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Greetings from The Book Snark. This site is devoted to book news, reviews, criticism, and celebration, all with a hefty dose of snark. For more riveting information on the BS, visit the About page. Happy reading, Snarkettes!

Books That Give You Gas

No, I’m not talking about the Left Behind series.

In yet another unsettling sign of the times, it seems people are turning out in droves to sell their old books…so they can have money for gas.

“We have more people call or offer us books now in one month than I used to see in a whole year,” said Steve McAllister, co-owner of McAllister & Solomon in Wilmington, North Carolina, adding that he’s up to 15 appointments per day to appraise used and rare books.

In the last few weeks, McAllister says he’s bought books from patrons for anywhere between $5 and $500.

“Times are tough, obviously,” he went on to say. “People need money for things like gas. When that happens, they’re going to cut back on luxuries – and in times like these, books are a luxury.”

In a dead economy, I guess this is true. Man oh man. I remember when books were a necessity.

Story Source Star News Online, Rare Book News | Image Source It’s Getting Hot in Here

October 22, 2008 | Filed Under Newsies | 4 Comments

Official State Books? Whaaa?

I was over at one of my favorite daily diversions, the brilliant Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, when I came across a reference to this Yahoo article. The article tells us that Massachusetts (which just incidentally happens to be the state the Book Snark claims residency) has named Moby Dick it’s “official epic novel” in a bill passed by the House. And I think that’s just a bunch of whale blubber.

Not because I dislike Moby Dick. He’s fine. He ain’t got no problems with me, I ain’t got no problems with him. I’m just concerned that claiming Herman Melville’s 1851 classic as our state book is a slap in the face to Massachusetts’ long literary history. Probably more so than any other state, Massachusetts has produced some of America’s greatest writers…many of whom have written books that are equally deserving of an official title. Here’s just a partial list of the Bay State’s homegrown writers, along with some of their most momentous works:

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
William Cullen Bryant, poet, “Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl”
Emily Dickinson, poet, Poems
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist and poet, “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, “Old Ironsides”
Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet, “Evangeline” and “The Song of Hiawatha”
Edgar Allan Poe, poet and short story writer, “The Raven” and The Tell-Tale Heart
Olive Higgins Prouty, Stella Dallas and Now, Voyager
Dr. Seuss, children’s story writer and illustrator, The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs & Ham
Henry David Thoreau, essayist, Walden
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-5
John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, “Barbara Frietchie”
Mary Tappan Wright, Aliens

And these are just the ones that are dead! There’s a whole slew of classic Massachusetts authors still living, including John Updike, Andre Dubus III, Alice Hoffman, Patricia MacLachlan, and Howard Zinn.

I’m not suggesting that any of these authors are more worthy of an official title, but naming Moby Dick the state’s official epic is sort of demeaning to the towering literary pantheon of Massachusetts writers.

Rep. Cory Atkins said she was “appalled” by the Dick decision. Her district in Concord has “more authors per square mile than any other.”

“What about Louisa May Alcott? What about Hawthorne? How am I going to face my constituents?” she said.

The bill still needs to pass the Senate and get the governor’s signature.

I say Gov. Deval Patrick should forget Moby Dick and pick Hop on Pop instead. Now THAT’S an epic novel.

Story Sources Yahoo, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Wikipedia

October 21, 2008 | Filed Under Newsies | 1 Comment

Book Review: Not Quite A Lady by Loretta Chase

I’m a big fan of Loretta Chase. Her Regency-era romances are classy and sharp — and always with a dollop of delicious wit. With smooth, elegant prose, Chase has fleshed out some of the most entertaining characters in the romance field. Her Lord of Scoundrels is often considered a classic of the genre, and rightfully so. In everything I’ve read by Chase, she’s breathed refreshing life into the boy-meets-girl/boy-and-girl-thwarted-by-douchebag/boy-and-girl-achieve-happily-ever-after of the Almighty Romance Novel.

