It’s the last day of the month, and so it’s time for another trip down Bitchery Memory Lane to check out some of the most popular reviews, posts, and comment threads in the past ten years of Smart Bitches. We’re leading up to our actual 10th anniversary, which is in January 2015, but until then, I hope you enjoy having a look through the lens of wayback as much as I do.
Many thanks to Morgan Doremus from Miss Media for digging through the archives and coming up with all this fun stuff.
In April, we looked at the most popular reviews for contemporary romance – which were many of those with low grades – D-, F+ or F.
In May, we looked at the most popular historical reviews, all of which were given very high grades.
In June, we looked at more of your favorite reviews, some with high grades, some not, but all with a lot of chortles built in.
In July, we featured an assortment of Wait, What? Book reviews, videos, and more.
This month, it’s time to look at the most popular pieces of cover snark, and cover shenanigans we’ve perpetrated over the last 10 years. Here are some of the most popular cover-themed entries.
We challenged y’all to Twilight-ize some books after we found a few books reissued with Twilight-style covers. Oh, boy, were the entries awesome.
The collection of entries has remained one of the most popular pages on the site since then.
I think my favorites are still Goodnight Moon, The Holy Bible, and Confessions of a Shopaholic.
The winner? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
50 Shades of Cover Art
Similarly, a post I did collecting the ever-increasing number of covers done in a 50 Shades style (OH THE IRONY OUCH IT IS SITTING ON ME OOOOOOFFFFF) is also among the most popular cover posts:
The pressing question from my perspective is, if we’re going to have 50 Shades-esque cover images of Dude Stuff in black and white, let’s get real here, shall we? The first 50 Shades cover was a picture of a tie, and has become pretty iconic. It focused on the dude, not the heroine, and there was nary a nipple in sight.
Just a close up of some Dude Stuff. Keeping with that theme, here are some ideas that I think would make GREAT covers….
I never did get my sock garter cover and that makes me sad.
Longarm
Ah, the days of yore, like when Jane and I cover snarked the Longarm series, which is so incredibly filthy that it’s a wonder to me that romances get the reputation for being smutty. She and I lost Twitter followers when we started tweeting excerpts of Longarm books because YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Last week, Jane sent me some Longarm, by which I mean she attached about six different Longarm covers to an email message and I barely remained upright. These were so bizarre, I asked her to snark them with me. But first, Jane answers the burning question, HOW DID YOU FIND THESE?
Jane: I was searching Berkley published books in an effort to find some deals. I came across these. I think that there are several hundred of them published.
Longarm covers, and there are many because there’s been one a month for decades now, are a gift that keeps giving. But the content, that’s a whole other story.
Just go to Google:books and search “Longarm snatch.” Or any other slightly-gross term for a woman’s sexual organs. No, wait, don’t. Just don’t.
Cover Makeovers, Johanna Lindsey Edition
Way, way back in the day – in 2007 in fact – Candy did a series of entries examining the cover makeovers for some powerhouse names in historical romance. First up: Johanna Lindsey:
If there’s one thing you can learn from this cover, it’s that you can stick two hot, mostly-naked people in a raging torrent of radioactive goo, and it STILL won’t make it sexy. Years from now, the woman’s going to be popping out two-headed kittens and children with their organs on the outside of their bodies, and she’ll be sobbing with regret into her oatmeal. Why did she take that modelling job in college? Why? Whyyyyy?
The new covers for older historicals were often so boring, the difference between them was startling.
Cover Makeovers: Loretta Chase Edition
New or old, Chase covers were often bad enough to make Candy weep, rage, gnash her teeth or all three:
This sequel to The Lion’s Daughter was the first romance novel I’d read in which the villain of the previous book was made into a hero. Loved it, though I still liked The Lion’s Daughter better.
And the cover was a worthy successor of The Lion’s Daughter in every way. What’s not to love about two sweaty jaundiced people getting fresh with each other on top of what look like theater curtains? Delicious!
I can see the tagline now: Two things bound these star-crossed lovers together: a love for musical theater . . . and class C liver cirrhosis. HOT.
And finally, an Honorable Mention in the stats analysis goes to this post: The Most WTFery Of Them All, about this book. Yes, it’s a real book.
We’ll be back at the end of October with more Cover Snark Retrospectives as we close in on the 10th Anniversary of the site. Thank you for being here, and being part of the Bitchery.
What covers are among your most memorable? Which ones still make you snortlaugh?
