Assorted links 'n' stuff

[lizbee]

Austen-hating journalist versus the Janeites' Cluebats of Righteousness.  Sadly, he didn't seem to stick around long enough for a proper fight, but it was fun watching the pwning in action.

You guys know how much I love trashy UK celeb magazines almost as much as I love dodgy celeb biographies?  Be still my beating heart!  Due out in Australia in November.

Here's a wonderful interview with some of Melbourne's independent booksellers.  Includes terrible customers, book recommendations and a serial book thief.  Who, by the way, I'm going to kick in the nads if I ever see him.  Giant pink Thai cookbooks don't come cheap, people!

Geography fail!  Wrong Georgia, kid.

The plot is fairly simplistic but with redundant lines. "Oceania has always been war with Eastasia." "Freedom is slavery." "Big Brother is watching you." In other words, it was nothing but a lot of nonsensical fillers. One-star reviews of 1984. 

This advertisement appeared on a phone booth outside work the other day.  You know how there are weird moments where suddenly you wonder if they all lied and the world actually does revolve around you?  Yeah.

Comments

[buttfacemakani.livejournal.com]

Omfg the one star reviews of 1984 make me want to punch something.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Hey, I can't remember -- have you read Kenneth Oppel's Skybreaker? Because if not, three words: giant. flying. squid.

Also, after reading that book to my son and having him go nuts over how exciting the story was (seriously, he had me reading three LONG chapters a day because he couldn't wait to find out what happened next), I found it hilarious to come across a one-star review (from another preteen boy, I'm guessing) complaining that it was "nothing but romance".

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

Book thieves! That in itself sounds like fiction, somehow--I'm picturing Dickens'-type gangs, only with reading glasses...

[sister-ananke.livejournal.com]

We all giggled over that at work. Particularly the 'Elvis or lesbian anthology' query.

We should do dinner. Possibly in November...I have too many 6 day weeks coming, wth too much leave. AND THE CONFERENCE IS ALMOST HERE?!

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yet another Austen basher. At least, he actually does grant her novels some political dimension (even if it's the conservative one) instead of dismissing them as Regency chick lit altogether. But Marilyn Butler's argument isn't quite as simplistic as it makes it out to be, nor does he seem to have read other secondary works like Claudia Johnson's "Women, Politics and the Novel" that were written partly in reaction to Butler.

Oh, and he does go on to bash teeny chick lit in the end. Not that I like this genre in general, but I don't care much for his snobbish reasoning.

[melengro.livejournal.com]

A woman writing about female characters with actual agency in the early nineteenth century is totes conservative, yes. Far more conservative than the ideal of soft, weak femininity presented in Wuthering Heights, or the reactionary tendencies of Scott. Yes.

It worries me that there are people who feel such a burning need to decide what teenagers should and should not read. For their own good, of course.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Me too. But I love reading one-star reviews for great books. Because I'm a masochist, possibly, or I like watching stupid people.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it, but it just went on my list. I had to put Philip Reeves's Larklight down because the main characters blew up the giant flying squid.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Sadly, they tend to be smelly guys in oversized hoodies and ragged baseball caps.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Dinner would be most excellent. After your six day weeks are over, natch.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

"Geography fail! Wrong Georgia, kid."

"The plot is fairly simplistic but with redundant lines. "Oceania has always been war with Eastasia." "Freedom is slavery." "Big Brother is watching you." In other words, it was nothing but a lot of nonsensical fillers. One-star reviews of 1984."

OH DEAR GOD.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Did you pick it up again? I heart that book so much. (Though I had forgotten the squid. I only remembered the spiders.)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

No, it wasn't really holding my attention. I skipped ahead far enough to see that I'd already guessed most of the twists, and took it back to the library.

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

EWWW. What are they even doing with books? Or near books, even.

[infiniteviking]

*snickers* Sadly, I too had a Georgia moment when the news first came out.

You've seen the video about the giant octopus attack, right?