Part of a series: Cassie Edwards 1: The First Post | Cassie Edwards 2: Savage Longings | Cassie Edwards Part 3: Running Fox | Cassie Edwards Part 4: Savage Moon | Cassie Edwards Part 5: Savage Beloved | Follow-up: Penguin (Part 1?) | Official Statement from Signet | AP Article Contains Response from Edwards | RWA Responds to Allegations | A centralized document for the Cassie Edwards situation | Updated Statement from Signet | The NY Times Art Section Story | Cassie Edwards: Remarkable Similarities to Laughing Boy
An article about the Cassie Edwards controversy is in today’s New York Times Arts section, (login may be required). Mostly a summary of the incident, it highlights the ethical points we’ve debated, and links to the masterfully huge PDF Candy constructed that lines up the passages we found. Yay Candy!
I also have word from Michelle Styles that an article appeared in the Telegraph under the headline Romantic novelists out of love over plagiarism.
“I just wanted to clarify my above post, because this seems like it might be directed at me (if it’s not, well, it’s probably good for me to clarify as well).”
Madeline—I assure you that it was not directed at you or anyone else really. Just my opinion on the whole mess. And to be honest, I was in honors classes from 8th grade on, so you may be correct. However, I do find it hard to believe that someone so involved in writing doesn’t know about plagiarism. Perhaps it’s because English, English Lit, and writing have played such a huge role in my life…but, it’s just hard for me to swallow. That said, I wouldn’t know Cassie Edwards if she walked up and stuck a feather in my ponytail so I have no idea what kind of education she received.
Totally off topic, but on a side note ~ this is the first time I’ve been to this site and it’s good to see a group of people with the same sense of humor as me. I think I shall have to visit more often!!
I tried to voice my opinion, lost my temper and said some things I shouldn’t have. For that I apologize.
I still stand on my belief that this could have been handle differently.
Instead of plastering the accusations all over the internet and involving the newspapers I feel that it would have been more professional to have approached the publishers with the issue first.
They wouldn’t have felt pressured, might have looked into the accusations immediately and took care of the matter.
I just hate seeing anyone trashed in the public eye.
Imagine how it would feel to not have any idea something was going on and your telephone suddenly rings and it’s the associated press.
What if Ms. Edwards is forced to retire from writing because of this?
I’m not saying anything else. It’s just very sad to see someone’s life destroyed like this.
Samantha
I know that Candy and Sarah did contact the publishers. Penguin’s first response was that Edwards did nothing wrong. It wasn’t until after significant pressure from its own authors and readers that it changed its mind and said it would investigate.
Ms. Edwards may retire after this but not because of the public outing of her actions but rather because she might not know how to write any other way than through copying.
While it might be painful to watch someone that you care about be accused of wrongdoing, it doesn’t make the accusers in the wrong because if Ms. Edwards hadn’t copied, if she had taken the time to internalize the information and then incorporate that into her fiction, there would be nothing to expose.
Maybe I am too cynical, but I don’t think that Ms. Edwards will be adversely harmed by this. She’s been financially rewarded in the past for her copying and I suspect she’ll be financially rewarded in the future.
What is important is that understanding of the issue of plagiarism is being spread and this is certainly a victory for the genre.
Samantha, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, and to express it.
I would point out that the SBs didn’t plaster all over the internet—they posted their findings on THEIR blog. It’s what they do. And they contacted the publishers involved.
They didn’t involve the newspapers, the press involved itself. It’s what it does.
I can pretty well guarantee that by the time the AP got wind and contacted Ms. Edwards, her publisher had already done so. If they hadn’t, I agree, it would have been just awful to be caught unaware that way.
Samantha – This isn’t a career ending incident. There are any number of writers who have been accused of fraud, James Frey, Janet Dailey – both of them are still writing and bringing home the bacon.
This is a wake-up call to the author and the rest of the industry. This isn’t an isolated incident though I wish it was. CE couldn’t be the only writer in the world borrowing from non-fiction texts, she was the one who was ‘caught’.
If nothing else, she will learn the error of her ways and she and her publisher will work to correct it. If there are others out there doing the same thing, hopefully they will straighten up before they are ‘found out’.
Academics, most who labor in total obscurity with little pay, deserve the credit if their work is used word for word.
