooking and eventually you publish your thoughts on all of it. And you wait with the most baited of all baited breath for comments to come in, some signal, however faint, that someone else out there identifies with how you see things. Or that maybe will bring a fresh perspective.

On the more technical side, though, we definitely have a more set way of doing things for the food blog as opposed to my rather relaxed, by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach to the book blog.

6. How are the two blogging worlds different? Similar?

If we were talking broohahas, it’s shockingly similar. We do not get into those at all with food blogging, though and rarely pay attention to the politics of food blogging unless it seems like something we’d need to learn from. Negativity issues aside, though, the food blogging community feels so much broader than the book ones. Book blogging feels much more inclusive after trying to branch out and reach out at other food blogs. It’s not that food bloggers aren’t nice people. On the contrary, I think most I’ve seen online feel very friendly and genuine, if not a more distant type if that makes any sense. Book bloggers just seem ten times more approachable. I’m not sure why unless it’s that I started book blogging first and have had more time to get to know other book peeps online.

7. Have you brought lessons from one realm into the other?

Just to enjoy what is being done with either platform. Be as transparent as possible. Do not try to cater to what others feel is the best way to do something – establish your own unique, strong voice that people will identify you by. These came mostly via book blogging, obviously, since I’ve been doing that longer. I think it can apply to the food side as well. So much of what makes up a blog is your personality, so have fun with it and others will, too.

8. What is it like working on a blog with a partner, as opposed to being solo?

I’ve always known I can’t work with folks when it comes to book blogging. I’m way too casual a reader to feel like I’d be contributing enough to a group effort. I’d always feel like I was letting the others down, worrying about that. With me, I’m not letting anyone down and if I feel like I’m getting behind on my book blog I can always console myself with the fact that I don’t stop reading. It’ll get back to the book blogging itself when I can. There are other ways to stay in touch too: twitter, commenting at other blogs, etc

With food blogging, I’m so grateful to my sister – she keeps me on track. I’m not an organized person, though I’m trying to get better at that with a cooking schedule – does two weeks out count as organized? But I can be a bit of a diva in the kitchen and my sister reminds me to bring it all back to reality and in the realm of minor sanity. Like, if something we’re baking falls flat, it’s not a national crisis, it’s just a flat, unsuccessful attempt. It happens to everyone.

9. Your graphics on both blogs are beautiful. What tools do you use to create your header on LALM? What tools do you use to get those beautiful photos on FFA? Do you recommend anything (a website, a tool, and/or a word of advice) for bloggers who want to make their blogs look better?

First off – thank you! I do graphic design by day so it was important for me to have at least a little control over how the book blog looked, given that I’m a zero in tech efficiency. No CSS or HTML for me unless the blog looking like scrambled eggs is called for.

For graphics I create on the book blog, I use whatever version of Photoshop I have on hand + cheap stock images + whatever free tools/graphics/fonts I can find via a very generous online design community. Here’s a hint – Google free vector art or free graphic design elements or free textures. If the creator offers them up with no strings attached, congrats, you’ve just taken advantage of the generosity of a great graphic designer. Go forth and frolic in all that goodness and create your own unique things.

For the food blog, I had an extra Woo themes layout that was sitting about unused, so we went with it for its simplicity. My sister and I wanted the photography to speak for us and felt the simpler layout would allow for this. We primarily use my macro lens for shooting, attached to my Nikon D3100 camera. I edit all the photos in Adobe Lightroom and then Photoshop. Lightroom is a photo editing god. No joke. Sis and I aren’t professional photographers and while I think we do a decent job picking out recipes, arranging things and all, it’s a good thing Lightroom is on my computer. Maybe one day I’ll be able to load photos straight from the camera, with no editing, but that day hasn’t come yet. I need more photography training or just more time using what I’ve got.

10. What impact do you think social media sites like Twitter and Pinterest have on blogging? Do you use social media differently for the two blogs?

I use social media just about how I blog for each blog. With the book blog, I’ve managed to find many like-minded folks that share a passion for books, which is wonderful since I can friend them on Twitter and talk, talk, TALK about books till either the cows or the family come home. Twitter for my book side feels easier because, again, the book community feels much more welcoming to me. It’s casual, just like how I blog.

For the food blog, I’m still easing into things I suppose. I’ll tweet our food interests a few times a week, and I have a Pinterest board mainly to pimp other food blogs, but I try not to bludgeon people at any time with my social media efforts. I don’t see the need to announce the same blog post for either blog more than a couple of times or so a day, if that many. Sis and I do have a Facebook page for the food blog, but I feel Facebook’s made that a lot easier with their timeline layout. The photo quality there has improved and much of food blogging is that visual side of things.

