A Bit of Background:

The Internets are full of rage again as Bloomsbury Publishing finds itself at the center of yet another book cover controversy. Remember the furore surrounding the cover of Liar by Justine Larbalestier? When readers found out that the intended cover of a book featuring a black protagonist was this…

…the outcry was so deafening that publisher issued its mea culpa and replaced the offending cover with this more acceptible one:

But, alas! It seems that Bloomsbury did not learn its lesson and has triggered the burning, fiery wrath of the interwebs once more. In the sage words of La Brittany, oops, they did it again.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore:

As Ana pointed out back in December when she posted her review of debut YA fantasy novel Magic under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore, another grievous instance of whitewashing has occurred. Magic Under Glass has a dark-skinned protagonist, and yet its cover features a white-skinned girl.

This time, unfortunately, the cover made it to publication, slipping past the attention of readers and bloggers. Perhaps Magic Under Glass remained under reader-radars because author Jaclyn Dolamore is a newcomer (and without the significant online clout that Justine Larbalestier & Scott Westerfeld have). Now that the book has been published, however, YA and other book bloggers are up in arms. Some are even calling for a complete boycott of Bloomsbury books.

Now, we agree that what Bloomsbury’s marketing/sales/publicity department is doing with its whitewashing of book covers is a heinous, inexcusable, racist practice. We absolutely agree that we, as bloggers, have an obligation to stand up, make our voices heard, and speak out against publishers that perpetuate these acts. As Anna North of Jezebel aptly points out, it seems that publishers like Bloomsbury are buying into the “self-fulfilling prophecy” that “black covers don’t sell.” (Or at least, they don’t sell BIG)

We agree that something must be done to put an end to the systemic de-colorization of novels. But boycotting the publisher – and, by proxy, the book – will not help matters. Quite the contrary. If you stop buying the book, the person most adversely affected is the author – the one person in this whole mess who has absolutely NOTHING to do with the cover (in fact, the vast majority of authors have little to no say concerning what their covers will look like). And why would you want to hurt the one person that actually wrote the awesome diverse, dark-skinned heroine in the first place? Not to mention the fact that, whitewashed cover aside, Magic Under Glass is one damn fine book. Ms. Dolamore’s work should be appreciated, her efforts celebrated – she should not be punished or threatened because of the poor judgement and practices of her publisher.

A Call For Action:

Instead, we call on YOU, dear readers, to speak up with us. Instead of boycotting Bloomsbury Publishing, we encourage you to CONTACT the publisher and make your voice heard. Join Reading In Color’s Open Letter to Bloomsbury Kids USA. Start a petition to get the publisher’s attention. Do whatever you can to make the message clear: we DO NOT approve of your whitewashed covers, and we demand change.

RE: Covers, In General:

It is clear that publishers pay less attention (what an understatement!) than they should to book covers – it is a problem that we are constantly complaining about here at The Book Smugglers. This is not by any means, an issue that is relegated to one genre or to one issue. Gender, race, size, genre, you name it – problems with covers abound everywhere. Consider:

Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Cycle (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore) – in which Ged, the protagonist, is a young man with red-brown skin (in a world populated mostly by people that are red-brown, brown, or black). These covers (and the SciFi miniseries based on the books) are obviously a little off.

Everything Beautiful by Simone Howell – (a book that works because of its gritty realism) in which protagonist Riley is an overweight young woman, and yet on the US cover (again published by Bloomsbury!) is portrayed as anything but overweight.

And this is to say nothing of other book covers that are constant in their inconsistencies. Lise Haines’ Girl In the Arena portrays a cover model with long dark locks and a gladiatrix costume – when the main character, in fact, shaves her head very early on in the story and rocks the bald buzz cut for the rest of the book (including her stint in the Arena). Diana Peterfreund’s Secret Society Girl shows a model with long dark hair in prepster clothes – while protagonist Amy had short hair, and wouldn’t be caught dead in those clothes. Don’t even get us started on the myriad Urban Fantasy covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the material within.

And you know, the more we think about it, the more we realise, that this is a problem that is a concern to us readers because it reflects what we do and who we are as consumers. Because publishers only put those out because they think the alternative will not sell – a judgement based on what they assume we will buy. Just a bit of food for thought.

The call for war is laudable. We do have reasons to be up in arms. Shout! Write a blog post! Start a viral video campaign on Youtube or on your blog. Write a letter complaining to the Publisher or an email supporting the writer. But, for crying out loud, do NOT stop buying books.

Gollancz, the FANTABULOUS Sci-fi/Fantasy imprint of Orion Books has a new line of Paranormal Romance coming to the UK in 2010. I have known about this since their Autumn party and since then have waited with abated breath to see the covers and authors (I only knew about Nalini Singh) they are going to be releasing! I think the line has a lot of potential here in the UK especially after seeing the covers they came up with. Here are some of them:

Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series:

You probably know by now how much I LOVE this series (understatement of the millennium). I think the UK covers are WAY better than the US ones. And will you look at Lucas and dear lord, Judd (Caressed by Ice is my absolute favourite in the series) !

Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series:

Angels’ Blood, the first in the series is in my top 10 of 2009. I love the US covers for these but the UK covers kick-ass too.

Ann Aguirre’s Corine Solomon series:

LOVED Blue Diablo and can’t wait for Hell Fire. And I think the UK covers are as cool as the US covers.

So, what do you think? Like, dislike?

I am suffering from genre exhaustion.

When someone reads as much as I do (about 3-4 books per week), it is inevitable that I sometimes hit the proverbial reading slump, even amongst the genres I most love (as in Romance or most specifically Historical Romance). And part of it, I think, comes from an affliction that pervades the genre. This post was prompted when I was visiting the “Your Recommendations” page on Amazon looking for new books to buy and I was struck by page after page of very similar titles.

Behold….The Sameness

The first thing that comes to mind when looking at these is how very similar the titles and covers are. It is plain for everyone to see that perhaps as an effort from the publishers to create a recognizable brand for these genres. I understand the marketing drive behind the choice of titles and covers that are presented to the public. I appreciate that it is somewhat necessary to create an identifiable face for a genre. A person who picks up this book for example:

knows what she will find inside – a romance. Publishing is a business and it makes commercial sense to make it easier and quicker for the buyer to be able identify the books they want to buy.