Until 2007’s Not Quite A Lady.

One of the biggest beefs most romance readers have with the great majority of romance novels is the utter implausibility inherent in their stories. For instance, would Cherokee warrior Running Possum really allow some blond nymphet into his tepee for all eternity? Or: would Prince Thorne really start wooing the Cockney wench with the bratty three-year-old kid? Or: would Denver socialite Madrigal VonLocke really knock bedposts with an unshaven, unwashed, though hung-like-a-yak cowboy? You catch where my pheromones are going on this one.

But Not Quite A Lady has an outrageous plot that eclipses any of the ones I’ve mentioned above. Without spoiling it, I’ll tell you this: it involves a baby, an adoption, and a reunion that puts any Meredith Baxter-Birney TV movie to shame. It doesn’t help that it’s all ridiculously predictable. Just a few chapters in, I already sensed where this might lead, but being a Chaseaholic, I refused to believe it would get to that point. But, alas, it does get to that point, and the ride there isn’t much fun either.

Which is sad, because I really, really wanted to fall in love with Lady Charlotte (the “not quite a” of the book’s title). I immensely enjoyed the fact that she was not a prim, proper Englishwoman, pure as the driven blow — I mean, snow. I liked that she had something of a past, had majorly fucked up when she was young and foolish, had skeletons in her finely-appointed cherry-wood wardrobe. This made her real, and I like real. I had so many hopes for Lady Charlotte, but from the moment early-on when she compared herself to a pig, actually longing to be the pig, I knew we would soon part ways.

Also, this heroine is the biggest clutz in modern literature. Lady Charlotte falls down, twists her ankle, loses her footing, and spends so much time flat on her fine patrician face that I was shocked in scenes where homegirl could walk into a room and not bail into the tea service. Not only does this take away the romantical image of graceful noblechick, but it’s also a cheap storytelling ploy far beneath Chase’s talents: heroine falls down a lot, hero is conveniently close by, he catches her/she falls into him, end of story. Her clumsiness also made wildly impossible the love scene where Darius takes Charlotte on a desk. C’mon, Charlotte couldn’t balance on a desk like that! As soon as her ankles were behind her ears, she would’ve plummeted to the floor. I’m not just snarky, I’m also trampy, and I know full well how shenanigans like this play out.

Then there’s the hero, who I also really, really wanted to fall in love with. Darius Carsington is a strange hybrid of geek/rake. This intrigued me, and I had high hopes for him. He was a nerd, sure, but he was also a big-time lustbucket. Darius knows how to put down the almanac and pick up the chambermaid. There are several well done moments in which we see him scrutinizing the internal battle of logic versus falling in love, but even these interesting vignettes are overshadowed by the complete impossibility of the story at hand.

Not Quite A Lady’s one redeeming feature is actually quite surprising: the villain. In many books, in particular romances, the villains are mega-asshats that are evil to the core, without even one humane character trait. But the one we are lead to believe is the villainous tyrant in this book is not a villain at all. He’s a human being, and this is wonderfully refreshing. To take someone who has plans and ideas and hopes and dreams that differ from those of the rest of the characters, and to not portray him as a hateful bastard bent on destroying the Happily Ever After — this was classy indeed.

Despite Not Quite A Lady, I still love Loretta Chase. Her latest, Her Scandalous Ways, is on my to-be-read list, and rumor has it that this newest offering is classic Chase. So I’ll accept Not Quite as a little stumble; though, of course, the queen of the little stumble will always be Lady Charlotte. Grade: C-

Title Not Quite A Lady

Author Loretta Chase

Publisher Avon

Year Published 2007

ISBN 0061231231

Snarkbytes Loretta Chase blogs about romance with six other dynamic divas of the genre at the magnificently-titled Word Wenches.

October 20, 2008 | Filed Under Romance | 180 Comments

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WHAT IS A SNARK?

The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.

But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.