I remember the Longarm post! OMG. Such fun.
The romance cover that still makes giggle happily just thinking about it is the “is that a puppy in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” cover of One Fine Fireman by Jennifer Bernard – http://jenniferbernard.net/one-fine-fireman.php
The Twilight covers were fantastic!
I love the snarky comments! They make my day better. 😉
So…was that also the Christmas When Jessica Wakefield Seduced a Priest?
What is that
what
why exist
Damn you, Sarah—of course I clicked through to read passages from Longarm on Google Books.
SOMEONE PLEASE PASS THE BLEACH!
*shudders* What did I just read? What the literal FUCK?
Also, to answer Jane’s question on whether or not his dick would be whittled away from all that fucking, one of the passages I read actually mentioned that. Direct quote from whatever women he was fucking, about if she wasn’t so drunk, she would ride him to the ground until she “Worn that big ole thank a yours down to a stubby li’l nub . . .Jus’ like sharpenin’ a pencil”
I’m dying! My husband is sleeping, and I’m silently laughing so hard that I’m shaking the bed, trying to contain myself. And now I’ve just read the Jessica Wakefield comment and snorted out loud. Sorry, Hubs. But thank you, Bitchery—I really needed a good laugh.
@Cate M:
DUDE. That TOTALLY DOES look like Jessica Wakefield. HA!
Nick Offerman as Longarm in an HBO series. Who’s with me?
I have to come out of lurkdom to talk about Longarm. I read my first – and only – Longarm when I was in a Reader’s Advisory class in library school. I read it because I was disgusted by the text telling me that the cheesy romance series (Intrigue, Blaze, Harlequin Presents, etc) were true to the genre, much beloved by their readers, and therefore of value. But, that the cheesy westerns (Longarm, Slocum, etc.) were complete trash and therefore of no value to a library collection.
Having worked the reference desk for 7 years I knew, for a fact, that the men who read cheesy westerns are as fond of them as the cheesy-romance readers are of their books. I also had a desire to find out what, exactly, the draw was. I’d heard they were dirty. I knew that they flew off of our carts when we did our weekly jail-service visit.
So, I read one and the sex was very fade-to-black. Compared to a Blaze or even a Desire? Practically chaste. I was quite disappointed. Maybe the one I read was an aberration. I’ll need to read more.
Cover snark is my favorite kind of snark.
NOOOO!
I clicked on the Longarm Snatch link … it goes to stuff like THIS (Longarm and the Val Verde Massacre):
“In a matter of seconds, she had worked herself into a frothy-crotched frenzy unlike any in Longarm’s vast carnal experience. Bathsheba’s … Longarm’s unbending dingus made a loud sucking plop as it exited Bathsheba’s dripping snatch.”
OMG: ‘frothy-crotched frenzy’???? How am I EVER supposed to have foam on top of my latte again without thinking of that sentence?
I missed that Longarm post the first time around. So much going on there, and no one even mentioned that cigarillo he’s got in his mouth on every single cover! Incredible that these are still being published with the same cheesy 1970’s style covers. Here’s the blurb from a recent one “Longarm and the Deadly Sisters”.
“The Olsen sisters are as beautiful as they are deadly. Hilda and Pearl were twin mistresses to Senator Taft Baker of Sacramento, California, but now the polygamous politician has been shot to death in his bed—and the sisters are nowhere to be found. Word is, they’ve fled to Denver, where it’s up to Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long to bring the diabolical duo to justice—on the double!
While the sisters may be identical in appearance, they turn out to be as different as night and day when it comes to temperament. Evil twin Pearl aims to blast Longarm with both barrels, while Hilda is more interested in doubling his pleasure. This time the lawman will have to think twice before making his move—or the Olsen twins may just be the death of him…”
I feel like in this retrospective you need to a Where Are They Now? for John DeSalvo and possibly Nathan Camp(?). Because your cover segments on DeSalvo and references to both were truly, truly fantastic.
I am sure there are more than one like this (more limbs than should be possible), but I remember reading on the author’s website snarking her own cover. I believe the heroine ended up having 3 or 4 arms due to bad editing.. and dang it, I can’t remember the author..
I’ve read that one. The famous three armed heroine is on Christina Dodd’s Castles in the Air. It is an excellent example of how to embrace something that could be dreadfully embarrassing, then milk it for all it’s worth… It now has pride of place on her website.
That’s the one Cheryl 🙂