During this same quick glance, however, the message that I get when I look at these is that Romance is all about the wicked dukes. Yes, this makes it easier for the genre readers to identify the books, but it also makes it easier to allocate the “formulaic” stamp to genre reading, fair or not.

I know that it cannot possibly by an easy task, that of genre “identification.” I picture the marketing honcho from a big publishing house as a tragic figure torn between expressing creativity and the need to conform. But even though I sympathize with this plight I also think that more often than not, the easy way out is taken; and that, I find rather sad and perhaps even, insulting. In the drive to identify, to brand, it seems that what end up happening, is a procedure that unifies and homogenizes, presenting entire genres based on its lowest common denominator instead of looking for covers and titles that are unique and different. It gets to a point where those are RE-USED. (Jessica of Racy Romance Reviews wrote an interesting post recently about romance titles. Check it out here)

I have been known to moan about this over and over again. Especially where Romance is concerned, the covers are sometimes so silly and repetitive, it gets boring pretty easily.

I complain about covers and titles and their repetitiveness but what about the meat and potatoes of a book, the stories themselves? Is the outward, one-note packaging a reflection of formulaic plotlines and characters? Well, I am torn about that one, in all honesty.

On one hand, YES, genre fiction, Romance in this particular scenario, has well known and overused tropes that appear over and again. I AM getting increasingly tired of some of them. Publishers produce stories that always “ring a bell” – because, frankly, they sell. I can’t help but to think that they are tapping (preying?) on the human psyche and the need for familiarity and comfort, based on the idea that once you find a story you love, you will want to read it over and over again. The idea is “if you liked this, then you’ll love THIS too because it’s the same.” I see a lot of this, especially in the marketing materials we receive with ARCs and review copies (”This book is X meets X! Fans of X will be pleased!”). It is useful information to have for reviewers but I can’t help but to roll my eyes sometimes. It gets to a point where I constantly wonder if a book has been published ONLY because it resembles something that has been done before with success, such as the slew of teenage vampire/angsty supernatural love stories that came out following the popularity of the juggernaut that is the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer (Hush, Hush, I am looking at you).

Mind you, I am not averse to reading stories that employ these genre tropes – I have favorite cliches that I fall back into whenever I am on the lookout for a comfort read (I am a sucker for reformed rakes stories). But the outward, homogenized packaging for Romance makes it HARDER for ME to find something to read in the genre. It doesn’t help ME, at all. Instead of looking at a book and deciding to buy it based on cover and title (do not judge a book by its cover is a harder motto to live by than I originally thought) alone, because it attracts me, I need to add an extra step of perusing, to read the blurb before I make up my mind. And sometimes, even those are so generic as to be completely useless.

I am also very much aware that this is not, by any means, a symptom exclusive to Romance, as for example, if you look at the Urban Fantasy out there, it all seems to be about the powerful chick in tight pants with a gun/sword/whatever to save the world. Or Fantasy, which has always some sort of Quest, or Hero’s Journey. The “sameness” seems to be a malady that permeates most genres if not all of publishing.

So what does that mean to me as, a reader and what is the freaking point of this post you might ask?

It means that I am going back to my roots and this reflects in the types of books I review here. The more I read, the more books I buy, the more I want something different. The comfort reading becomes something special to be visited more rarely as time passes. I was never one to read one genre exclusively and it only seems natural to be expanding and visiting other sections in the bookstore. If you have been around since the inception of this blog you may have noticed this shift in my reading habits. When we started, 99% of what I read was romance. Now, I barely read more than 3-4 titles each month.

In all fairness, I do believe that there are different, unique stories that are being told in the genre but it is VERY hard to unearth them amongst the recurrent covers and the misleading blurbs (it seems it is a vicious circle – what came first? The overused plots or the overused covers?). One such case are the romance novels by Meredith Duran. She is a fabulous writer of romance with different settings and stories and characters that do not quite conform and yet she is stuck with covers such as this one:

It drives me positively mental. It drives me AWAY. Above all, it drives me towards other genres that are presenting unique, refreshing stories with cool, different covers to go along with the great material. This year has seen a shift in my reading habits towards a genre such as YA where I can at least, for now, see more distinctiveness than hegemony:

I am not denouncing nor renouncing Romance and I don’t think I can ever part from it. In fact, a lot of the YA and Fantasy that I read are heavy on romance. I am just suffering from genre exhaustion and I need a break to recover.

Today the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its final revised guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. While this usually would not be of interest or concern us in any way, these revised guidelines have a new stipulation covering bloggers and other word-of-mouth marketers. From the FTC Press Release:

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Basically, what this boils down to in our situation is that any bloggers who receive books from publishers/publicists/authors in return for a review or giveaway published on that blogger’s site is now an official, legal endorsement. **Note that “endorsement” in this sense does not necessarily hold a positive valuation as it does in the everyday vernacular – it simply means a promotional statement. For the full-on legalese, the FTC Guidelines currently define an endorsement as “any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature or likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) which message consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser.”**

And since this exchange now qualifies as an endorsement, bloggers need to disclose the specifics of their relationship with whomever provided that book.

Now, the FTC did not specify HOW bloggers should go about disclosing things, so we’re just going to explain our position and how we plan on disclosing this information in the future (in the spirit of full disclosure and all that).

If you read The Book Smugglers, you know that we have a bunch of giveaways. We also receive books from publishers, third party publicists, and of course, from authors themselves. We LOVE receiving review copies, and we encourage publishers et al. to contact us if they have review or giveaway copies they think we’ll be interested in. Review copies are great, because when you read as much as we do, spending on books can really add up. That said, this next point should be painfully obvious and self-explanatory for any reviewer:

We DO NOT promise a positive endorsement for ANY book that we receive.