As far as impact, well, we get most of our food blog traffic via what I suppose most would consider social media. I’m seeing a few food bloggers and photographers actively asking people not to use their work on social media sites, especially Pinterest, but our own traffic has greatly improved via social media, and not necessarily media we’ve initiated (Foodgawker is the exception, though I’m not sure if that’s considered social media or not). I think the generosity of people sharing what we do will have a far greater positive impact than worrying who might be stealing our photos (though I know this is a genuine and good-to-be-aware-of concern).

11. You chose not to have a separate twitter account for FFA. Why is that?

Time, not enough of it. My inability of my brain to expand any further to fit one more thing in. And, honestly, a large enough group of Twitter pals that might appreciate our food blog efforts and hopefully jog over there to see what’s going on. So far that has seemed to work pretty well!

12. What are your current goals for each blog?

To keep my book blog a place that helps me de-stress. To pimp out books I love and speak frankly about the ones I don’t. To help inspire people to read and hopefully be inspired by them to read in turn.

The food blog? I’m not sure! A lot of food bloggers seem to be getting offers brought to them, and we are not at all adverse to this. We’ve had one or two offers that were interesting, but not for us in the end. Let’s just say we’re going to keep cooking, finding new recipes we love (and hopefully you will, too) and if someone wants to help us make that something more one day, or we see a place for opportunity, we will be excited to consider it.

Or maybe Sis and I will open up our dream cafe/bakery one day.

13. Can you give us a link to one or two representative posts from each blog? (I can do this if you’d rather)

I suppose I might think I’m a funny person. I like this post I did on guilty pleasure reading, and this post for White Sangria has been one of our all-time most popular posts for FFA. It still gets random days with hundreds and hundreds of hits alone. Viva la adult fruit juice!

14. What emotions (positive and negative) does blogging arouse in you? Does it ever upset you? How do you handle that?

I think you can guess from my very first answer that blogging has upset me before. When folks try to tell others how they should/should not blog? Do. Not. Like. Some of that is genuinely good advice, but some of it is also ridiculously restrictive and snobbish or it isn’t phrased well and comes off, to me, in those ways. I handle it usually by either typing a fuming tweet, then never send it into the wide, wooly world (or…sometimes I do! Eeep!). Other times I write a fuming email and send it to a very, very small number of friends who are also online and are gracious enough to let me vent to them. I heart you people, you know who you are.

As for positive, the benefits of blogging are, for a lot of us, not just me, in connecting with other book lovers. Many of us don’t have local peeps that love reading like we do. It’s probably why, in part at least, book blogging is so popular. We’re hoping to reach out to others who like books, too, and who also won’t make us feel bad for what we enjoy reading. What better than sharing a love of something we enjoy so much?

15. Any parting advice for fellow bloggers?

Just be you. Have FUN with it. Don’t worry about what others are doing or what they think you should do. If you’re enjoying what you’re doing, like I said above, others will enjoy it as well.

Thanks Kenda! (ps. You can also find Kenda on Twitter, @Kmont)

I found out about The Lifeboat, Charlotte Rogan’s debut novel (Hachette, March 2012), when a publicist emailed me with a list of March and April titles for review. I stopped dead in my reading tracks when I saw the title. “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” is a very famous 1974 essay by Garrett Hardin, frequently taught in ethics courses. To figure out what the duty is of richer nations to poorer nations, Hardin uses the metaphor of a lifeboat:

So here we sit, say 50 people in our lifeboat. To be generous, let us assume it has room for 10 more, making a total capacity of 60. Suppose the 50 of us in the lifeboat see 100 others swimming in the water outside, begging for admission to our boat or for handouts. We have several options: we may be tempted to try to live by the Christian ideal of being “our brother’s keeper,” or by the Marxist ideal of “to each according to his needs.” Since the needs of all in the water are the same, and since they can all be seen as “our brothers,” we could take them all into our boat, making a total of 150 in a boat designed for 60. The boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice, complete catastrophe.

Lots of people, myself included, find Hardin’s metaphor repugnant, but he would argue that we can’t avoid the “tragedy of the commons” unless we get rid of the sentimental idea that every life has absolute value. Rather than take you down that road, I’ll just say that moral dilemmas in fiction are like catnip to me. Add to that an interesting female protagonist, and I’ve got to read it. So thanks to Hachette for sending me this interesting and unusual book.

The Lifeboat begins with a Prologue in which Grace Winter, 22, a newlywed and a widow (and our first person narrator), is on trial for her life, along with two other women. Grace tells the reader that her lawyers have asked her to write a diary that might be entered as a kind of “exonerating exhibit,” and most of the rest of the book is that diary. In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying Grace and her new husband Henry across the Atlantic is sinking fast. Henry secures Grace a place in a crowded lifeboat. As the ship slips into the ocean and the hours and then days pass, the forty or so people in Lifeboat 14 slowly take stock of their desperate situation. The bulk of the book recounts Grace’s experiences in the lifeboat, and is not only wonderfully written, but impossible to put down.

