I guess I don’t find the line up to be so offensive because every publishing house has gross titles.

But I have to say that Harlequin gets a free pass to publish a lot of stuff I don’t personally like in return for reprinting the Ida Cook memoir.

113 Things to Do By 13 by Brittany and Terri Macleod. This
one-of-a-kind, celebrity-driven book is packed with lists,
how-to’s, the hottest stars and all things tweens should do,
contemplate or gossip about before they hit the age of 13.

I’m glad no one told me what to do, contemplate or gossip about at that age based on celebrities.

Nothing’s wrong with any of those topics in themselves, I don’t mean that. It’s that HQ is focusing solely on them that’s the problem. If they were publishing those topics along with, say, historical nonfiction or social issue topics, it wouldn’t be an issue for me (and I do think they’re seriously missing out by not publishing historical nonfiction; I think a sort of “Everyday life in Regency/Medieval/whatever England” or “in the old West” or whatever would fly off the shelves. Books on writing would sell well too, I imagine.

Lol on “the self-help and muffins crowd” veinglory. Awesome.

I wonder, though–RWA seems to be all over romance readers’ basic demographics, and I tend to assume Harlequin’s savvy about what their readers want, but are there more detailed data out there on other reading and lifestyle factors? My list of other books would look more like veinglory’s than like Harlequin’s, and while I’m not claiming to be typical, I doubt I’m that rare a bird.

with: bioscience, techno-gadgets, postmodern philosophy, polical satire, manga and fetish photography that caters to women.

It looks, to me, a little like a massive stereotype about femininity in general and romance readers in particular.

Usually I’m not super sensitive about the image of the genre, but this move strikes me as playing into the idea that romance is self-help for lonely[or whatever epithet] women. However, I recognize that it’s probably a fab business move for Harlequin.

I agree that the lineup is in itself innocuous–there’s nothing wrong with self-help offerings. And there’s nothing wrong with romance *functioning* as self-help either; that’s one way books can be read. But my initial reaction to the combination was that it fit a little uncomfortably.

Ogod. Must romance be permanently associated with self-help?

I know and health, fitness and diet too? Outrageous.

The lineup seems pretty innocuous to me.