Samantha,
I think the point would be that Cassie Edwards will probably be forced to “retire from writing” because she won’t be able to copy anyone else’s work again.
And, if she wouldn’t have copied her stories from others the AP wouldn’t have called her. For cripes sake, she’s over 70 years old and still doesn’t know that she’s supposed to write HER OWN story?…freakin’ unbelievable.
Wake up and smell the crap—the crap that Cassie Edwards copied directly into her stories.
I’m a total fangirl of Nora Roberts, but if she had done something like this (forgive me Nora for the example as I know you never would) I would not be posting the crap you have on this site lambasting Nora, Sarah and Candy just because they commented/revealed the plagirism.
I’ve never read a Cassie Edwards book or I would be sending them back to the publisher and demanding my money back.
Diane
Samantha,
Bravo for having the courage to admit you posted in anger and to apologize for it.
With that said, I still disagree with you. Fraud of all kinds flourishes in silence. The only way to stop it is exposing it to the light of public opinion.
The person who started all this was Cassie Edwards the very first time she copied entire passages from other text into the novels she sold to her publishers as her own work.
Should her career end?
I’m a vindictive person myself, and believe that someone who’s defrauded both her readers and her publishers for years (and this can apply to Janet Dailey just as well), should no longer be published. Run out of town in a rail? A bit drastic, yes. No longer published? Hell, indeed.
And, lets face it: if Ms Edwards has sold the millions of books she claims, she’s made millions of dollars off other people’s words over the years—she can damn well live off that money.
I agree with Sam, this could’ve been handled differently.
Not only do I think it couldn’t have been handled differently, I think it shouldn’t have been handled differently.
As a non-fiction writer, I do feel that many of Ms. Edwards’s defenders are downplaying this specifically because she stole from non-fiction. There are no words in this language to explain how enraged I am by that.
She stole. It is wrong. It needs to be brought into the light. The Bitches were more than polite in just presenting the facts.
Samantha, Tammy: imagine somebody stole your pet. Now imagine that as you were putting up flyers and calling the police and getting your friends to search, someone came up to you and accused you of being too pushy/bitchy about it and ordering you to “handle it differently”. How would you feel?
Ya know; I think that Cassie Edwards is a reasonably intelligent, fully functioning human being. Therefore, I think that she was fully in the know when she copied and pasted. For those of you who think that there’s a reasonable doubt that she didn’t know… it was HER RESPONSIBILITY TO FIND OUT.
To say anything else is to say that Edwards is on the mental level of a four year old and couldn’t possibly understand why copying Mary Sue’s homework is wrong.
Make up your minds. Either she’s a savant with a fondness for the word “savage” or she’s fully cognizant of what she does and chose to pass off chunks of someone else’s work as her own.
I don’t think that there’s anything remotely sad about watching the downfall of someone who makes their living leeching off of other peoples’ work. The destruction of Ms. Edwards’ career, if it comes to that, is fully the fault of Ms. Edwards.
Unless you think that either Candy or Sarah (or both) were over at her house, holding the books open for her to copy.
Goodness. I teach sixth-graders, and those 11-year-olds know that you don’t, just DON’T, copy word for word and pass it off as your own. Sheesh.
As to the idea that “it should have been handled differently.” I would suggest that if the allegations (and associated evidence) had first appeared on network news or in the NY Times, no one would bat an eyelash. The information coming from a blog is what’s got people’s knickers in a twist. Honestly, can you see the 60 Minutes crew playing “nice” with this evidence? (Though it would be interesting to see the Bitches camped out on the Edwards doorstep with microphones and camera crew to get a statement)
I think this blog has been remarkably restrained in covering the story.
I am not trying to be snarky here (despite my user name), but I have a question for those who think it “should have been handled differently.”
How?
Look, even if Candy and Sarah had quietly contacted Signet and the RWA or whoever, it’s highly likely those entities would have had to make a public statement sooner or later. The papers would have gotten involved eventually. The only difference is that this blog would not have been directly involved.
There is no way that this could have been kept entirely under wraps.
Nor should it have been. For all that I’m a giant fan of privacy, when someone commits a wrongdoing, especially one that involves work available to the public, then the public has a right to know.
I don’t think it should have been handled differently. Contacting the person first is what you do if they stole your fanfic or if they’re in your Creative Writing Class. When it’s published material, you contact the proper people first, which means the publisher.
The media picked up the story on their own.
As for what this will do to Cassie Edwards’s career, think about this. She has managed to publish books that constantly get bad reviews in a subgenre that needs to go away. I consider Indian romances the bastard child of the genre. They are stereotypical and offensive. It’s time to phase them out in favor of something else. How about expanding the definition of historicals? Readers have been asking for years to include the 20th century in historicals. If readers are asking for it, there must be a market for it.
Contacting the person first is what you do if they stole your fanfic or if they’re in your Creative Writing Class.
I caught a plagiarizer this past semester, and not only did I not contact her first, I went straight to the department with the information. Then I contacted her.
OMG I must be EVIL!!!
My cynical mind:
Is it absolutely certain Ms. Edwards plagiarized non-fiction only?
I am a freelance copyeditor (I do not work on fiction) and have come across plagiarism a couple of times in books I was copyediting. It’s not hard to figure out—as previous people have said, the sudden and complete change of tone should have alerted SOMEONE. As a copyeditor, I get a feel for when an author is cheating. In the cases I discovered, I flagged it for the editor and author to address; I forget if I tried to rephrase some of the text.
While the fault clearly lies with Edwards, part of me wonders where others’ responsibility lies. The genre fiction market is notorious among freelancers for having the lowest rates in copyediting and proofreading; people who choose to freelance for those titles generally do it because they are fans of the genres. I have no idea how many titles her in-house editor is juggling, or if her in-house editor even reads her ms now that she’s an established author. Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t hand in her ms and have it go straight to press, then a quick proofread, and out the door.
This strikes me as complete and utter sloppiness and acceptance of minimal standards—perhaps because it’s “only” genre fiction, just mindless romance novels for the lonesome and horny? Frankly, I’m disgusted and appalled by the whole thing. Miss Snark once said, “A novel is not a product. It is art.” It’s a pity that Edwards and her publishers do not seem to ever have thought of that.
Contacting the person first is what you do if they stole your fanfic or if they’re in your Creative Writing Class.
That’s lovely for high school.
In the adult world of online fiction, the FIRST thing a plagiarized writer is expected to do is immediately make a public report so that other writers can make sure their work hasn’t been stolen as well. You do this BEFORE you contact the writer or any groups or archives the work’s been submitted to, because if you don’t Little Miss Plagiarist will sure as hell remove her work so you can’t prove she really is a plagiarist – only to put it up six months later under another name when the kerfuffle’s died down.
And that’s just online fiction. In the commercial world, both the victim of plagiarism and any third parties have not just the duty but the responsibility to make sure that allegations are fully and completely reported, and not just to a publisher who could easily sweep it under the carpet.
I am so tired of young people thinking the world is run as it is among high school girl-cliques. The Bitches did nothing wrong.
Her career should absolutely end, but at this point she’s made enough money to end it anyway.
Frankly, the lynch mob attacking SBTB while insisting SBTB is the lynch mob is pissing me off.
This is an IMPORTANT ISSUE and a TERRIBLE ACT to readers and writers of romance. Plagiarism is getting more common in fiction. A site like this one is PRECISELY the right source of change.
And if Signet was dismissive when politely queried, what makes the Pollyanna twerpwads of the world think they EVER would have come clean and done the right thing without the shouts from the internet that SHOVED this story onto front pages and into wide release?
Important change does not happen because a few quiet souls clear their throats over their glass of lemonade. Important change happens because somebody is willing to be called a bitch, but is smart enough to know it’s worth it.
There are no family crests, battle shields, or flags bearing a weasel, fingers steepled politely, and the legend “FREEDOM, AT SOME POINT, WOULD BE LOVELY, IF IT ISN’T TOO MUCH TROUBLE.”
Discoveries of plagiarism in the romance community should have powerful, loud, and uncompromising voices drawing attention to them.
Thank you, SBTB. And enough with the witch crap. We DO curse, you know. (I blogged about that—really annoyed me. My Blog).
I’m mostly just following this here and at Dear Author. Are there any other sites that I should be looking at?
-becca
I’ve had my fanfic plagerized before. And I made sure I had my facts straight before I contacted the person. I asked around first, showed it to people who knew my story, asked their opinion. One person contacted the other writer before I did. I was nice to the person, even offered to help her with her story if she needed it. She took the story down.
