All in Opinion

On YA + Sophistication

Sarah Moon
In the News, Opinion

Oh, hi there, ASkars. via EWI have a confession: I am an avid reader of Entertainment Weekly.

I love EW. So much so that I am perpetually mad at my letter carrier for delivering it several days late. (I’m convinced he’s reading it in his postal truck.)

Love. It.

Honestly, most of the time I don’t know who the hell they’re talking about, but there’s something delightful ridiculous about the whole magazine. However, in the midst of all the ridiculousness, there’s actually a pretty decent book section. I know, right? Who knew? Stephen Lee is pretty knowledgeable about young adult novels in particular, and I usually really enjoy his pieces in the magazine and on the EW blog. 

However, as a paged through last week’s issue, I was disheartened to read some pretty disappointing comments about young adult fiction in a short feature (not available online, sorry) about authors that usually write in the adult category making the move to YA. There were several comments with the undertone that YA literature is “easier” or less sophisticated, but the one that really struck me was from Elizabeth George, who said, 

My adult novels, plot-wise and linguistically, are very complicated. I had to alter that and create a much more straightforward way of telling my story.

—Elizabeth George in Entertainment Weekly

Excuse me?!

Guilty Pleasures, Gendered Language + Other Irritations

Sarah Moon
In the News, Opinion

Bendistillery

I have a confession: I have never, ever felt guilty about reading.

Clearly, I’m doing something wrong.

Why? Because as summer reading season heats up, more and more book sections of magazines, newspapers (yep, they still exist… sort of) and online media are proclaiming that now is the time to read those “guilty pleasure” books. It’s made even worse this year since every journalist with access to Google has written some variation of a ridiculous, alarmist piece about Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Take this random “observation” from Michael S. Rosenwald this week in the Washington Post, 

There are no book covers on e-readers, meaning you can read all the steamy sex you want and tell your friends that you’re reading the new Robert Caro. This is one of the key advantages to e-readers — lying about your reading habits — and it probably helps explain why guilty-pleasure fiction is the most popular genre of reading on e-readers, according to the Book Industry Study Group. (I had to ask my wife last month whether she was reading “Fifty Shades of Grey” on her e-reader. Yes, she was.) 

Let me get this right… ereaders are popular because because it’s easy for readers to lie about what they like to read? 

Um, no.

An Unconventional Blog Tour: Finding Your Blogging Voice

Sarah Moon
Opinion

Note: This post is part of An Unconventional Blog Tour, organized by Kelly and Liz to highlight some important topics in blogging. Make sure you visit all of the participants this week—there are really wonderful contributions to this different sort of blog tour. 

{One way? No way.}

In “real life,” I teach at a local college, where my focus is on digital media and communications, including a course specifically in blogging, as well as three other classes containing blogging units. When Kelly asked me to participate in the Unconventional Blog Tour (and, um… I still suspect I was accidentally added to the original email list—because there’s no way I should be included with these awesome, established book bloggers), I immediately thought of drawing on one of the most difficult sections in each of my classes: the challenge of finding your unique voice on the web. 

My students usually struggle with getting over the hump where they cannot fathom that they have anything unique or original to contribute—they just don’t see themselves having a voice that’s all that special. However, invariably, when I start digging deeper in our course discussions, all sorts of interesting angles and perspectives bubble to the surface. Yet, I believe that they do have something to say—something no one else can. Seriously. 

The thing is, there are so many folks out there saying that to be a blogger you must do this, and must never, ever do that, and you have to follow X, Y and Z Very Important Unbreakable Rules of Blogging. As a result, both aspiring and established bloggers often don’t allow themselves to think about what their own unique voice is, which is the fast track to burnout and boredom. 

I’ve found that that problem is far worse in the book blogging world,* where review copies of books serve as a sort of stand-in currency.  

How can bloggers find and preserve their distinctive voices? Well, it’s hard, but here’s what I tell my students, and it’s helped them discover some very unique and rewarding paths over the years. 

 

You’re Creative: You. Yes, You.**

Guest Post: Michelle Rafter on Writing Lessons from Five Accomplished Authors

Guest
Opinion

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the WordCount Blogathon, a challenge in which over 250 bloggers from all niches attempt to blog every single day in May. Today, bloggers are swapping posts. My post today is over on Michelle’s blog, where I’m talking about mobile devices and blogging. I was thrilled when Michelle offered to guest blog on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves, as she is a very accomplished writer and journalist who always has wonderful insights that she’s extremely generous about sharing. I know a lot of voracious readers are also aspiring writers, so Michelle’s thoughts on the lessons she’s learned from writers at the top of their game should be wonderfully useful to many of you.

