Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Blogger M has launched a blog plea for help.  She wants to be married and not because she can’t handle a drill or open her own doors or that she is afraid of being independent.  It sounds like she wants someone to share her life with her.  Isn’t the what romances are about?  The best ones, in my opinion, are two adults who want to share their life with someone else, not because their lives are empty without another.

Her description of what she wants (and isn’t that hard to articulate) is really wonderful:
I no longer want someone just to be there; I want someone to lead when I start to forget where I’m going and to make me laugh when I’m taking life too seriously. I want someone who isn’t afraid to tell the truth, even if it makes me cry. I want someone who can admit when he’s wrong so that he and we will always be able to grow. I want someone to sit in the dark with- no words necessary. I want someone who isn’t afraid to drop everything and go anywhere. I want someone who will not settle for mediocre, for almost, for halfway. I …

There was an Australian library (I think) that once hosted single’s parties which I thought was a brilliant idea. Apparently, though, some of the Literati* think that book tastes are more of a turn off than a turn on. Self help books are apparently something that would likely make women keep their clothes on. One male editor at Harper recounts the tale of giving a girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada”, a book that is apparently about incest at its core. The relationship didn’t last, but the girlfriend’s love for the book did.
I think a boyfriend giving me a book about incest could give a weird message, like, I’d like to screw you like you’re my sister or, alternatively, I think of you like a sister and thus, this is my kiss off book.
As for Ned and I? The big fiction that we tell everyone is that we met at the bookstore (or was it the library). We didn’t but it’s something that the parents like to hear.
More at the Times.
* I know some in the cubicles of publishing might object to the term Literati, but I wasn’t the one who coined the term.

The state library of Victoria in Melbourne is experimenting with speed dating nights. Each person must bring either a book that they love or loathe “ensuring there are no uneasy silences during the series of five-minute dates.”

13 couples linked up for further dates.

Felstead said books taken to the first dating night included Susan Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, and several novels by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Via CNN.

Ned and I tell everyone we met at a bookstore. Maybe we’ll change our story to library. I actually love this idea.