But fanfic is a lot different from a published novel. In fanfic you have no legal recourse if your stuff is stolen. You just complain loud enough that somebody listens and hope the situation is taken care of.
In academia, you complain to the proper people, the professor, the dean, head of the department, etc. Every professor I know has always stressed the importance of not plagerising and how to do proper citation. As a history major I was required to take a research methods class where I learned to analyze and interpret source material. I had to write a 15 to 20 page research paper using a set number of primary sources and a very limited number of secondary sources. I worked my ass off on that think and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time I finished. But I got an A on that paper. I made sure I had my citations correct. I made sure that anything not quoted was my own words.
I don’t think I should expect less from a published novelist then a professor expected of me as a student.
That there are these assertions that the SBs should have handled this privately suggests to me that this is EXACTLY the kind of issue that would have been swept under the rug unless they had made it public.
They’re readers; they owe loyalty first to themselves, and in this case they also expressed loyalty to the principles of intellectual honesty and community awareness of an issue of importance to readers AND authors AND publishers.
IMO Signet’s initial response was a blow-off, and a bad one at that. Would they have revised their statement had the press not started picking this up and readers writing letters? I don’t think so, precisely because it is so unpleasant, both for fans of Cassie Edwards and fans of the genre more generally (let alone the publishing dollars at stake).
I understand being uncomfortable with some of the comments aimed at Edwards, because I’ve winced at a few myself. But Candy and Sarah haven’t done that; even when they’ve “savaged” Edwards’s books, it’s been about the books, even if that kind of snark *feels* mean to some readers.
There’s a certain kind of snark that comes from feeling insulted, whether it’s by a Romance novel, the discovery of MULTIPLE unattributed duplication and close paraphrasing of external sources, or the initial response of a publisher. And I think that’s a lot of what’s going on here, just as I think there’s a lot of counterweight that comes from what tthomas(?) called the ‘nobody’s perfect’ theory (I’ve been calling it the ‘margin of error’ phenomenon, but it’s the same thing). Sure nobody’s perfect, and ultimately Signet is going to be the arbiter of what will happen to Edwards’s books. The public will make its own judgment about whether to support an author like Edwards with our money, as well we should. Because readers owe any particular book no more loyalty than we owe our ethical principles, whatever they may be.
Does this whole situation make me feel uncomfortable? Of course. But I’m grateful that someone was willing to take it public, because if it weren’t made public, I don’t think ONE THING would have happened, and Edwards would still be writing books the way she always has, and her publishers would be raking in the money, and readers would not know what they were reading, and scholars in other fields—dead or alive—would have their own original, creative work used in ways that would be wholly inappropriate and possibly career ending in their own fields. That’s just not right, and IMO it’s hardly the greater good just to spare some public embarrassment to Edwards.
Speaking of which, if Edwards really thought what she did was okay, there is a HUGE problem with editors, publishers, and writing/reading communities in general. If she did think it was okay, it wasn’t because she’s 71 or whatever and a doddering old lady who doesn’t deserve this. None of those scholars whose work was used the way it was deserve it, that’s for sure. And if Edwards did know what she was doing wasn’t right, then she shouldn’t have done it. I won’t speculate on whether or not she did know it wasn’t right, because it doesn’t much matter to me. I can feel sympathy for the unwanted public attention she’s now experiencing without feeling like what she did was right or should be brushed under the carpet without apology or alteration. And I most definitely think Signet should be deeply embarrassed for that initial public response.
I don’t wish any personal harm to Edwards, even though I expect her publishers to take full responsibility for the books they have and are publishing, even if that means reprinting every single one of her books without the lifted material. That will be my focus as a reader, since keeping the pressure on publishers is the only thing, IMO, that will ensure that they take the time to vet manuscripts properly and ensure that their authors know the rules. Edwards is responsible for what she writes and the publisher is responsible for what it sells, and both now have a baseline duty to conform their conduct to a higher ethical standard, IMO.
I don’t think I should expect less from a published novelist then a professor expected of me as a student.
EXACTLY!!!!
As for consulting the writer in question first, IMO that’s risky, and can create a situation where the person who approaches the author can find themselves the victim of an offensive public attack even worse than what happened to the SBs who have been carrying on their investigation publicly.