We pride ourselves on our honesty, even when our opinions might not be popular ones (see our recent review of Gail Carriger’s Soulless). Any blogger worth their salt won’t trade glowing reviews for free books (or, heaven knows, cash) – this is the kind of thing that readers pick up on. We all know there’s a huge difference between the Harriet Klausners of the review world and review sites like Dear Author, for example. In this sense, the revised FTC Guidelines really don’t affect us, because we think we make it pretty clear that we are not some kind of publisher automatons that parrot back positive reviews for every book we read.

That said, we do plan on making a few changes to honor the FTC Guidelines.

In our reviews, we have a section titled “Why did we read this book” in which we informally disclose our motivations for reading a book – and oftentimes we’ll also use this section to say if we received an ARC of the book, a review copy from the publisher/author/publicist, or if we shelled out for the thing ourselves. In light of the new FTC Guidelines, however, we’ll be adding a new section to our reviews, titled “How did we get this book” in which we’ll formally disclose if the book was purchased by us, or solicited/received as an ARC/Review Copy, and if the latter from whom the book originated.

Also, you’ll notice a nifty new disclaimer on the bottom of our sidebar, and on our “About Us” and “Contact Us/Review Policy” pages:

“In accordance with the new FTC Guidelines for blogging and endorsements, The Book Smugglers would like everyone to know that while we do purchase our own books for review on occasion, you should assume that every book reviewed here at The Book Smugglers was provided to the reviewers by the publisher or the author for free unless specified otherwise.”

(This template was shamelessly copied from Jane of Dear Author)

Of course, we’ll be breaking down where we procured our books on a by-review basis with the new “How did we get this book” section.

That’s basically our professional, toned-down take on the matter and how we plan to proceed with the new FTC Guidelines in place as reviewers. That is not to say that we reacted in the same way to the news this morning:

Ana’s reaction:

I heard it first on Twitter. My first reaction, as our Twitter readers can attest to, was rather explosive and I managed to work myself up in a matter of seconds. Firstly, I felt completely furious at the idea of some unknown far away entity regulating the blog. Please bear in mind, I live in the UK and the first thing I thought was how exactly do they plan on regulating this? How does that apply to a blog that has one half in the US and one half in the UK? How do they propose to rule this?

Some of the books Thea receives in LA come from me, after I receive them from UK publishers: does that count? What constitutes “free”? We do get free books from publishers but more often that not, I have to pay for shipping. Further to that: how can they know? That is the point that boggles the mind: how would they know when someone is telling the truth whether a blogger bought a book or not? It expands to questioning about what exactly do they have in mind and how that does not infringe our own freedom.

I need to be very clear here though. It is not a matter of disclosing where I got a book (I always do that anyways) it is the thought of HAVING to do that, that does not sit well with me.

I got myself a headache I was so angry. Then Thea woke up and helped me cool down. And then I went and read this article from book review blogger, Edward Champion where he tells about a phone call with a representative of FTC and now I am utterly, completely furious all over again because the FTC rep makes assumptions of something he clearly does not understand! The nerve, the nerve!

Thea’s reaction:

I woke up this morning and logged on to the computer to meet a flurry of emails from Ana. That’s a pretty normal scenario. But, when I delved into the emails, I saw that Ana was totally, royally pissed off. And the culprit was not one of the usual suspects, but the dreaded Federal Trade Commission!

The horror!

After reading through tweets, press releases, and skimming a few super-dense official documents, I wrapped my mind around the FTC Revised Guidelines and was able to start calming Ana down a bit. My initial reaction was slightly indignant and PO’d, like Ana, but I also find the whole thing kind of humorous. This is what you get when an antiquated system attempts to keep up with a rapidly changing society of technology. Reading through the FTC official legalese and red tape, I came to the exact same conclusion as Ana: these old models of laws based on “compensation” and “endorsement” are simply NOT applicable to a lot of online media (such as blogging).

And then, there was the interview. I just finished reading this article from fellow book review blogger, Edward Champion. Edward relates a phone call he had with a representative from the FTC about these new guidelines and how they pertain to book review bloggers, and the huge gaping holes in the FTC’s arguments about the “compensation” angle for book review bloggers are big enough to drive a sixteen-wheel semi through.

For one thing, anyone that blogs knows that the whole blogging and reviewing process is a whole bunch of effort and cost with little tangible reward. Reading books, writing in-depth reviews of books, covering mailing costs for giveaways and promotional materials, not to mention day to day maintenance of a blog (including monetary costs of web hosting and domain purchasing, plus the time and effort cost of keeping things going day after day)…well, receiving “compensation” in the form of review/giveaway copies of books and having that be the constituting factor of payment is laughable. There’s a huge double standard – wherein (PAID!!!) reviewers of Newspapers and Magazines do not retain ownership of books and therefore are not seen as “compensation” by the FTC, versus (UNPAID!!!) bloggers who receive and retain review copies of books as individuals are seen as being “sponsored” by the publisher/author/publicist. The idea proposed by the obtuse fellow interviewed at the FTC to get around this compensation angle, that bloggers should send their review copies BACK after reviewing them, is even more laughable. (And by the way, Mr. FTC Drone, I also review books for a local print periodical, and I can tell you now that the newspaper certainly does not retain ownership of the book. Those books are mine now. And I’m pretty damn sure this is the case with other “professional” reviewers for magazines and periodicals that don’t fall under the “new media” umbrella.)

I’m not even going to expand on the FTC’s asinine view that reviewers who receive review copies of books do so with the understanding and expectation to write positive reviews for those books. (SERIOUSLY? If the world were made solely of happy fluffy reviews, what would be the point of critics? The FTC clearly hasn’t read Smart Bitches, or reviews like these. Our lifeblood, our CREDIBILITY rests on our ability to write honest – at times harsh and negative – reviews. And contrary to the FTC’s view, we don’t receive monetary compensation that would “buy” us off.)

I’ll say it again: the FTC’s approach to blogging is laughably antiquated and not applicable.

The economic model of compensation for advertisements and testimonials makes sense when you’re watching commercials for Tide or HydroxyCut or whatever (FTC DISCLAIMER: THE BOOK SMUGGLERS HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH TIDE OR HYDROXYCUT OR ANY PARENT OR SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES THEREOF – are you happy Mr. FTC Drone? Are you?!), but does not hold water when it comes to bloggers. We are legitimate critics and members of the new media. We have our own code of ethics and online etiquette when it comes to reading and reviewing books, and the blogosphere has an ability to self-regulate that works pretty damn well. If reviewers are perceived of as “bought” by publishers and only publish positive, glowing reviews in return for free books and giveaways, or clog their pages with ads and promotions, they will be pushed out of the market. Their reputations will be marked, and no one in the blogging community will take them seriously – even to the point where readers may stop going to such blogs.

Not to mention as Ana so aptly puts it, HOW does the FTC plan on regulating the enormous (and international) blogosphere? Will The Book Smugglers, with its UK half, be subject to these regulations? I’m assuming that the FTC will deal with only the most egregious offenses (sort of like the Limewire/Napster situation) on a case-by-case basis, but in the age of social media where blogs die and new ones start up every day, Big Brother certainly will have his hands full.

We’ll play by the rules and put up our disclaimers, but it seems like repetitive, bureaucratic bullshit, and shouldn’t apply in the first place. We blog because we WANT to blog, because we LOVE to read and to write, and to share our love with other avid readers and writers. And as Ana says, the fact that we have to do this now is insulting.

We’re not exactly dealing with Bear Stearns or AIG here. Come on, government. Surely there are better places to worry about regulation.

Bloggers and readers alike, please feel free to comment here if you have any questions, concerns, or if you just want a good laugh or rant.

The FTC Revised Guidelines are effective December 1, 2009. For more information, check the official press release HERE, or you can read the Guides in their entirety HERE.

Today we are supposed to talk about our goals for our blog, to say what we like best about it, and to explain where would we like our blog to be one year from now. Given how there seem to be a plethora of Blogging Agendas and Manifesto posts popping up across blogland, we’ve decided to make our own for BBAW with today’s blogging prompt in mind.

Behold,

The Book Smugglers’ Blogging Agenda

Blogging Agenda the First: Take over the world.

Blogging Agenda the Second: To accomplish Article the First by suckering in readers via excessively long, in-depth reviews and promotional materials, and then by planting secret Book Smuggler brainwashing deathrays within aforementioned reviews and materials such that any and all readers will become addicted to books and will start obsessively buying ungodly amounts books, thereby creating an unparalleled tsunami of publishing revenue and thus reviving the World Economy by way of book-reading and book-buying, finally bringing the world to worship us as The Book Smugglers: The Glorious Duo Who Saved The World By Blogging About The Books They Loved.

Presto Manifesto.

(Ok, seriously, we review and blog because we love it and we will keep on doing so for as long as we can. That’s our goal. No other agenda. Not really.)

Today’s suggested BBAW topic is:

Today we encourage you to blog about a book you read only because you discovered it on another book blog. Preferably, this will be a book you loved! You might also write a bit about the blog you discovered it on!

For this fourth day of the glorious celebration of all things Book Blogger, we give you our list of favorite book discoveries we’ve made through other bloggers!

Thea: I’m cheating and not just picking one book or one blogger, because there are so many wonderful bloggers out there who have recommended many gems. My favorite discovers are as follows:

The Miles Vorkosigan Books from Li, Me and My Books

Li’s blog is one of the first I discovered when Ana and I started The Book Smugglers, and her taste in fantasy/speculative fiction was a perfect match for my own. And she was always going on and on about this Miles Vorkosigan character, from Lois McMaster Bujold. Now, I had read some of Ms. Bujold’s fantasy work (her Sharing Knife books most recently), and with Li’s emphatic recommendations, I decided to give her science fiction a try with The Warrior’s Apprentice…and of course, I absolutely loved it! I’m slowly working my way through the Vorkosigan backlist and loving every single book and novella.

Life as we Knew it from Meljean, Meljean Brook

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as we Knew it was my favorite read of 2008 – and since my first read, I’ve gone on to reread it at least twice this year. This is easily one of my favorite apocalypse novels, PERIOD (never mind the YA label, this thing is deep and soul-searching)…and it’s all thanks to author Meljean Brook. She posted a short review about this book that immediately caught my interest (I believe she called it “THE ROAD-lite” – which it is, kind of, only I actually preferred it to Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel), and the rest as they say is history. I love this book. And Meljean totally rules.

The Amelia Peabody Books from Li, Me and My Books

Li strikes again! After I read and loved Vor Lord Miles so much, I decided I just HAD to discover this Amelia Peabody character too that Li is always saying something about. So, I made an executive decision, flexed my intimidation muscles and got Ana to agree to do Crocodile on the Sandbank for a joint review. And OH DEAR LORD was it awesome. Amelia Peabody is a veritable force of nature. She’s sensible, ever-ready with her steel-tipped parasol and utility belt, but also prone to flights of romantic sensibility (though she would never, EVER admit that in her sparkling narratives). Elizabeth Peters has created one of my all time favorite heroines in this Victorian Egyptologist – I cannot express enough my pure, unfiltered love for this series.

Richelle Mead from Li, Me and My Books

Li, again! Same story – though I had seen Richelle Mead’s Georgina Kincaid series and Vampire Academy books in my local store, I probably would not have picked either up if it wasn’t for Li’s honest reviews. And go figure, Richelle Mead’s ongoing series’ are amongst my most highly anticipated books each year!

The Works of Linnea Sinclair from Katiebabs, Babbling About Books and More!

When we first started blogging, the friendly, delightful Katiebabs was around to help us out with suggestions for other blogs and authors. Linnea Sinclair was a totally unknown author to me (and to Ana) at the time, but at KB’s insistence, we gave Gabriel’s Ghost a try – and we both instantly fell in love with Linnea Sinclair’s Science Fiction Romances. A truly great voice in this niche genre, Linnea Sinclair has since been a Book Smuggler staple. Plus, Linnea is just a sweetheart all around.

The Raine Benares Books from Tia, Fantasy Debut

Tia’s many posts about the wonderful world of Elvish seeker in a whole lot of trouble, Raine Benares, caught my eye. And after reading her wonderful interviews with author Lisa Shearin, I decided to give Magic Lost, Trouble Found a go. And, yep, it was awesome. Raine’s books are narrated in a first person Urban Fantasy style even though the stories are of the high fantasy variety…and well, the combination is pretty cool. I’ve been hooked on the series since, having loved both Armed and Magical and this year’s The Trouble With Demons.

