Links: Cute Weddings, Notebooks, and the Rock!

Workspace with computer, journal, books, coffee, and glasses.It’s Hump Day! It’s also the last week of July and I’m waiting for the heat to break and give way to crisp autumn weather. Before we get to this week’s links, we have a few housekeeping things first!

If you’d like to sponsor a podcast transcript for August, we have availability! You can become a permanent part of the podcast archives, and reach new readers as more people discover our podcast each week. Please email Sarah for details and price options. And thank you for listening!

For those who participated in or kept up with the RITA® Reader Challenge this year, we have a quick survey, if you’d like to complete it. We’d like to know should we continue reviewing the nominees. One question with two options!

Here are the results so far!

Mashable reported on a modern meet-cute between a book lover and the man who runs the social media account of a bookstore:

The people behind corporate Twitter accounts are a mystery to us all. Witty, creative and enigmatic, they are the unsung heroes of the social media world.

But, one woman’s tweet to bookstore Waterstones’ official Twitter account not only unveiled the identity of the man behind it; it led to a first date, a love story, and — most recently — a wedding.

Her wedding dress is super cute, and any author that can put a social media meet-cute into a romance novel easily has my money.

Sarah: I was sent a heads up about this Kickstarter, and given how many of you love notebooks, I wanted to make sure to pass the link along. The creators are calling it the “most featured notebook ever” (in terms of features it contains, not features about it in news media, I think):

With 30 plus prominent features such as ultra-slim solar calculator, ultra-slim USB drive, 2-in-1 pen, goal tree, multi-color cover (17 options), Mont page marker, gold foiling & so on; Mont notebooks are perfect amalgamation between traditional and modern aspects and are miles ahead of its predecessors.

For those who don’t get The Ripped Bodice’s calendar newsletter, you’re missing out on a serious case of  FOMO. Seriously, I live on the East Coast and I love seeing their events, even if I can’t attend. In August, they have a Fresh Romance launch with Buffy‘s Amber Benson, Sarah Kuhn, and Kate Leth. Plus, Emily Nagoski will be there in September!

ETA – Sarah: I intrude on Amanda’s links to add one more. I was a guest of Read It & Weep this week, all about a truly terrible movie, Christian Mingle. If you’d like to hear me, Alex, Tanya, and Chris talking about this film, which has irrevocably messed up my Netflix recommendations, please have a listen. And thank you to Read It & Weep for having me on! 

Big thanks to Reader Tam for sending me down the rabbit hole of Emily Writes. If it wasn’t for Tam, I wouldn’t have stumbled across Emily’s other movie reviews, like her one for Central Intelligence, complete with earnest love for Dwayne The Rock Johnson:

I imagine being married to him sometimes. He would always fix things and lift heavy stuff in the house and he’d never get tired of lifting heavy stuff because that’s his job. He would sing with his eyes closed and make me dance around the kitchen with him and I’d be like OH my gosh, stop it Dwayne The Rock Johnson. And he’d say – Emily, my wife, we have been married seven years – please just call me Dwayne.

We are all Emily Writes.

Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!

Comments are Closed

  1. jimthered says:

    Not sure why it took so long, but thanks to Kickstarter we’ll finally see [drumroll please] EVIL DEAD 2: THE OFFICIAL BOARD GAME https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evildead2/evil-dead-2-the-official-board-game?ref=discovery Groovy!

  2. Demi says:

    Welp, the survey link took me to some page that said I couldn’t view it. For what it’s worth, YES let’s continue to have reviews for the RITA-nominated books.

  3. chacha1 says:

    I’m afraid Emily Writes will be a rabbit hole for me, too. The reviews for Tarzan and Central Intelligence were so much fun.

    btw I feel the same way Emily does about Dwayne The Rock Johnson. hee hee

  4. kitkat9000 says:

    I did try to vote but got shunted to another site that told me I wasn’t authorized. So I’m voting here: please keep them.

