Note: I had originally made this entry live a few days ago, but because of the traffic and the fact that this entry is image-heavy, I had to take it down. So I’m reposting it now.
First, from a link courtesy of Zaza, Paula Guran makes a wise point and look for it on your next SAT verbal (is there even a SAT verbal anymore?). I’m giving away the answer right here.
Man-titty: Romance = Urban Fantasy: JEAN BUTTS.
“Are there too many paranormal tuchas out there?” This is an important question that doesn’t get NEARLY enough attention.
And why are there no “tramp stamp” tattoos?
In other news, if you’re not watching The Jewish Americans on PBS like I am (no really, it’s very, very good), you might also like the new PBS Masterpiece series: The Complete Jane Austen. Thanks to Tamara for the link, though my DVR does NOT thank her because it is all, ‘Bitch do not even THINK of recording this on HD, hear?’
Masterpiece will be broadcasting adaptations of all six of Austen’s novels including the A&E Pride and Prejudice (aka Colin Firth omg Colin Firth). According to the site, this will be “the first time in television history that her books have been broadcast as a complete collection.”
And finally, from Evil Auntie Peril, some international cover hilarity!
I spotted this in the bookstore on my way home tonight, and felt compelled to send you guys this. Nice to know that the Czechs are into equal opportunity when it comes to their persontitty… This is the Czech cover for the much-lauded “Scandal of the Season: A Novel” – Sophie Gee’s take on “The Rape of the Lock”
And here’s the American cover:
Now, personally, I think the Czech version would sell like gangbusters, no? It’s so titty it’s like baroque titty!
Either way, Read for Pleasure reviewed it most intelligently – thanks to EAPeril for all the linkolation.
The English professor in me cringes, SB Sarah. Cringes, I tell you.
man titty : romance :: jean butts : urban fantasy
You gotta get them in the right order, you see. Cover and then genre on both sides!
Fascinating obseration, though, and what’s with those Scarlett Johansen lips on that cover model?!
Sarah, I watched Jewish Americans on PBS last week and loved it! Can’t wait for this week’s to air!
Colin Firth= DROOL!
Ah, I remember learning about the Rape of the Lock in Honors English way back in high school. It’s very interesting that nudity is a lot less of a big deal in Europe than it is in America.
“Grins” Colin Firth does indeed = drool, but the new BBC version of Sense and Sensibility has a very yummy colonel Brandon, Willoughby and Edward Ferris too 😉 (check out the iplayer on the BBC website if you can’t get it where you are).
Sorry, back to the subject. Weird how all the dancing people are studiously ignoring the giant naked woman, except for the girl in the middle who appears to be looking “beyond the veil”..
I love that Colin Firth almost didn’t take the role of Mr. Darcy because he thought he was too unattractive for it.
I caught the Jewish Americans program completely by chance last week while I was flipping through the channels. I had to dvr it into the second hour because it was past my bedtime. I love great documentaries.
Colin Firth is so dead sexy.
I caught Persuasion last night at around 1 am, I think. Lovely.
I AM SO STOKED for Northanger Abbey this weekend. It was always a favorite of mine because it sends up romance while being incredibly romantic.
I think this version is the Kate Beckinsale one. YUM!!
I’m *so* culturally illiterate. Who is Colin Firth?
Colin Firth is infinitely lickable… LIKEABLE!!
er… I meant likeable.
Really.
.
.
.
.
**blush**
I totally love Firth as Mr. Darcy. I think given the shortened version Matthew McFayden did a credible job, but I really do love the way Firth’s Darcy hints and admits that he has a thing for Lizzie early on as he “meditates on her fine eyes”.
And yes, it is pretty funny that at the time Firth didn’t think he’d be good for the tole when now he’s the one considered the favorite.
As for new Sense and Sensiblity…I loved Alan Rickman as Col. Brandon! But David Henessey (I think that’s who is new Col Brandon in this anyway) is a good actor. Though the actor who plays Willoughby…sorta creeps me out? I keep thinking “why aren’t you Greg Wise???” But I will watch it anyway, even if I do compare it to Emma Thompson (love her!) Sense and Sensibility. Actually, the guy who plays Edwards sorta resembles Hugh Grant a little.
Though I’m mostly excited for P&P. I was two feet from Adrian Lukus (Mr. Wickham) in Edinburgh at the Festival Fringe this past August and didn’t get a chance to say hi and how great I thought he was in P&P. (and now I also wonder how many times I probably passed Dylan Moran on the street while I was living there, damn I love Black Books)
I’m so ready for the butt-shot covers to go away—especially since you can see me bitching over on that post about how they depersonalize and objectify the women, and how tight pants are not, for me, an adequate indicator of personal strength.
On the other hand, I do wish I had gotten enough entrants for my “Baby Got Back” contest, which involved challenging people to do an butt-shot cover mock-up for Midnight Never Come, giant mountain of Elizabethan clothing and all.
Oh, Donna, you are SO RIGHT. “The Jewish Americans” is so marvelous.
But I had to turn off the first episode last night before I went to bed because they were about to start talking about the shirtwaist industry and I couldn’t go to bed after seeing the Triangle Shirtwaist discussed, which I was sure it would be. I’d have nightmares.
BUT WOW this documentary is SO FREAKING GOOD. I can’t wait for #2.
“Colin Firth is so dead sexy.”
Amen, Chrissy. Amen.
I, too, love Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon. Every time he reads to Marianne, I close my eyes and pretend he’s reading to me. THAT VOICE! Yum…
But covers don’t bug me alot (actually prefer them to bodice ripper or clinch covers)…UNTIL they dangle something down the back. A necklace hanging down the back totally stomps on my last nerve…in a “leave it on the shelf and buy a different book” kinda way.
Ohhh Katie I have such a crush on Alan Rickman and it’s all about the voice, really.
The scene that gets to me in S&S is when he brings the mother to Maryanne and the women are all in a tangle, and she looks to the doorway, where he is hanging back in the shadows, and weakly says “thank you.” He ducks away with his head down, but you just KNOW he is undone… and that the beginnings of love are stirring.
O. M. G. I cry every freaking time.
Personally, Alan Rickman gives me the creeps. All I can think when I see him is Snape = ewwwwwwwww. It’s probably generational.
I saw Persuasion last night and loved it! I’m so glad Jane Austen is having a huge revival.
Chrissy – Kate Beckensale plays Emma on March 23rd, with Samantha Morton as Harriet Smith. Felicity Jones stars as Catherine Moreland next sunday in Northanger Abbey.
THANK YOU!
LOL at Snape. Poor guy. At least he redeemed himself.
I have always been a sucker for throaty or gravelly voices and accents. I married a man who grew up in England from age 11 to adulthood, but was born in Kurdistan and lived there til 11. He has this GREAT West Endy Holland Parky accent with a tiny tracing of Persia in the corners of it… raked over coals to make it tear at the corners.
The big jerk… if he knew how much power he weilds… errr, I’d be in trouble. LOL
Colin Firth – Yummy and a good actor!
After I saw P&P for the first time I named my special battery operated friend after the man…go Firth, my hand, go Firth…
Anywho—
Saw Persuasion last night; awesomeness, loved it, can’t wait for next Sunday. I heart me some PBS.
Okay—now I gotta show your blog to my hs students as proof that A. plagiarism is a crime punishable by horrible public death wherein your own grandmother gets to skewer you through the heart with a flaming marshmallow kabob (or, well, it should be) and B. ANALOGIES LIVE, LIVE I TELL YOU, LIVE!!!!
Evan as Snape Alan Rickman does it for me. It’s an illness. And the scene that I love from that Sense & Sensibility is where he’s outside Marianne’s room, trailing his hand along the wall & says something like ‘Give me something to do or I’ll go mad.’
I’m afraid the new Colonel Brandon did nothing for me – though I did like Edward & Willougby (He’s one of the actors from Bennett’s ‘The History Boys.) Liked the rest of the cast, and overall liked the adaptation – but I think Emma Thompson’s version was so good, that this edition didn’t add anything new.
And Northanger Abbey was my favourite of the adaptions they did this year, but it’s a book I studied in school, and don’t reread much, so the actors don’t have to compete with the version in my head. If you love the book, Chrissy, you might notice book-mangling scenes I would just have missed.
(Do you think it’s romantic? In the book he falls for her because she’s fallen for him, which I think is astute observation, and really funny, but wouldn’t be one of my top ten romantic moments…)
I liked the new Persuasion, tho the first few minutes used a jerky, “Bourne Ultimatum” camera style that bugged me and seemed unsuited to the material. In general, the pace seemed a little frantic to me, if that makes sense.
If you haven’t seen the BBC version of Persuasion from 1995, with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, I highly recommend it. Beautifully filmed, very romantic. You see Anne bloom before your eyes over the course of the movie, which highlights longing looks, the effect of casual touching, all sorts of literotic devices. And Hinds, who plays Wentworth, is somewhat Rickmanesque in looks and voice.
http://www.amazon.com/Persuasion-Amanda-Root/dp/B00003JRCQ
Input from a romance-reading hetero guy; take it for what it’s worth.
I think the urban fantasy tramp stamp you’re looking for is here: http://tiny.cc/xfdzd in Iron Kissed, by Patricia Briggs. The first two books in this series showed Mercy from the front – maybe her publisher is getting on the bandwagon late?
I second the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds version of ‘Persuasion.’ I am a hardcore JA devotee (“fan” doesn’t seem an adequate word), and as happy as I am that there are new productions of her works out and about, I was disappointed in this week’s ‘Persuasion.’ Maybe it was the way an hour and a half didn’t seem like enough time to whip through the plot and all the quiet little moments of longing and apprehension.
Really, though, I think most of it was the scriptwriter’s decision to move a conversation in the book to an earlier scene—which then changed the culminating scene where Wentworth and Anne realize they both still love one another. I know this is a version of “But that’s not how it happened in the book!”, but really, I don’t understand why it was done—it took away from the tension and anticipation of that final scene for me.
I’m sadly not as excited about the other productions now—but will watch them anyway. That’s how I roll.
Ciaran Hind is another rather hot potato. I adore him.
This is the best idea PBS has ever had.
I totally heart the Ciaran Hinds ‘Persuasion’, too, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t possibly be the only person who thought Rupert Penry-Jones as Capt. Wentworth was just about the smokin’ hottest thing ever. Anyone? Bueller?
I spent half the day in lust with his IMDB photo. Yummy.
Rupert Penry-Jones was totes smoking (why are so many British hotties named Rupert?), but I thought he was a little young for the role—not as world-weary as I imagined him.
True, somehow Ciaran Hinds makes for a hot leading man, even with a face like 10 miles of worn-out shoe leather.