Generation Dead/Forest of Hands and Teeth from Karen, Karen Mahoney

Kaz, as we’ve mentioned numerous times before, is not only a new author but a bonafide book pimp. It is because of her that I’ve bought many, many books and these two zombie-themed YA titles are amongst my favorite reads of 2009. I must confess that if it was not for Karen, there’s no way in hell I’d have picked up Daniel Waters’s Generation Dead – the cover looks, to be blunt, stupid. But pick it up I did, and I really, *really* loved it – it’s surprisingly dark and thought-provoking. Book 2, Kiss of Life (similarly cheesy cover that has nothing to do with the story) is even better. And then of course, there’s Carrie Ryan’s beautiful debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth which is in the running for best book I’ve read in 2009. I knew about the book before Karen teased us with the fact that she’d read it and loved it, but because of her we were able to score an early copy. I bow down at the unparalleled awesomeness that is Kaz!

Diana Peterfreund from Li & Angie, Me and My Books/Angieville

Both Li and Angie read and reviewed Diana Peterfreund’s Secret Society books around the same time, and as two of my favorite blogs, I took these recommendations to heart! I honestly would not have picked up Secret Society Girl had it not been for these two prolific bloggers and their awesome reviews for the series. Again, I found myself loving protagonist Amy Haskell and the delectable (and completely alien) world of secret societies. More than that, Li and Angie’s recommendation led me to discover a completely new author in Diana Peterfreund, who now is one of my daily favorites for blog entries, recommendations, and writing in general. Her debut YA novel, Rampant, about killer unicorns and the girls who are responsible for the safety of our world, totally rocked. Speaking of Diana…

Assorted YA Goodness from Diana, Diana Peterfreund

Diana’s posts about M.T. Anderson, Scott Westerfeld, Sarah Cross, and many more finally got me to get off my ass and give them a read for our YA Appreciation Month. Holy crow, I absolutely loved Feed, the Uglies trilogy, and Dull Boy. Not to mention, I’ve got a list of other post-apocalyptic dystopian type novels to read from Diana’s suggestion!

The Orphan’s Tales/Feast of Souls from Kristen, Fantasy Cafe

Kristen is one of my favorite book reviewers, by a long shot. In addition to being informative and in-depth, her taste in books is pretty awesome. Just recently, I picked up Catherynne Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden because of her review and praise for the novel, and I loved it (another one in the running for favorite reads of 2009). She’s also introduced me to authors like C.S. Friedman, Sarah Monette, and Lynne Robbins.

Tomorrow Series/Obernewtyn from Rhiannon, Rhiannon Hart

Ok, so I had read these books before discovering Rhiannon online, but her wicked Dystopian Challenge totally got me in the mood for rereads. Not only did I love Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden and Obernewtyn from Isobelle Carmody, but reading along with many of my own favorites and new reads with Rhiannon was awesome.

Clockwork Heart, A Curse Dark as Gold, Lady Julia Gray, Shannon Hale, etc etc etc from Angie, Angieville

I’ve probably received the most recommendations from the incredible Angie of Angieville over the year and some that I’ve been blogging. Everything from the YA works of seasoned authors such as Juliet Marillier and Shannon Hale to the debut efforts of Elizabeth C. Bunce, to the dangerous and mysterious world of Lady Julia Grey, or even to a realm of steampunk future where Icarii take messages by flying on metal wings…well, you get the picture. Angie’s recommendations are the best.

Books I Don’t Want to Read but End up Loving from the one and only Ana Grilo

Seriously, if it wasn’t for Ana, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. I most certainly never would have read a single romance novel in my life – and even though I’m immature and probably will never really be a romance reader, I’ve discovered some lovely, unexpected gems in the mix. If not for Ana, I’d never have read Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, or discovered the beauty of the Wallflowers books or Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas. I’d never have known the wonderful world of Meljean Brook’s nuanced Demon Angel, or Nalini Singh’s Angels’ Blood. Heck, I’d probably be without classics like Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, or modern gems like Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind and Patrick Suskind’s Perfume if not for dear Ana. For this and for so many other things, I owe my largest reading debt to my wonderful partner in crime, the unparalleled Ana Grilo!

Ana:There is no way I can go with only one either so I will cheat as well. Some of my favourite are as follows:

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas and Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase from Kristie J, Ramblings on Romance

When I first started reading Romance novels in August 2007, Ramblings on Romance was one of the first blogs I found and my go–to place for romantic recommendations. It was Kristie’s love for Derek Craven, the hero of Dreaming of You that led me to discover the wonders of Lisa Kleypas’ novels and it was the fact that Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase is listed as one of her favourite books of all time that made me pick it up. The result is that Lord of Scoundrels is MY all-time favourite romance novel and Loretta Chase and Lisa Kleypas along with Julia Quinn, are my Holy Trinity of Romance Writers. Not to mention that it was Kristie’s blog that made me want to start my own!

Books by Linnea Sinclair, Meljean Brook, CL Wilson and Nalini Singh from Katiebabs, Babbling about Books and more

Now, this woman is really a force to be reckoned with. At first, I only read Historical romance but because of the Adorable KB, aka the Great Book Pimp, I decided to try out Fantasy/Romance, Scifi/Romance, and PNR and OH MY GOD. That was a whole new world in front of me. She was the one who sent me Gabriel’s Ghost in the post (my first ever gift from a fellow blogger) and dared me to read it. I loved it. I went on to read ALL of Linnea Sinclair’s books and as with Thea, became an instant fan. It was because of her love for Lord of the Fading Lands which made her top 10 list of 2007 that made me pick it up. I LOVED it.. The third book in this series, King of Sword and Sky was my favourite read of 2008.

