Sexy Friday Round-Up

Book worshippers and novel pimpers alike, gather round: today is Judgement Day, on which I judge your suggestions for book-based faiths. I present to you the one true way, the Church of the Rye Catcher, brought to us by the Apostle MattDel, follower of the prophet Holden Caulfield. Phonies, repent! Or at least get out of my personal space.

It is these same phonies who don't realize how hard book blogging can be. But if you hope to be a successful book reviewing blogger, you should follow this advice. Part of it says to be professional, which was clearly inspired by my conduct. You didn't know I do reviews? Well, if you send me your book and fifty bucks, I'll give you top notch reviews in my diary. Unless your book sucks, in which case I will keep your cash and fulfill a beloved aphorism, parting fools and money. But I promise I'll read the whole thing, even given the joys of half finishing novels. I might even read it while walking, a method I am not particularly good at (thank you, girl on the street, for stopping me from walking into traffic while reading the other day), but that I hear can be quite fabulous.

Another thing I hear is fulfilling: sex. At Smart Bitches Trashy Books there's a discussion of the type of sex possible with a Sony Reader and with an iPhone. Don't worry, my office procrastinators, it's SFW. And, sexy sexy, the iPhone has a ton of bookish apps. Kindle sex isn't mentioned here, but it turns out if you lose your Kindle you can't track it back down, so you probably should just stick with it and not cheat.

Maybe directly referencing boning is in poor taste—and, in fact, literature may be swinging back toward sexual modesty (hey, if Twilight can sell Wuthering Heights when it's free at Project Gutenberg, anything is possible). Although I'd prefer it if literature would swing toward steampunk romance.

I think steampunk romance would be good. And Lev Grossman (whose new book looks great, btw—Lev, read my review policy above! Top billing in my diary if you send me your book!) tells us that good books don't have to be hard. But then we heard that they don't have to be easy either, and Andrew Seal writes that Grossman could learn a little something about promoting himself by postulating theories from other writers. Honestly, I only link to all of these things because Grossman responds to all the hubbub, sums up all the arguments people have been throwing at him, and writes, "I'm not actually a dick." I say that all the time. And while I'm usually lying when I say it, I believe Grossman is, in fact, not a dick. Tintin, on the other hand, is a racist dick, and is getting sued.

Also dicks: book pirates. Among the top ten most pirated books are the Kamasutra and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex. Also, the Madoff sex book is selling really poorly—no one wants to read about old man sex. I. Am. Shocked.

Why is everything in book news this week about sex? Are these the book morals we're teaching our children? And killing off Reading Rainbow was low—butterfly in the sky, children will no longer fly twice as high. We will be teaching them to appreciate the written word in one of two ways: a point system, based on a numerical interpretation of art, or the hippie "read your feelings, not the classics" method. What's so wrong with forcing children to read classics they won't appreciate until their twenties, if ever? Kids today. Can't even walk barefoot through the snow to school.

On that depressing note, I take my leave. No contest this week (I'm only so creative, people, and I had no Internet all week, which crippled my soul and my contest-thinking-up brain lobe), but I really loved this post on what editors eat while they read. What have you been eating while reading? Let me know in the comments!