Friday, July 16, 2010

Free For All Friday


Instead of the usual book review, I thought we'd talk about a hodgepodge of things.

1. The Old Spice Man gets all literary on us and what not



2. Author Ernessa T. Carter was bold enough to share a chapter of the rough draft for her new book online.  Guess what? I loved 32 Candles and I love what she's written so far in what she's titled The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men.  If you didn't check it out earlier in the week, by all means, click here and do so now!

3. Lori Tharp, author of Kinky Gazpacho, has a new book coming out! Fans of The Nanny Diaries are sure to love Substitute Me.  What happens when 30 year old college drop out Zora becomes the nanny & then some? Pre-order your copy and find out!

4.The debate over whether or not books by and about African-Americans should be integrated within their respective genres or lumped together in "the black section" continues on Twitter and the blogosphere.   Author Tayari Jones tackles it again with her post Avoid the Santa Syndrome: Don't Blame Zane.  We've talked about it here before, but I'm interested in knowing if your views have changed since the last time.  Do you like your books like you like your martinis, shaken not stirred (segregated) or on the rocks (integrated)?

5. What would you like to see more of on the blog? What would you like to see less of? Do Teaser Tuesdays & Throwback Thursdays work for you or should I do them less frequently?  Is there too much going on in the side columns or not enough?

6. What's on your mind? It's Free for All Friday so there's no need to stick to just lit.  Feel free to share whatever it is you're just dying to talk about.

8 comments :

  1. My day had already started off a little rocky but that pic up top was the first thing to bring a smile to my face. This day will be alright after all. LOL!

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  2. I love the Old Spice Guy answering questions using You Tube. And it's not difficult looking at his abs either. Regarding question #4 - I think AA authors should be integrated with everyone else. When I bought Wench and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky I was pleasantly surprised that Border's had it mixed in with Fiction section. Being trained to automatically go to the AA section, when I couldn't find the books there, I had automatically assumed that they didn't have the books. On a whim I went to the fiction section and found them there. I think by segregating the books the author is being done a disservice.

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  3. 1. the old spice man could make a video where he's reading the memoir of miley cyrus & i would watch it 1000 times over, haha.

    3. I'm really interested in reading Substitute Me. I loved Tharps' memoir and am interested to read her fiction.

    4. loved that post by Tayari. still don't like the fact that we're segregated nor that baby mama drama 12 is stocked next to books like their eyes were watching god. can't street lit get its own section while everything else is integrated? #biased

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  4. I've noticed that Barnes and Nobles here shelves by genre, but Borders has the token "black section." It's always interesting to me that books by and about other ethnic groups are integrated, but anything dealing with African Americans is segregated. I wonder if some stores do that because they're afraid "we" might raise a ruckus if our books don't stand out or accuse them of discrimination.

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  5. *whispering* the Old Spice Man makes me weak...

    I don't know that I'd have as much of a problem with stores (and libraries) putting the 'black lit' together IF the street lit wasn't included. It makes me feel like a book snob, kind of like middle class people that have come up and then look down on the poor people moving into their neighborhood. I don't mind them & their genre doing well, I just don't want them on my shelves (in my neighborhood).

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  6. I've gotten so used to going to the AA section that I get upset when I can't find what I'm looking for, I just assume that the bookstore doesn't have it. To me you can't do a partial integration, its all or nothing. The Border's near me has a AA section but some authors are in the other sections. There is no rhyme or reason (that I can figure out - besides brown people on the cover) to which authors go in the AA section and which go in the genre sections.

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  7. *Reading directions* I love your blog the way it is. I read all the post and I wish I had an extra bar from my blog provider. Keep it going.

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