But the main genre that KB introduced me to, was Paranormal Romance via the amazing, extraordinary Psy/Changeling books by Nalini Singh and the Guardian books by Meljean Brook. Seriously, these books are amongst my favourite series. If you never read or dared to read (I know, the covers don’t help do they?) Paranormal Romance, these are a good place to start. The worlds that these two created are FANTASTIC. It also helps that all of them: Linnea, Meljean, Nalini and CL Wilson are Very Cool People and I can only be thankful to KB for introducing me to their words.

Julie James’s novels from Stacy, Stacy’s Place on Earth

If Kristie J introduced me to the wonders of Historical romance and KB to the wonders of PNR, Stacy was the responsible for yet another discovery: Contemporary Romance, the last frontier. I had vowed I would not pick up contemporary novels (because, really did I need yet another genre to add to my TBR mountain?) but her love for Julie James’ books made me pick up Just the Sexiest Man Alive and again HOLY CRAPOLES, love at first sight. Julie James’ books are so cool, her heroines are so strong, her dialogue perfect and funny. Plus, her books are love letters to old time Screwball Comedies that I so adore.

The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran from Ann Aguirre

Yet another awesome discovery in the world of Romance Novels. In the beginning of 2008 author Ann Aguirre read and loved a book by a newbie called Meredith Duran and proceeded to promote the book every change she’s got. The book was called The Duke of Shadows and I bought it, even though I loathe the cover. I cannot begin to stress how well Meredith Duran writes, I was completely captivated by her prose. This is Romance at its best and she went on to write another two excellent books: Bound by Your Touch and Written on Your Skin.

(And now this list? It’s reminding me of how much I love Romance)

Numerous YA books from the Fantastic Four: The Story Siren, Presenting Lenore, Bookshelves of Doom and YA Fabulous

I check these blogs every.single.day for YA recommendations. My TBR pile is nearly eating me alive because I have bought a LOT of books based on these guys’ recommendations. I am also suffering from Cart Overload – my Amazon cart is right now, over 12 pages long because I keep adding and adding books I found on their blogs. Visit them as soon as you can but proceed at your own risk.

The Laurentine Spy from Liviu, Fantasy Book Critic

I love Liviu’s reviews and Fantasy Book Critic is one of ours favourite Fantasy Blogs. When I read their review of The Laurentine Spy, I kid you not, I was overcome with Book Lust, I just HAD to read it. I got, I read it, I loved it.

The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan from Karen, Karen Mahoney

Karen Mahoney, Official Honorary Book Smuggler and someone who has become a true, dear friend of mine, told me about Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon Lexicon as soon as she read it. Her pimpage worked: I got the book and I devoured it. I am now a huge fan of Sarah Rees Brennan – not only her book rocked my world this year but I also love her livejournal.

The Queen’s Thief books from Angie, Angieville

Ah, Angie. Angie, Angie, Angie. Confession time: I have a crush on Angieville. Thea already said how many books she got recommended from Angie. So have I: from Scarlet Johnson’s books to ALL the books she recommends on her Retro Fridays feature, I recently got a pad and pen and went through every single page of her blog writing down everything that took my fancy (ie most of them). What prompted my love for Angieville? Her amazing, heartfelt review of books she deeply, truly loves. Her love for the act of reading itself leaps from the pages and her adoration for Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief books made me read them and I can only say this: she was right. These books are incredibly good and I am SO thankful for her for making me want read them. They are my top reads of 2009 (along with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss) .

Far too many books to count from Thea James, The Book Smugglers

Have you got any idea what is like to share a blog with Thea? I will tell you what it’s like: it’s the best thing in the world. She not only shares this immense love for reading and for books but also the sheer obsession that blogging has become to both of us. She is the sole responsible for making me go outside my comfort zone in more ways that I can count. She is the one that made me start reading YA (the genre I love the most at the moment) and to go through my Fantasy revival. I read Thea’s reviews and I want to read the book – it doesn’t matter that it’s from a genre I don’t usually read: she reviews it ergo I want it. She made me discover Juliet Marillier, Alex Bell, Elizabeth Peters; Graphic Novels such the amazing Fables and The Dark Knight Returns; One of her favourites books of all time is Mara, Daughter of the Nile , a book I would never have picked up if it wasn’t for her: now, it’s one of my own favourites. Hell, Thea introduced me to Melissa Marr and we all know how that turned out. She even made me into a Zombie lover.

Yes, she did that. For that and so much more, I love my Thea-Bear and I am immensely grateful that she said “yes” when I invited her to blog with me.

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Phew. Now it’s back at you: which books have you found via a blog?

Yesterday the shortlists for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards were released and we made the final ballot for three categories!! (Woohoo! Yay! Oba!) They are (if you click on each of them you will be able to see examples of posts for each category) :

Best Graphic Novel Review Blog
Best Collaborative Blog
Most Humorous/Funniest

How cool is that? We love the categories we have been shortlisted for and it is a great honor to be nominated amongst these blogs. You can check all of the other categories here – and then show your appreciation for your favourites! Voting closes Saturday September 12 at 11:59 PM EST.

So, we are here to celebrate our inclusion on the final ballot, but mostly we would like to give our own two cents about the Awards and about BBAW and why we are 100% behind the whole thing.

On The Awards

We are sure a lot of people are wondering about the awards, especially about the fairness of the nominations and the final shortlists (especially given the numerous online brouhahas). We can certainly understand some of the misgivings – there should have been more information about the process available on the official website (for example, what are the criteria for nominations and exactly how the blogs are being judged to the public). There were also some concern about the way some of the nominees were contacted as though it was assumed that the entire Internets knew what the BBAW were – which is an unreasonable assumption of course, given how the Internets is like, IMMENSE.

But you know what? BBAW is in its infancy and as such it’s still going through a trial period and a lot of things need to be tweaked. We believe that to completely dismiss it as “only another one of those meaningless awards” is to use an inaccurate description – because it’s not. This is not a Premio Dardos award or a Kreativ Blog award – these awards are really nice and everything, but are memes based mostly on an individual’s choice (and usually along the lines of, “Well, [so and so blogger] has not gotten this meme/award yet, so I’ll give it to him/her”). BBAW Awards, on the other hand, are honest to goodness awards with open nominations and a judging panel of impartial volunteers who go through an extensive process to rank each nominee.

We Book Smugglers are in no way connected with the official organization of the BBAW Awards, but we were involved with the shortlisting process. Both Thea and Ana were invited to be judging panelists (and no, we were not judging categories that we were nominated for!) – Ana was on the panel for Best Mystery Blog and Thea was on the panel for Best Cultural Review Blog. When we accepted we had no idea at how much work was involved. Seriously, people, you have NO IDEA how strenuous the process is. We know there were other 4 judges on the panel with us (it’s 5 per category), but we have NO IDEA who they were. Rest assured, we did not trade secret emails, currying favorites amongst the nominees.

We each received an Excel spreadsheet with all the blogs nominated – and this means EVERY. SINGLE. NOMINEE. Many of which were inappropriate for the category, we might add! – and the 5 links they submitted for evaluation. Ana’s spreadsheet had more than 40 blogs and Thea’s more than 50. Then each blog had to be evaluated according to 16 different criteria ranging from ’spelling/grammar,’ ‘original content’ and ‘fresh perspective’ to ‘ease of navigation’ and ‘audience engagement.’ It was a lot of work, and we think it was a pretty fair process given the anonymity of the panelists, not to mention the fact we were judging book blogs that are outside of our normal range of reads (so we were not tempted to play favorites with bloggers we already knew). We’d assign each blog a numerical score for each criterion, and the sum totals of all the judges’ scorecards determined the who made the shortlist nominations.

We are sure someone somewhere is thinking: “But who makes these decisions? Who chose the judging criteria?” Which is fair enough, and these questions should be asked if we aim for an honest award that means something. The judging criteria were compiled by Amy and the wonderful crew of tireless BBAW runners, and ultimately the shortlists are a numbers game – the blogs with the highest scores make it on to the final ballot. Is this a completely fail-proof process? NO. Are there flaws? YES.

But, the thing is, the Awards? They are only a part, a SMALL part, of what Book Blogger Appreciation Week is all about. And to concentrate on them is really to lose sight of what really matters here.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

The title says it all. Book Blogger Appreciation Week is a week-long event to celebrate books, reading, and most of all blogging. Simple as that. It started last year in 2008 and it was run by the [wonderful!stupendous!herculean!] Amy from the blog My Friend Amy, and it has expanded in such a way that this year (the mere second year of its existence, BBAW v2.0) has over 1000 blogs taking part. That’s a lot of blogs. Did we mention that those participating are all volunteers, doing this out of a genuine love for reading, writing and blogging? That’s a lot of work!

Over the course of the week, the aim is to celebrate what we book bloggers are all about. There are suggested daily blogging topics that EVERYONE can participate in by way of adding your post links at the BBAW official website every day.

For example, on Monday, you can talk about your favorite blogs that did not make the final award ballots. On Tuesday, there will be blogger interview swaps, and so on and so forth. For the entire list of suggestions, check out the official list HERE.

We will be posting every day following the daily topics and we encourage all of you to participate! You do not have to vote for the awards, or be nominated for an award, or have anything to do with the awards to be a part of BBAW! In fact, you can pretty much ignore the awards and make it all about connecting with other like-minded people, if you want. The awards are the icing on the cake, the last leg of BBAW – as with, say, the RWA Nationals each year, the awards are part of the closing ceremony at the end of the convention. They’re a great way to celebrate, but the real fun is in the convention itself.

The spirit of Book Blogger Appreciation Week is to connect, make new blogging buddies, and discover new, wonderful blogs in this vast ocean that is the Internets. It is about celebrating our community and communicating with people you wouldn’t otherwise know, and sharing our experiences and ideas – it is an extrapolation or rather, a concentration of everything NICE and AWESOME that blogging is supposed to be in ONE SINGLE WEEK.

In short, it is about having FUN. Isn’t that why we are all here anyways?

(Now, please go vote for us! Pretty Please?)

At Temple Library Reviews: Here

In this second part we talk about negative reviews, how does it feel to be part of a team and if we ever fight, pet peeves about the genres we read and about cliches in Fantasy and Romance.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will probably know by now that one of my favourite series is the Tairen Soul series by C.L. Wilson. I consider this to be one of the finest examples of Fantasy Romance. The fourth and final book, Queen of Song and Souls was first set to be released earlier this year but the date was pushed forward to June but there were talks of yet another postponement.

I have just learnt from the lovely Erin Galloway from Dorchester Publishing that the book will now be published in November (the date seems to be set in stone now).

My first reaction upon hearing these news was to pull my hair, wail in pain and drown my sorrows in coffee (I was at work at the time). My second reaction was to say: well, she can take as much time as she wants! This series rocks and if the author doesn’t feel the last book is ready, then so be it.

That made me think about all the kerfuffle regarding authors Patrick Rothfuss and George RR Martin – both authors have been writing sequels to their books for a few years now and some fans are, how should I put it, Behaving Badly. By pestering the authors, sending hate email, being generally unpleasant about the wait – as if they are entitled to something from the authors.

Patrick Rothfuss blogged about his frustration and how bad he feels about the pressure. I blogged about that when I wrote my review of The Name of the Wind and I asked our readers how did they feel about waiting for a book. I got some really interesting comments.

Now this other question popped in after not only learning about the new date for Wilson’s book but also because Neil Gaiman (all hail the King) blogged about reader’s entitlement yesterday.

Neil is a nice guy – he must receive tons of emails and he always finds the time to reply to at least some of them. Yesterday he got the following from a guy named Garret:

“I’ve recently subscribed to George RR Martin’s blog (http://grrm.livejournal.com/) in the hopes of getting some inside information regarding when the next “Song of Ice and Fire” book is due to be released. I love the series but since subscribing to the blog I’ve become increasingly frustrated with Martin’s lack of communication on the next novel’s publication date. In fact, it’s almost as though he is doing everything in his power to avoid working on his latest novel. Which poses a few questions:

1. With blogs and twitter and other forms of social media do you think the audience has too much input when it comes to scrutinising the actions of an artist? If you had announced a new book two years ago and were yet to deliver do you think avoiding the topic on your blog would lead readers to believe you were being “slack”? By blogging about your work and life do you have more of a responsibility to deliver on your commitments?

