Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Billie Bloebaum
April 16, 2012 | Monday | 87 Comments
Billie Bloebaum wrote in with a rather interesting question: Has there ever been a GS vs. STA for fairy tale-inspired romance? Because I'm totally going through a phase with it right now and was hoping for some recommendations of things inspired by tales other than Cinderella or Beauty & the Beast. I can find a ton of stuff in YA and Fantasy and even Lit Fic (and if you haven't read 'The Snow Child' by Eowyn Ivey you should do so nownownow) ( A | BN | K | S ), but Romance seems to be stuck on those two stories, with…
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October 05, 2010 | Tuesday | 134 Comments
The BookMatcher is Billie Bloebaum, book buyer for Powell’s in the Portland Airport, and she brings the art of handselling books based on interest to folks writing in online for her help. Today’s request is from ninjapenguin: If so, I have kind of an unusual request. See, thanks to your site, I have recently been introduced to the world of well-written romance novels. (Previously I had only been cognizant of the rather horrifyingly rape-tastic old school ones my grandmother would leave out.) Specifically, I have started reading, and consequently, falling hard for Georgette Heyer. But where do I go from…
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September 30, 2010 | Thursday | 8 Comments
Mind the teacakes, as we have a fiesta of coronation to accomplish! As is the tradition, anyone who guesses a HaBO (otherwise known as Help a Bitch Out) query on the first try in the first comment AND has their answer confirmed either by majority agreement or by the original asker wins a Smart Bitch Title™. As of now, we have three! For identifying the correct book for Billie Bloebaum, we invite you to kneel, Barb, and arise a member of the Peerage. For assisting in the identification of Stef Ann Holm’s Harmony, I invite you to kneel, Azure, and…
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September 02, 2010 | Thursday | 13 Comments
Our Bookmatcher, Billie Bloebaum from Powell’s Airport SuperEdition, has a HaBO request: Okay. Now it’s my turn to hope the Bitchery can help me out. It’s been close to thirty years since I read this book—sometime in the mid- to late-seventies. There’s a good chance that it was published in 1976 for the Bicentennial. It was a novel for younger readers and one of the featured characters was the Marquis de Lafayette. The book was possibly told in first person from the heroine’s perspective. I don’t remember much about the plot, except that there was a banquet fairly early on…
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August 16, 2010 | Monday | 69 Comments
Billie Bloebaum, romance book buyer for Powell’s in the Portland Airport, is exercising the power of her handselling abilities online, and fields requests for books to read. Kimberly writes in with a Bookmatcher request: Hi Sarah, I was wondering if you could help me out. I usually read urban fantasy or fantasy books with strong romance elements. I’m ready to move on and expand my horizons a little. I remember that you have done a feature called The Bookmatcher and was wondering if you would do one for me. I would love to read more space romances (think Linnea Sinclair-LOVE…
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July 15, 2010 | Thursday | 27 Comments
First, things happen when Zoe Archer shops Etsy. I don’t know if these are GOOD things but things definitely happen. Like Purssy clutches. Archer thinks this is a great place to store tampons. (SNRK.) From Billie, this absolutely hilarious report on Microsoft’s latest patent application for a virtual page turn gesture. I honestly don’t get page turn animations, and think they are a waste of time, but patenting the gesture? BIllie points out that the bootnote is the very best part (a close second is my opportunity to use the word ‘bootnote’): Bootnote We would be remiss if we didn’t…
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April 15, 2010 | Thursday | 85 Comments
Billie Bloebaum, romance book buyer for Powell’s in the Portland Airport, is exercising the power of her handselling abilities online, and fields requests for books to read. Thanks, Billie! Today’s request is from Cara: I’m looking for some help finding romances with a particular kind of pairing. I would like books with heroines who are smart, rational, and happy, and generally unconcerned with “proper” social behavior, and heroes who are equally smart and rational as well as kind. Basically your anti -angry boner man. Books where these two pair up because they both problem-solve in adult and unconventional ways, and…
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March 23, 2010 | Tuesday | 29 Comments
After I wrote about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I received so many recommendations of outstanding mystery series, and I wanted to share with you.
First, Pam wrote: “May I also suggest, the next time you are interested in phenominal prose, breathtaking attention to the human psyche and darned good mysteries , that you look up Louise Penny? First in the series: Still Life.
I have all to date from Audible.com, and this is one series that ‘listens’ better than it ‘reads’, IMHO.”
Thanks, Pam!
And of course, Bookmatcher Billie Bloebaum had a list of books to recommend:
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January 07, 2010 | Thursday | 76 Comments
Time again for hand selling online, when book mastermind Billie Bloebaum from Powells books (stop by and say hi when you’re next at the Portland airport!) matches enquiring minds with required reading. Raney writes: I recently finished an epic jag of reading exclusively graphic novels and trade paperbacks (basically trying to catch up on that entire, wonderful genre that I apparently missed when hitting the library growing up.) I was lucky enough to come across The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman. I’ve always been a fan of zombie movies, but this was my first venture into another zombie medium (oh,…
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December 10, 2009 | Thursday | 7 Comments
Time again for hand selling online, when book mastermind Billie Bloebaum from Powells books (conveniently located in the Portland airport!) matches enquiring minds with required reading. Deborah writes: I adored Bewitching by Jill Barnett. I’ve read the rest of her books, some I liked, some I didn’t, but I was looking for another author or book that has the same good sense of humor and adventure. Billie says, “Barnett hasn’t had anything new since 2007 (before that it was 2002) and hasn’t written an historical since 1999. But, if you want historicals with magic, then Kathryne Kennedy (e.g. My Unfair…
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November 24, 2009 | Tuesday | 19 Comments
Time again for Billie Bloebaum, Powell’s Airport book buyer, matching readers to books - a dying art that I can’t get over. Amy writes: The last book I read that I really, really loved was “Sugar Queen” by Sarah Addison Allen. Billie: My first impulse is to go with Alice Hoffman or maybe ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ or ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ or ‘Chocolat’, but to find a good romance novel with a touch of magical realism that doesn’t veer into schmaltz is more of a challenge. ‘The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes’ by Crusie, Dreyer, and Stuart has that…
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November 03, 2009 | Tuesday | 73 Comments
We’re starting a new feature here at Smart Bitch HQ. I was having a lively email conversation with Billie Bloebaum, who is the book buyer for Powell’s in the Portland airport, and she mentioned how much she enjoyed handselling books she knew were wonderpants but not as widely known as other more prominent bestselling pants. I mentioned that I’d never had a bookstore employee handsell me a book in a store, and she about fell over. This handselling thing is an art, and with the consolidation of bookstores and the loss of smaller independents, it’s an endangered art. Some bookstore…
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