More importantly, though, it is not, nor should it be, the reader’s responsibility to vet Romance novels and inform the author of anything they find that’s not honestly used. It’s not the reader’s responsibility to “advise” the author privately (and in fact, I think that’s presumptuous of any reader to do in that kind of situation). Someone, or a number of someones, fell down on the job here, and unfortunately, readers ended up doing the work the author, editor, and publisher should or could have done much, much earlier.
One thing I wish to point out (as many others already have) is that Nora Roberts has behaved with class and restraint. Her opinion has been sought since she is considered a major author in the romance field. For this she has been insulted. This is probably just a small percentage of what she dealt with during the JD fiasco. I imagine this has had to dredge up many bad memories and flashbacks. For that I am very sorry.
Also I commend Sarah and Candy for behaving with class and handling the firestorm during their busy lives.
Part of what is keeping this alive is the comments from supposedly rational people that CE did nothing wrong. Also in one authors list a member recommended CE sue SBTB for slander (I guess Jane’s blog about libel vs slander didn’t do the trick). No I don’t think people should be clammoring for blood but I do think if people would simply acknowledge that plagerism is wrong some of the furor would die down. Also if there was less of killing the messenger and blaming the vitims that would help too. I too am sick of the “mean girls”, “bullies” and other charges leveled.
There are no family crests, battle shields, or flags bearing a weasel, fingers steepled politely, and the legend “FREEDOM, AT SOME POINT, WOULD BE LOVELY, IF IT ISN’T TOO MUCH TROUBLE.â€
This should be a t-shirt. Brava!
I guess I’m naïve. I would think that anyone who is a reasoning adult knows that stealing is wrong. If you copy someone’s words, verbatim, into your work (using his/her voice, no less!), without citation or even acknowledgement, that’s stealing. Period. End of story. No excuses, no rationalization. It’s wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s non-fiction and you’re using it in a fictional account. It doesn’t matter if they will ever see it. It doesn’t matter if you did it years ago and nobody noticed until now. It doesn’t even matter if it is an actionable offense under the law. It is still wrong.
Therefore, attacking this website, Candy and Sarah, the people that post here, and/or Nora Roberts for pointing out what happened and that, yes, it’s wrong, is pointless and silly. I understand that these detractors, be they fan-girls or (my pet theory) close relatives, may be angry because someone that they care about is upset at the public humiliation. If it were my grandmother or spouse, I’d probably want to man the gates and pour boiling oil on the siege machines, too. (Which is why I think they are relatives. Frankly, if I found out my favorite author did this and the evidence was so damning, I’d be enraged—at the author.) But lobbing ad hominem attacks doesn’t change the truth. What she did was wrong. Opposite of right. To the right of naughty. Wrong. And if she suffers a little public humiliation from what she did, she can comfort herself with the knowledge that many people have very short memories and Britney Spears (or some other celebrity) is sure to do something stupid in public soon, making her yesterday’s news. She can then go on, churning out racist drivel for whomever it is that is buying her books, secure in the knowledge that it has all blown over until the lawsuits from the copyright infringement begin.
~Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t hand in her ms and have it go straight to press, then a quick proofread, and out the door~
This is just not how it works. A ms (mine included) is read by the editor, line editing by same, then is copy edited by a copy editor. It’s proofed by the author in galleys, and by at least one outside proof reader.
Despite this, as we all know, mistakes get through. Often mistakes that weren’t in the ms, or corrected in proofing by happen in the typesetting.
Shit happens.
As I said before, I suspect that—given the long-term career here, that both editors and copy editors simply took this as authorial style.
Despite what many may feel about the quality of Ms. Edwards books, there are many, many readers who enjoy them. That doesn’t make them wrong. It just means they have different tastes in reading. No one should have to defend what they enjoy reading.
The issue is, and remains, plagiarism. Not quality as some may judge it.
re: quality of work vs. plagiarism
I agree 110%. I feel the same outrage over the Marion Jones fiasco that I feel over this. Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating. With apologies to Gertrude Stein.
As for handling it differently, as in contacting the allegeded plagiarist first? That is exactly what I did (through my agent to hers) in the Dailey matter.