2. When writing a series of books, like Martin is with “A Song of Ice and Fire” what responsibility does he have to finish the story? Is it unrealistic to think that by not writing the next chapter Martin is letting me down, even though if and when the book gets written is completely up to him?

Would be very interested in your insight.”

Neil’s reply is a work of art in itself and you should read it (actually you should read ANYTHING he writes) but the bottom line of what he says is:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

So, there you have it: we have two writer’s opinion regarding the so-called Reader’s Entitlement.

But what about WE, as readers , what do we think about it– are we entitled to anything especially when it comes to serialised books? Are we entitled to feel angered about the wait and to feel let down when a book in a series is not as good as its predecessor? Is that the author’s fault – are they obliged to always meet our expectations or to write as fast as we want to?

There is a very simple and obvious answer, at least to me: no. I don’t feel like I am entitled to anything. Yes, the wait is painful and can be frustrating, there is no denying it; and I am pretty sure that say, if Meljean Brook decided NOT to write Michael’s story , I would probably be forever sad but ultimately? There is NOTHING I can do. And frankly, I would rather do something useful than to pester a writer for a book they are writing. As Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss say, they have a life and so do I.

But what do you think? Do you feel entitled as a reader to a writer’s work? Any authors in the house – how do you feel about reader’s pressure and expectation?

Last week I read an interesting article on Romancing the Blog written by Deb Werksman the romance fiction editor for Sourcebooks on the subject of credibility in fiction. She begins by listing the criteria she follows in order to recommend a book to be published and they are:

*a heroine the reader can relate to
*a hero she can fall in love with
*a world gets created
*I can sell it in 2-3 sentences

But in addition to this criteria she also thinks about poet Philip Larkin’s criteria for the Booker Prize – Larkin asked himself:

*can I read it?
*if I can read it, can I believe it?
*if I can believe it, do I care?
*if I care, what is the depth of that caring and how long will it last?

She goes on to talk about credibility and the article is very interesting .

But the part that I focused on and couldn’t stop thinking about was Philips Larkin’s criteria and the way it is applicable to reviewing books. Lately, I have been thinking quite a lot about the way I review books and what is important to me when I sit down to write a review. I noticed that I have become more critical than I was before, and as the months go by and the more I read and the more I read what I consider to be REALLY GOOD books, the more I find myself to be extremely analytical which leads me to judging a book more severely.

As I wrote the paragraph above, I realise that I used a word that may come across as harsh and perhaps even a bit self-righteous: “judge”. But ultimately isn’t this exactly what I have been doing these past 14 months since we began The Book Smugglers? We have been passing judgement on books and the more readers we get, the more subscribers we have, the more I feel I need to be conscious of things I never had to worry about. I need to be conscious about HOW I read and WHY I feel the way I feel about a given book.

The exercise of writing articles about how one reviews is not a new endeavour of bloggers. Recently John Ottinger III from Grasping for the Wing posted his latest Inside the Blogsphere we he poses the question : What is your Reviewing Process to several bloggers and the result is really interesting. Jessica from Racy Romance Reviews wrote one reflecting if A Book Review is Just One Person’s Opinion .

The line that separates a reader from a reviewer is a fine one and we do proclaim ourselves as “readers” first and foremost but a reviewer has the not so easy mission of explaining what as a reader, we felt about a book. So, I tend to think YES – a review is one’s person opinion. A book reviewer is a reader and therefore subject to their own likes and dislikes which ultimately makes book reviewing a subjective art.

HOWEVER, this subjectivity does not preclude the attempt at being objective when putting one’s thought down to the paper – being subjective does not preclude procedure.

Going back to Philip Larkin’s criteria, I realise how close his points are to the way I look at the books I read and review :

1) can I read it?

I would definitely list this as first point I look for: good writing, good flow of sentences, good dialogue. If a book has BEAUTIFUL prose I can guarantee that the book will fall in my good graces

2) if I can read it, can I believe it?

If I find the writing compelling then the next step is definitely to determine if I am buying it. A book can easily fall from grace if the story take turns that ruin what the prose has accomplished. A good example is my review of The Price of Desire.

3) if I can believe it, do I care?

About what happens to the characters, about what happens in the story , about what happens to the world. A book can have good writing, I can believe in what I read…and still I may not care about it – usually it happens because the characters are underdeveloped or because there this something that I can’t quite name missing.

4) if I care, what is the depth of that caring and how long will it last?

THAT is the point isn’t it? What determines the final grade : is the book a keeper? Can I recommend a book wholeheartedly? Can I still think about it as a good book after a few days, few weeks, few months or even years? I try as much as I can to let books sink in before I write a review. The latest case was when I read The Name of the Wind and as soon as I finished that book I had a clear feeling that it was the best book I read in the past year. It had all the factors above: beautifully written , extremely well built world and characters I believed in and cared about. I waited three weeks to write my review and the feeling did not subside at all.

Although the criteria above provide good pointers where to depart from, I think one’s relationship with a book and afterwards, reviewing is not as straight forward as this. It may well be that against all odds, you will end up caring about characters or a world you do not believe in and I believe this is where suspension of disbelief comes into play. Similarly it seems to not take into consideration the “fun” factor or the “escapism” factor: what can one say about books (or movies) that are silly and preposterous and yet you can’t seem NOT to like it? Where all of your brain cells are screaming against it and yet you love it with all the fiber of your being?

And let’s not forget that what one considers readable, believable and loveable is largely based on the personal experience or personal likes and dislikes and there we have it , we are back to the subjectivity problem. I guess no matter from what angle you look at, the Subjective Problem remains.

I believe it is a good thing and it provides as many diverse opinions as there are books. My grandmother used to say: what would happen to ”blue” if everybody like the “yellow” – I ALSO take that into consideration when I am writing a review (“I don’t like it very much, but do I think other readers might? “)

As you can probably surmise this post is merely the ramblings of a mind preoccupied with what she is doing here and it is a work in progress. The questioning continues and I wonder: if you are a reviewer, do you have a process? If you read a review, what do you look for?