 

Right away, Hardie, a crew member from the Empress Alexandra, takes charge:

There were bodies floating in the water, too, and living people clung to the wreckage — I saw another mother and child, the white-faced child holding out its hands toward me and screaming. As we came closer I could see that the mother was dead, her body draped lifelessly over a wooden plank and her blond hair fanned out around her in green water. The boy wore a miniature bow tie and suspenders, and it seemed to me ridiculous for the mother to dress him in such an unsuitable way, even though I had always been one to admire fine and proper dress and even though I myself was weighted down by a corset and petticoats and soft calfskin boots, not long ago purchased in London. One of the men yelled, “A little more this way and we can get to the child!” But Hardie replied, “Fine, and which one o’ ye wants to trade places with ‘im?”

Again and again in the early hours, under Hardie’s taciturn leadership, the survivors in the lifeboat make choices in their own collective self-interest, and Grace wonders if their actions “could even be called cruelty when any other action would have meant our certain death.” In one of many turns of phrase that make use of the ocean setting, Rogan writs that “a sense of ourselves in the lifeboat was beginning to form, with Hardie at the center the way a grain of rough sand lies at the center of a pearl.”

Rogan portrays the psychology of the group and its members with spellbinding detail. She shows us how the social hierarchy and norms of the cruise ship give way to a new order, determined not by wealth but by strength of will and body. There isn’t much movement, as everyone is crammed in on a twenty-seven foot long, seven foot wide boat, so even the slightest gesture — a nod, a hesitation — can communicate a new alliance or an unwillingness to obey implicit orders.

At first, they are one group, with one story. But eventually things change:

Because we had all done so, surviving seemed an easy thing, though just beneath the surface of our own stories lurked the stories of the people we had seen throwing babies into the water to save them from the flames.

Some people “fabricate” stories, about other “nearly empty” lifeboats. Grace herself clings to a “useful fiction” that her Henry has survived.  Everyone is a story teller, but their personalities and pre-lifeboat careers dictate the kind of stories they tell. As Grace reports,

Each whispered revelation or fabrication was put together with the other story fragments and obsessively discussed and interpreted, as if the resulting narrative would finally explain why we found ourselves adrift on that vast and lonely sea.

As days become nights and the horizon stretches out endlessly, the difference between truth and falsehood is blurred. The group eventually fractures as much from not being able to agree on one narrative as from a lack of food, water, and exposure to the elements. Even the narrative of human nature as basically good and harmonious, Grace has to leave behind. In a manner Garrett Hardin might have approved of, Grace realizes:

I wanted to think that all people could have what they wanted, that there was no inherent conflict between competing interests, and that, if tragedies had to happen, they were not something mere human beings could control.

Grace’s character slowly emerges in unexpected ways as the story progresses. A woman who at first seems like a naive, sweet newlywed becomes someone much more pragmatic, even cunning. Most surprisingly, it isn’t that the experience in the lifeboat changes or hardens her, but that it strips away layers of culture and decorum to reveal who she really is. Grace emerges as less reliable a narrator, less sympathetic a character, and much, much stronger, than she at first appears. But rather than condemning Grace, Rogan asks us to wonder, right along with her, whether

a person’s choices are only rarely between right and wrong or between good and evil. I saw very clearly that people were mostly faced with much murkier options and that there were no clear signposts marking the better path to take.

A major theme in The Lifeboat, and something that distinguishes it from similar narratives, like the Hitchcock film of the same name, is that the battle for control is between Hardie and a woman, Mrs. Grant, and Rogan seems to consciously play up the gendered aspect of the fight. Throughout the novel, there is a sense of women having to take control of circumstances, specifically circumstances set by men in power, to achieve their aims. Especially in the second half of the novel, Rogan portrays the understanding between the women on the lifeboat in almost mystical terms, referring to a witch here, a high priestess there. I can’t say this was entirely successful, but I am sort of glad: too much Thelma and Louise would have ruined this book for me.

The pace of The Lifeboat slows to a crawl in the last quarter of the book, once Grace is rescued. She is in prison, and we have long scenes with her attorney and her psychiatrist. I would have liked her character to be more solidified once she got on land, but it was not to be. In the courtroom, the direct, blunt moral posturing of the attorneys (“a long discussion about whether or not it was murder for a man who clutched at a plank in order to keep his head above water to thrust away another man…”) pales in interest to the complex, opaque stories that unfolded on the open ocean. Several loose ends were also left undone, such as Grace’s meeting with her mother-in-law, and, most egregiously, a central mystery involving items of value the Empress Alexandra was carrying.

Despite these problems, The Lifeboat is well worth reading either as an exciting, plot-driven tale of shipwreck and survival, or a slow meditation on moral psychology and the role of narrative in our self-understanding and understanding of others. It works very well both ways.