PRH UK to pay work experience participants in diversity drive – Each year, 450 individuals have the opportunity to “work” at Penguin Random House UK for two weeks. In the past, those experiences would be unpaid, except for travel and food. Now, though, participants will be paid £262.50/week, which is significant because ... more >
“Magic in North America”: The Harry Potter franchise veers too close to home – So if you’ve heard about or read JK Rowling’s new “Magic in North America” pieces on Pottermore, you may also know about the pushback that Adrienne Keene and others have articulated. Rowling, you see, has decided to ... more >
Why We Are Attracted to Deviant Personalities – Given the discussions we have in Romance about what makes a “good” or “healthy” relationship, this study is pretty interesting. At this point, though, it seems like there are many more qualifications and limitations than conclusions, especially given the potential failures in self-reporting, ... more >
Romance, Perception, Plagiarism, and Ripped Bodices – You may have heard about the Kickstarter campaign to start an all Romance bookstore in Los Angeles. The store’s name, The Ripped Bodice, is stirring up controversy (surprise!), and there have been numerous conversations on Twitter about whether the name is an homage and ... more >
Amazon opens its first real bookstore — at U-Village – The rumors, apparently, are true. Amazon now has its first brick and mortar bookstore, in Seattle, and while it is selling some of the same books as Amazon.com at the same prices (including a book written by Jeff Bezos’s wife, MacKenzie), ... more >
Awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich is a bold decision – I like this piece by Arifa Akbar because it focuses on the way Alexievich’s win “recalibrates the status of ‘non-fiction’ in the literary canon. I agree that there remains a perception that non-fiction is somehow less ... more >