Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.
- PLEASE Report and Block Twitter Spammers
- Ain’t That a Shame | Justine Larbalestier
- The Wall Street Journal Reports: Women “Have A New Body Part To Obsess About”
- The culture of (female) narcissism
– A post from a few weeks ago about how to deal with Twitter spammers
– Now that many readers have complained about the US publisher’s choice of cover, Larbalestier feels she has more clout to ask them to change it for the paperback version – “But never forget that publishers are in the business of making money. Consumers need to do what they can. When was the last time you bought a book with a person of colour on the front cover or asked your library to order one for you? If you were upset by the US cover of Liar go buy one right now.”
– “Notice the gender-specific warning (men apparently need not worry about cankles) and the passive language. “Women” simply “have” a new insecurity. It’s not as if, maybe, perhaps, the Wall Street Journal is actively telling women they must worry about cankles. Oh no, that’s not what’s happening here at all (*sarcasm*).”
– “What Bunting fails to mention is that narcissistic personality disorder still affects men at greater rates than women.”
Hmm.
I do have several books with non-white/People of colour on the cover, but they’re all nonfiction. *ponder*
My current books –
- headless statue of no obvious race but flowing robes and probable Euro ancestry
- squiggly abstract lines forming a black/red/yellow/white tangled circular design
- pen & sickle insignia
- blue perfume bottle
- just title/authors names
- a bridge
- a boomerang
Book just completed: a megaphone
Hm, maybe I’m just not into people-containing book jackets? That’s only paper books. The audiobook I’m listening to right now has a photo of a black man on the cover.
My husband owns all the books around here. Except the Cornell Book of Cats, that one’s mine. His are all history books. I am just… not a book reader. Not since book-reading was the surface cause of my original college drop-out experience…
If I were non-US, I’d buy it for the sake of sending that message. Unfortunately…
I just saw this at Pursuit of Harpyness:
http://www.harpyness.com/2009/07/29/warning-not-having-a-c-section-is-child-abuse/
It seems to tie in with much that you write about here, and is deeply scary.
Author Justine Larbalestier has managed to persuade (with the help of internet commentary and campaigns) her publishers to change the cover art to show a more accurate rendition of her non-white protagonist.
Old cover vs new cover: