I like orange juice. I really like orange juice. But I sure don’t make a habit of learning about the properties of citric acid and optimal growth conditions for Tropicana Florida oranges. And I’m cool with that.
But I can’t apply the same to books. Not the ignorance about the production of such an item, but my complacency about it. I’m not talking about the words – I’m talking about the pulp. The sawn, milled, pulped, compressed, printed pages glued between embossed cardboard. That, my friends, is as far as I know about the physical shell protecting the tales I love.
Which is why I’m a reader, but not a bibliophile. See, I throw my old books on the ground. I bend their pages. I don’t dog-ear them (except, very occasionally, for the really crappy ARC when I need to remember a particularly excruciating turn of phrase), but I stretch the spines. And new books? I treat them carefully, but I don’t bend over backwards to keep them pristine. Just doesn’t happen.
I really like food, but I think I’ve become a bit inured to most food scenes in romance novels. All the dessert-cum-sex scenes have melded together, to the point where all I can think about is the mess. I’m not really into strawberries and champagne, so if the hero starts waving them around, my mind starts wandering. And then you’ve got the chefs – I like them, but I think the proliferation of TV chefs, and the sheer accessibility of gourmet gastronomy, have taken away some of the luster of the professional kitchen.
I don’t remember much from Psych 101, but I do remember 
Well, I finally did it. I’ve heard about it for years, and I’ve seen it online for lots of money. I’ve read jealously about people who just happen to come across it for ten cents at book sales, and how it’s one of the best pirate romances ever, if not among the best romances period. So I finally caved in. Courtesy of an Amazon gift card, I bought and read Sharon and Tom Curtis’ cult classic, 
They’re like bad relatives. You can’t avoid sleazy Uncle Bob or foul-mouthed Cousin Betty, because Uncle Bob married to Aunt Emily (the loveliest auntie in the world), and Cousin Betty is sister to Cousin Mark (who’s like a brother). But you’d really, really prefer not to have to see them. Ever.
We see lots of weird things in fiction. I don’t love it all, but who cares? Authors write what they want, publishers publish what they choose, and readers bloody well read whatever piques their fancy.
This cartoon from Edward Lear’s 
Development is a natural part of any civilization, but I think most people accept that the past few decades have blown the other millenia out of the water. I swear, I blink and my cell phone grows another set of eyes.
Unconditional love – that’s what I give my lovely Nook Color. I’ve now had it for three weeks, even though the device has been out since November, and I’ve got a fairly good idea of its capabilities. First, it must be said that the NC is a very specific device. It’s a color touch screen tablet that’s still, first and foremost, a device for reading books. When it comes to reading, the NC mostly succeeds. In other areas, not so much.
