Clover and recent book acquisitions

For those who have been waiting for the omnibus rerelease of Clamp's Clover, I saw it at the bookstore today.  The packaging is gorgeous and there looks to be about 30-40 color pages.  At some point in time, I may stop looking at those and actually read it, though likely not until after A-Kon.  The designs and art don't look to quite be Clamp's normal fare.  My only concern is that it's softcover, and the paperstock might be too heavy to read it without damaging the binding.  *irrational fear of such things*  I also grabbed the manhua The History of the West Wing, which is, I think, complete in one volume and apparently based on a famous chinese play named Xixiang Ji.  It looks promising.

Anyway, I have noticed that, the longer I'm back working customer surface, the more often I am struck by the need to go browsing through the used bookstore and pick up random things.  And so I present far too many recent acquisitions, padded by new releases I haven't got to yet, and some books that were passed on to me.

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Also, the backlog has been updated.

Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley

Like Mosley’s better known Easy Rawlins series, this is a noir story focusing on a black man and his best friend who get caught up in a series of escalating events.

Set in 1950’s L.A., Paris Minton has only recently opened a used bookshop when a woman named Love comes in, looking for help and pursued, of course, by mysterious men. Soon, he’s been beaten, shot at and robbed. And then he went home and found his store-and home-burned to the ground. He knows he needs help but his secret weapon is his brave, charming friend, Fearless Jones, a WWII veteran, who’s in jail. And so, naturally, he has to get him out.

The friendship between Paris and Fearless and overall plot play out fairly similarly to the friendship between Easy and Mouse in Devil in A Blue Dress, though some themes are different, such as the inclusion of Jews and their treatment at the time, and Mosley has come a ways as an author in between the two books. Paris and Fearless are easy to like (and I’m especially fond of Paris’s love of books) as are their supporting cast. Devil in A Blue Dress is less misogynistic than most noir, and Fearless Jones is even less so. Multiple women get to have sex without dying. Actually, I think only one woman dies, and for important plot reasons. Women also get to have sex without being temptresses out to lead our hero astray.

I was also better able to follow who killed and attacked who and why, though that did still get a little confusing.

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell and Cindy Tan

We do it in the dark. Under the sheets. With a penlight. We wear sunglasses and a baseball hat at the bookstore. We have a "special place" where we store them. Let's face it: Not many folks are willing to publicly admit they love romance novels. Meanwhile, romance continues to be the bestselling fiction genre. Ever. So what's with all the shame?

A while back, Tan and Wendell’s website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books got a lot of attention when they discovered that prolific romance novelist Cassie Edwards had plagiarized various texts in order to add “historical flavor” to her books. Such as a post-coital discussion about black-footed ferrets ripped from an academic article. Now they’ve published a 300 (or so) page meta about romance novels.

The book is brilliantly funny and sometimes so spot on that it’s painful to read. Such as the 49 page “choose your own romance novel” section, which allows you to explore the most stereotyped archetypes of the romance novel in its various manifestations. This is followed by a romance novel coloring page and romance novel mad libs. Never let it be said that art projects and games have no place in semi-serious discussion?

Tan and Wendell deconstruct and examine the genre and its characters and manifestations on all levels, including its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the genre’s politicas and representations of society, race, gender and sexuality. And do it all in a typically brilliantly and bitingly funny way. A few quotes:

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It’s not perfect-for example, the writers are clearly used to a format where they can later return and expand on their thoughts after receiving feedback, something they address themselves at the end, and I’m not sure I agree with some of their assertions, such as that it’s the hero’s job, not the heroine’s, to hold the reader’s interest-but it’s a good read for people who like the genre, either unabashedly or shamefully, and for people who wonder why it’s so popular, or why people they think of as smart read the things.

The death of the shoujo loving soul.

There was a secret in today's fandomsecrets fandomsecretsthat justly complained about a certain type of shoujo hero. In the comments, the OP said that the manga page she used from the secret was from a oneshot manga, and linked to it. As you pretty much have to be a masochist to read the comments at f!s anyway, wveryone went to read it.

What. Did. I. Just. Read?

Uhm...I read Fruits Basket and Otomen today, which possibly saved me from dying a fannish death of shame and sorrow?