Romance Book Lovers

A little window dressing, a cover I liked from one of these bloggers' Ellora's Cave releases, and lots of good questions this week in romance-blog-land.

Smart Bitches: SB Sarah noticed a romance novel themed window at Barney's New York, complete with toppling TBR piles.

Romancing the Blog: Sylvia Day has a thought provoking post about too much of a good thing when it comes to multiple releases in the same month. She asks, "What are the pros and cons to having overcrowded bookshelves supporting multiple new releases by one author?"

And I'd also like to point out the lovely new header over at Sylvia Day's Blog. I don't know when that went up (I'm not always the most observant person), but it's absolutely gorgeous.

Access Romance: Tawny Taylor asks whether you are a "courtly" or a "carnal" book lover. I think I'm in the middle. I'll dogear my paperbacks like crazy, but I hate cracking the spine. However, I drag them everywhere, so they often end up getting roughed up.

Murder She Writes: "Just write the book" is a common piece of advice for novelists. Natalie Collins asks her fellow writers what tricks/techniques they use to get to that all important "The End."

2 B Read Lois Winston discusses meeting reader expectations or not and how that's complicated by some marketing decisions publishers make.

Vamps and Scamps: Dianne Castell asks What kind of book will you not read?

WriteMinded: The neverending struggle between the personal and professional gets discussed by Sharon Long.

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Your Personal Comfort Read Romance Novel

I will soon be posting an update with my favorite links from around blogdom this last week. I'm sorry for the lack of updates, I've been a little distracted. I was poking through my bookshelves this morning (a recent reorganization has me needing to hunt) and I wanted a comfort read--something where I've worn the poor book out and know what I'm in for and like the ride. If there is angst, I know that everything will be resolved and exactly how it will be resolved, unlike what's on the cable news networks.

Sandra Brown's "Sunset Embrace" does it for me. Do you have an all time favorite comfort read? And what sort of events send you reaching for it?

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Academic approach to Romance Novels

If you frequent romance novel oriented blogs with any regularity, chances are you've recently seen links to this site. If not, let me recommend, Teach Me Tonight, which has been serving up intelligent, academic posts about romance novels for the last month or so. The authors include a professor running a 200 level course (and shares her syllabus with us) and the author of "A Natural History of the Romance Novel." Good stuff, footnotes all around and lots to think about.

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