See where that got me.
someone, many posts ago, raised a question that is getting lost amid all the outrage: what would make things right? what solution do we, as romance readers, really want?
it seems to me that, *at minimum* all suspect books should be pulled from the shelves and reviewed. What then? will we accept a blanket statement saying “I did wrong, I won’t do it again” and go on? Is it really appropriate to not want Edwards to ever publish again, even in books where there is no wrong-doing? Should suspect books be re-written and re-published?
After the outrage has died down, what do we want to have happened?
Becca said: After the outrage has died down, what do we want to have happened?
Well, since she could face charges of copyright infringement, her lawyers may be telling her to wait and see if any of those whose works were illegally copied start lawyering up. But from a PR and an ethics standpoint, she can’t afford to sit on her hands, at least not in my opinion.
She’s made enough money from writing over the years that she should bite the bullet and admit her mistakes, and then she should offer to meet with those writers and come up with a reasonable settlement. She should return her most recent advance to her publisher before they get around to asking for it back. And finally, she should make a public statement of apology to her readers, her publisher, and to the writers whose work she infringed. No “I have an extremely rare mental disorder which gives me a photographic memory of others’ exact sentences and makes me think they were mine” excuses, either.
That’d be the grown-up solution, IMO, but what do I know?
Nora – You Rock My Socks.
That is all.
E. Ann Bardawill: Try the McGregor series, some of Nora’s earliest work, especially Rebellion. She also has some great ones set in Ireland. I especially like the trilogy that begins with Jewels of the Sun and the longer novel Three Fates. I’m so jealous you get to read these for the first time!
Goddess help me, I can’t belive I’m doing this…
Nora I disagree a little about the reader thing. Yes, the issue here is plagiarism. But the lifting of passages and attribution of them as dialogue to her characters was part of what made the books SO INCREDIBLY BAD. And my feeling is that better readers would have outed all of this a long time ago.
Case in point… some smart bitches forced themselves to read notoriously poor quality books and look what happened? It is, of course, my opinion that they are awful… but it is a widely shared one.
So yes, her readers are blameless, you are right. I just can’t help but feel that she got away with this for as long as she did because her readers have lower standards. Doesn’t make them bad people and yes—let the lynch mob assemble, I’m ready for my punishment.
It also, in light of the recent stuff, makes me wonder if she just got caught up in NOT GETTING CAUGHT. I mean, she got away with it once… had a deadline… got away with it again… that was easy… hey, I keep getting away with it… it must not count.
Bad logic, bad behavior, but maybe?? And maybe in that sense having a readership that will accept terrible stereotypes and incredibly stiff dialogue full of info-dumping contributed to the problem?
Just thinking out loud. I’m curtseying, if it helps. I always genuflect when I read you posts. (It’s a bit scary how close to the truth that is…)
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I’m not saying anything else. It’s just very sad to see someone’s life destroyed like this.>
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Sure, it sucks for Ms. Edwards that she’s been so publicly found out. It’s got to feel humiliating. It’s embarrassing for her, for her family, for her publishers and agents, I’m sure. But on the other hand—why is that the fault of ANYBODY other than Ms. Edwards? Do I, your average reader, want to see Ms. Edwards’ life “destroyed” by this? Of course not! But if she DOES stop writing as a result of this, that’s not going to be SB Candy or SB Sarah or Nora’s fault. It’s Cassie Edwards’ fault. We all make choices…and we all have to live with the consequences of those choices. Cassie Edwards’ made a choice when she plagiarized material—REPEATEDLY—from all those other sources. That was HER choice. Unfortunately, that may mean she has to deal with the consequences of that choice, whatever those consequences may be.
This isn’t a case of Cassie Edwards unjustly up before a firing squad. This is a case of Cassie Edwards shooting her own self in the foot. It sucks, but it’s nobody’s doing but her own.
I’m a newbie to this site, but here it goes. CE had to know or at least have qualms about what she was doing. This is not the first time (or last) that plariarism has hit the romance writing community. I know of at least one case that was hushed up.
I pity CE and hope that this situation can be resolved quickly. It makes me sad that she didn’t have enough confidence or belief in her writing to let it stand on its own. I’m sad for all the talented writers who had to wait to be published or haven’t been published because Signet decided to go with CE’s books. I’m sad for all the readers who bought her books—only to be cheated.
The whole situation makes me sad. I think I’ll pick up one of NR’s books. 🙂