The main difference between you and me and famous writers is that they’ve produced a work or works that through talent, ambition, hard work or good fortune have become well known.

When it comes to the process of writing, though, they’re just like us. They get caught up doing research. They get writer’s block. They’re not always sure of themselves, or organized. They write about what they know.

I learned those lessons and more from writers such as Annie Proulx and Stebastian Junger who I heard speak this year as part of an author lecture series sponsored by Portland Literary Arts, a local organization that promotes literature and literary. I won season tickets to the series in a Multnomah County Public Library summer reading program contest.

In addition to Proulx and Junger, since last October I’ve seen Stacy Schiff, Tom Brokaw and Abraham Verghese.

Opinion: Book Reviews, Goodreads, Literary Criticism + Influence (Oh my!)

Sarah Moon
In the News, Opinion

{via State Library and Archives of Florida}

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a parallel digital universe, completely counter to the mainstream.

From friends being horrified by the concept of my devoting time to something as “weird” as blogging or Twitter, to proclamations from mainstream publications bemoaning that ebooks are ruining—ruining—our civilization, it’s bizarre that being involved in the digital world is still perceived by a lot of people as a fringe activity.

In that vein, The Atlantic recently turned its critique of digital culture to the rise of online book reviews in the article, Could the internet save book reviews?”*  

In theory, customer reviews are quick, easy, egalitarian, and make the “consumer” (as opposed to the reader) feel in control of his or her reading choices. But there’s a difference between a recommendation and a review. Customer reviews are heavy on opinion and light on insight. They’re reactionary. Fiction customer reviews typically contain “I-loved-it” or “I-hated-it” declarations based on an affinity for or dislike of the characters and discuss them as if they were real people. Customer reviews rarely include plot summaries—even dull ones. They tend to consider books in terms of whether or not they were worth the money and need not pertain to the book at all. 

Generalize much?

Why We Ditched Our Recommendations System

Sarah Moon
Announcements, Opinion

Tim Riggins would like to “talk.”You may have noticed (though, likely you haven’t) that we’re no longer giving books we review a recommendation or rating.

Yes, we’re still employing the Extremely Scientific FNL Character Rating System when applicable, but there are no longer any ratings of books we review on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. (We had originally categorized them on a scale from “Avoid” to “Must Read.”)

We were never comfortable with a numeric system (1-5 or 1-10 or letter grades are common), but felt that since it was “normal” to have a rating/recommendation that we should try to be somewhat “normal.”

(You can stop snickering now.)

(Really? You’re still laughing? It’s that funny that we were attempting to be “normal”?)

(Okay. You’re right. It’s pretty freaking hilarious.)

{Opinion} E-Book Price Hikes - Libraries = An Unfair Game

Sarah Moon
Opinion

I love to buy books. Ebooks, paper books, whatever. I simply love to own books. It’s probably a disease of some sort.

Sure, I use my library, especially my library’s ebook collection (more on that in a minute), since it always nice to visit my library without the hassle of, you know, leaving the house. But, ultimately, I feel good about buying books, because I know that it supports the people who create the books I love—authors, yes, but also the editors and book designers and everyone else who’s involved in the creation and curation* of what’s on our shelves, virtual or physical. 

However, as much as I love buying books, I hate feeling manipulated. 

And with the combination of publishers—particularly Penguin—simultaneously raising their ebook prices while yanking their titles from libraries’ ebook collections, that’s exactly how I feel. 

IceBound by Julie RoweUnfair Game?

Let me tell you a little story about my recent attempt to read one of Penguin’s new releases, Patricia Briggs’ Fair Game. 

I’ve been hit or miss with the Alpha & Omega spinoff series of the Mercy Thompson series. I liked the first book just fine and was rather “meh” on the second. So, while the books in the main series are auto-buys for me, because they’re guaranteed good reads, I’m not as confident in the Alpha & Omega series. 

But, since there’s not going to be a new Mercy book until 2013 (sob!), I decided that I’d been missing the Mercyverse way too much and would revist this parallel series in the same world. Since it was a hardback release, I knew it would be a perfect Kindle book. (I have tendinitis in my right hand so hardbacks, are murder on my hands—I’d quit reading any new releases unless they were in paperback before my husband bought me my Kindle three years ago. Additionally, our house is super-tiny—around 800 square feet—so I can’t bring paper books that aren’t part of my “permanent collection” into the house.)