    Despite so many of the RITA nominees turning out to be books I’d never read is no reason to stop doing the reviews, because they are gold and I loved reading them.

  5. Karen H near Tampa says:

    Also tried to vote and got a page I was not authorized to view. I also vote to keep the RITA reviews. Thanks.

  6. Barb in Maryland says:

    Not only do I vote to keep the RITA reader reviews, I want to request a recap feature after the awards are announced. The recap need only feature the winning title in each category, plus the grades the reviewers gave (and links to their reviews). Quite frankly, I was surprised that y’all had NO recap of the RITA winners. What happened?

  7. Amanda says:

    @Barb: We do have a spreadsheet with all the grades and winners. We also linked to the reviews in each category prior to the RITA Awards Livestream!

  8. SB Sarah says:

    That’s really odd – I just took a look at the settings, and I’m not sure why that happened. I’m sorry about that! Thank you for letting us know – and for letting us know what you think!

  9. kkw says:

    I adore DwayneThe Rock Johnson, and here is one of the best possible explanations of why: http://the-toast.net/2015/07/06/annotating-the-rocks-inspirational-workout-video-message-to-the-u-s-womens-soccer-team/

    Specifically: “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a man in a muscle tank to say “Hey, what’s up, ladies” in a manner that is neither suggestive nor condescending? It is very nearly impossible; The Rock achieves it in the first two seconds. This is a man who genuinely wants to know what is up with these ladies. No one ever told The Rock what sexism is, so he has never once committed an act of it. Please do not tell him about it now. He would be absolutely crushed if he knew.”

    What, no, I’m *fine* without the toast, I’m not obsessively rereading the archives and laugh-crying to myself. It’s cool.

  10. I voted with the option Yes, I think you are going to host it Successfully, Thank you for doing an useful survey.

  11. QOTU says:

    I’m another yes, and I would also like to ask for some kind of wrap up posting. The reader reviews got me kind of invested in the process and I felt sort of left-hanging.

  12. Barb in Maryland says:

    @Amanda–that’s all well and good, except like @QOTU I was looking for an actual post. Checking to see if the spreadsheet had been updated was not on my radar. (Yes, I see now, the Live Stream heads-up mentioned the spreadsheet.) But there was not word one the day after the awards, no recap, nada. Color me disappointed.

  13. SB Sarah says:

    Re: Wrap up – That’s my fault and is unique to this year. Usually I host a live chat during the RITAs and transcribe the speeches as best I can and share the winners as they’re announced. This year I couldn’t attend because I had to leave RWA early, and the RITAs began at 11pm ET, which made it impossible for us to coordinate. In future years we’ll definitely have the chat, if not a wrap up announcement of the winners.

  14. Barb in Maryland says:

    @SB Sarah
    Thank you for the quick answer. I knew there had to be a good reason. I could not imagine SBTB just forgetting the RITAs, not after all the work of gathering and posting the reviews!

  15. Donna says:

    Just went to Amazon to order Forever your Earl and it was $1.99 not $.99 just a heads up.

  16. […] Linkity from Smart Bitches. […]

  17. SB Sarah says:

    @Barb: Oh, no, we would never just forget about it -it’s a huge project for us, managed with great aplomb by Amanda. This year was tricky with the time difference and the fact that I had to leave early (camp visiting day was that Sunday – there is no day like visiting day!) but we’ll do better next year, especially since the vote seems to be decidedly in favor of continuing the reviews project.

  18. Mara says:

    Love RI&W and SBTB, so was delighted by this week’s episode! SB Sarah makes a charming guest, and I kind of what her and Tanya to have their own podcast

  19. Amelia says:

    I had saved Christian Mingle on netflix as the perfect movie to watch with my girlfriend the next time we were watching stuff while drinking, which happened to be last night. So this morning I googled “smart bitches Christian Mingle” to see if anyone had reviewed it, and I’m so, so happy that this podcast exists (and that it was recent!) My gf and I both thought the movie was much better than we expected so I can’t wait to hear you tear it to shreds.

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