Links: Book Club Chat Reminder, Fascinating Victorians, and More

Before I get to the pieces of fascinating that I’ve found or have been sent to me this week – and dude, the internet is FULL of this stuff, did you know? – I want to apologize for the lack of RSS email the past few days. The problem is all fixed, and you should be receiving the daily content newsletter with no issues today (hi there!). Thank you for letting me know about the problem, and my apologies.

A Bollywood Affair - hands colored with henna patterns holding a set of gold bangles

First! Book club chat reminder! The Book Club Chat for A Bollywood Affair will be Tuesday, 18 November at 9:00 pm ET! Author Sonali Dev will join us at 10pm for a Q&A, and Carrie and I have already discussed what kinds of Indian food we’re going to order in for the book club chat (I have a craving for samosas that will not be denied).

If you’d like to join us, please do! The book club chats are fun and very lively, and we discuss both serious and silly things. If you haven’t read the book yet, there’s still time. The 50% eBook Buck rebate at AllRomance is still on, or you can pick up a paper or audio version at these fine stores as well: ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | WorldCat ).

Killian sent me the following link to a recent episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge, which talks about whether reading romance makes us more empathetic.

Says Killian, “I think he’s wrong about the content of science fiction, but then he was spot on for romance, so I’ll give him a pass.”

Added benefit: I have another podcast to add to my subscription collection. Yay!

Mary Ann sent me the following Very Cool images of a piece of artwork constructed out of romance novels.

My mom and I recently visited Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR to see the new State of the Art exhibit. Basically, the exhibit showcases interesting and unknown artists and works from all over the country, including the awesomeness seen below:

A long rectangle of white with FOREVER written in red - the text is made up of romance novel spines A Close up of the artwork - the spines appear to be all Mills and Boon and Harlequin novels A close up of the artist's card Forever was created in 2013 by John Salvest of Jonesboro Arkansas.

OK, the more people make art with romance novels, the happier I am. But then, creativity in general makes me pretty happy. Thank you so much for the images, Mary Ann!

If you’re craving more adventurous and possibly scandalous women after Carrie’s podcast interview last week about Victorian Women Who Out-Steampunked Steampunk, Phaenarete is here to help!

Phaenarete sent me a link to an article on Jezebel about Lady Colin, who scandalized the crap out of Victorian aristocracy by not only being not-of-their-class, but for having the audacity to sue her husband for divorce after he gave her syphilis. The case, as Angela Serratore writes, not only caused a great deal of uproar, but influenced the very idea of pornographic peep shows.

James L. sent this to me today: Full Frontal Nerdity on the mainstream of nerd culture:

Full Frontal Nerdity - ready for me to transcribe the comic? I will do my best. If you are reading this with a screen reader pretend I sound all low voiced and awesome ok?   Dude in blue shirt - Gal-Ax-Y! Jonathan Nolan is developing a series based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy for HBO!  Dude in red shirt - And I hear Bruce Campbell is going to be in an ash vs the evil dead series on the Starz network  Blue: we geeks have conquered the world, haven't we? The tv programs and movies we wanted as kids are now mainstream  Red: Yeah and just about every fandom we were into has been green lit as major motion pictures or upper tier cable shows.  Blue: I almost think I need to start looking romance novels so I don't lose my sense of sub-cultural superiority.  Red: We already filled those with time travel, aliens, and supernatural powers. I think historical books are still safe, but sooner or later you'll start wondering what wouldn't happened if zombies were used in WWII.

The discussion of romance in the third panel is hilarious, except it surely wasn’t dudes who filled romance with time travel, aliens and supernatural powers. Oh, no. We took care of that alllll on our own, mwahahahah.

What are you looking at or reading this week? Any links you’d like to share?

Comments are Closed

  1. Zee says:

    I like the “we” in the third panel, as a geek who’s been reading FFN for years now. “We” filled those books with paranormal elements, because there are and always have been geek women.

  2. Storyphile says:

    @Zee

    Hey! I resemble that remark! 😀

  3. DonnaMarie says:

    I’d like to share that I just got home from a Q&A with the incomparable Gail Carriger at the Schaumburg Public Library. She is delightful. Plus there was cake and tea and school librarians and teachers with students in tow. And I scored books for my niece who needs good books for Christmas.

  4. How is it I missed the book club announcement?!

  5. Kelly S. says:

    @DonnaMarie I miss the Schaumburg Public Library! Used to be my home library. It’s great!

  6. DonnaMarie says:

    And it was a Jarosch cake.

  7. Phaenarete says:

    Thanks for the tag SB Sarah! 🙂

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