Logging onto Amazon, I discovered that the book was priced at $12.99. Given that this series is iffy for me, and that it was fewer than 300 pages, I balked at that price point. Momentarily forgetting that Penguin had abandoned libraries’ ebook collections, I logged onto Multnomah County Library’s website to put a hold on the ebook. 

Oh, right… Penguin doesn’t want libraries to lend ebooks. 

 

{Opinion} Stop telling me what to read, please!

Sarah Moon
In the News, Opinion

In a blatant (and successful) attempt at link-baiting, the New York Time published an opinion piece on their website last week about how adults shouldn’t be reading young adult fiction. 

Cue the eye rolls.

(No, I won’t link to the article, you can find it if you Google “Joel Stein is a Sexist Ass.”) I’m not going to add to the commentary about how this is an absurd assertion, because loads of people have already done that extremely well, but I am going to ask another question, 

Why the HELL do we even care what people do or do not read?

Seriously. Why is this important to so many people? It seems that at least once a month, there’s some new article (50 percent of which feature Jonathan Franzen bloviating about his supposed superiority) asserting that we should read X, that we should not read Y and that “serious readers*” would most definitely should not read Z. 

If you’ve been reading this blog, you have probably figured out that my reading tastes are all over the place. But, I have a particular enjoyment of the following: 

  1. Contemporary, realistic YA;
  2. Creative, entertaining urban fantasy;
  3. Urban crime fiction;
  4. Post-apocalyptic/dystopian (adult or YA)
  5. Books involving prank wars;
  6. Smart contemporary romance (a la Julie James and Shannon Stacey);
  7. Novels involving zombies;
  8. Novels involving werewolves;
  9. Middle Eastern women’s fiction;
  10. Graphic novel/fiction with visual elements;
  11. Funny memoirs;
  12. Sweet and fun contemporary YA (a la Stephanie Perkins); 
  13. Books involving heists and/or capers; and
  14. Books that don’t suck (to me).

 

Noelle vs. The Embarrassing Book Covers

Noelle
Opinion

[Editor’s note: Noelle shares with us her story about a fight many a reader has had—to read or not to read books with “those covers.” You know what I’m talking about.]

Round One: Scorn

I have always been a book lover.

I have always been a fan of awesome.

But unfortunately, I haven’t always been so open-minded about certain genres—-especially those with questionable cover designs. Nowadays, I usually subscribe to the Stephon Marbury philosophy that [book] love is [book] love but only a few short years ago, I was that girl side-eyeing your selections in the Barnes & Noble checkout line, rolling my eyes at the ratio of abs to cover space and assuring anyone who would listen that I didn’t read those kind of books.

That is, until I did…

Round Two: Begrudging Curiosity

One of my college roommates was what I affectionately refer to as a Romance Shark. She was unabashedly addicted to romance novels of all kinds and had a multi-state swap network set up with her extended family. I held out for as long as I could but browsing her bookshelves and observing what she was reading was inevitable. 

Slowly but surely, I succumbed to curiosity. After more than a few books were “accidentally” left on the coffee table, my snarking evolved from catcalls at the shirtless dudes on the cover to,

Wait—so he’s a time traveling highlander?

 

and

What’s an urban fantasy?

 

The Romance Shark immediately sensed a weakness in my defenses—-blood in the water, if you will—-and dared me to read one—just one—of those books. 

And, crap… I liked it.

{Opinion} The Never Ending Series

Laura
Opinion

I’ve recently come to the realization that I want to read stand-alone novels or series limited to 10 or so books that have definitive resolutions.

I’m tired of series that refuse to end and tired of authors recycling the same material repeatedly. Sometimes the material gets packaged into a new saga, but it’s still an extension of the same series.

It. Just. Won’t. End.

The only way these series will “end” is if/when:

A.) I die, or

B.) the author dies.

Neither of these options appeal to me.

{Opinion} How I Met Tom Mackee (or A Defense of Goodreads + Libraries)

Maggie
Opinion

If you’re a sports fan, and you’ve ever made a comment on a sports blog or Twitter, you’ve been trolled.

As a female sports fan, and Asian to boot—before the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, thank you very much—well, you just have to learn to roll with the punches or punch back even harder. It can be ugly and unpleasant.

Then I found Goodreads.

Goodreads quickly became my happy place. More than that, it felt like a safe little corner of the internet where book lovers discussed what they were reading and what they wanted to read. And then things turned ugly in a very familiar way earlier this year with authors attacking reviewers and vice versa. But that’s not what this post is about. You can find posts about all that other bullshit elsewhere.

This is about how Goodreads reviewers and my local library led me to Tom Mackee and one of my favorite authors.