It’s time for Wednesday Links! I don’t know about you, but I’m shocked there’s only one more week left in August. But I’m ready for fall.
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You’ve asked for it and now you’ve got it. Solved HaBOs! Just a word of warning though, we currently have over 600 HaBOs. That means, we have to go through each one and suss out if they’ve been solved in the comments or not. Every Monday afternoon, I go through about three months worth of HaBOs. I’ll also be marking new HaBOs as “solved” going forward, which means they get a fancy new intro and photo. If you want to read through more solved Help a Bitch Out posts, definitely refresh and check the solved page every Monday afternoon or evening.
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The awesome Sonali Dev is over at NPR discussing representation in romance:
In the romance world we love to say that the RITAs are the Oscars of romance — a fitting comparison not only in terms of prestige but also, unfortunately, in terms of representation. Out of the more than 90 RITA finalists this year, only five have protagonists who aren’t white. The good — and bad news — is that this is actually an improvement over past years.
The post has some great recommendations, so definitely check it out!
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Elyse stumbled across VirtuousCourtesan, a gorgeous historical high fashion Instagram account.
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Sarah and I, along with author Farrah Rochon, were quoted on sports romances:
Sarah Wendell, the co-founder and chief mastermind of the site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, says, “there are new sports romances released monthly, and readers email me looking for recommendations – especially with the attention on the Olympics right now.” Amanda Diehl, a reviewer and organatrix for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, say the subgenre is “extremely popular” and “are sort of an evergreen subgenre because sports are always on in some way.” And when your sport is not on, you are “craving more sports-related things when the season is over or during the off-season,” Diehl added.
The post also addresses some of the issues associated with sports romances, especially the lack of diversity.
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Maine Coons are my favorite cat. The fluffier and bigger, the better. Photographer Robert Sijka has started taking portraits of Maine Coons and they are gorgeous:
Sijka always saw cats as majestic, almost mystical beasts, and now he came up with a way to share that image with the rest of us: “My passions are cats and photography, I do my best to combine these two things as good as possible,” the photographer shares on his website. And he managed to combine those passions perfectly in his royal-like Maine Coon portrait series.
Sijka also has an Instagram account and it’s nothing but pictures of cats. So essentially, it’s perfect.
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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!
The movie LABYRINTH is coming to the big screen for its 30th anniversary! This is being put on by Fathom Events (the folks who do Rifftrax Live shows), it’s hitting (some) theaters on September 11th with a follow-up showing on September 14th, and more details can be found at http://www.fathomevents.com/event/labyrinth-30th-anniversary/more-info/details
Yay for solved HABOs!!! Hopefully this can eventually lead to the Cold Case HABO files… Thanks for all the work in organizing this new feature
Amanda, as you go through the “solved” HABOs, can you keep an eye out for the most quickly solved?
And the old SBTB honorary titles awarded for solving what is now HaBO. I loved those. I never earned one–I can’t remember what *I* read, let alone suss out someone else’s lost treasure–but the names were great.
Heavens, those Maine Coon pictures are … astonishing, powerful, majestic and no-fucks-given. Say “cute” at your peril.
Those cats are gorgeous… but, oy, the brushing. Always the brushing. I’m so glad most of mine are shorthairs. The two longhairs I have need a fair amount of brushing to avoids mats and tangles. I can’t even imagine how much more I’d need to do if they had thicker coats like those pictured.
Those Maine Coonn pictures are great – reminds me of the part Maine Coon cat we got from a shelter. He was a bad ass that took no shit from anyone (he quickly asserted dominance over our poor dog)
RE Maine Coons. How does he get them to pose? My tortie point would never do that for me!! LOL
@Chelle: I think the keyword there is “tortie.” We were trying to figure out why our cat thinks she’s monkey, and everyone just looked at us with pity and said, “Tortitude.”
Whatever. I have a yodeling monkey I don’t have to put diapers on, so there.
That white Maine Coon (#11) looks remarkably like a cat I used to have, but mine had a sweeter face and lacked the ear tufts. Fritz was a shelter cat, but I often wondered if he had some MC in his heritage. He’s been gone 20 years now, and I still miss the hell out of him.
Sooo glad about the solved HABOs. The unsolved ones still lurking out there bother me way more than they should, especially the ones that sound so tantalizingly familiar.
Two books I recently read that I liked are: Two-Gun & Sun by June Hutton and also This is Not My Life by Diane Schoemperlen.
Like some of the others, I would love a cold case HaBO! I’m sure you have new readers all the time, (and people are always reading new books!) so it would be great to see some of those languishing ones get solved, too.
Yay, thanks for Solved HABOs!!! What a wonderful idea!
I also love the ‘cold case’ idea, can’t wait to browse old topics 🙂
Have any of you looked at the Laineygossip.com blog? It’s certainly got gossip, but what draws me in every day is the way that Lainey and her team write about gender, color, race and celebrity entitlements. Their writing on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard divorce was terrific (gender, domestic violence), as well as the Taylor Swift/Tom Hiddleston (celebrity entitlements), Nate Parker (race/gender).
I’m with Chelle — how does he get them to pose? We were given a Maine Coon as a house warming present (don’t ask) when DH and I were first living together and he truly believed from day 1 that he made the rules. They’re like cats on steroids in every sense of the word including ‘tude. Mine used to lay across the top of the range before I could turn it on so I couldn’t cook dinner if DH was off work that night. And only those nights. Maine Coons do not take stage direction.
Is there a “unsolved” HABO tag as well so people can see what still needs to be researched?
@Julia: There’s not a specific “unsolved” tag just yet, though it might be on the agenda once we get all the solved ones labeled and tagged since it’ll be much easier to gather up all the unsolved ones.
I am confused, not all that unusual I guess, but I thought the request was for cold-case HABO, not solved ones. Or maybe it was both. But I definitely remember people asking for cold-cases.
That IG account is amaaazing!
Unfortunately the representation bit doesn’t surprise me. I’ve recently realized how white-washed the whole publishing industry really is. I’m happy it’s improving, though
“Susan says:
August 24, 2016 at 9:00 pm
That white Maine Coon (#11) looks remarkably like a cat I used to have, but mine had a sweeter face and lacked the ear tufts.”
Sounds like a Turkish Angora cat. I had one of those, he looked like a lightweight MC at 6 kg (not just heavier but also bigger than an averyge cat), with a mane around his neck. Sadliy he’s been gone for more that 10 years now.
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@LML: So far, I’ve found one solved in five minutes!