Daily Thoughts 6/11/2010

Front view of a plant sculpture of a green bookworm reading a book with a B and C on it. Photo from Manchester.11 July 2008 (2008-07-11), 15:09:08, Taken by Terry from Wikimedia, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Daily Thoughts 6/11/2010

Today, I looked at my stats. I looked at Webmaster Tools to check on search queries related to my blog. http://www.google.com/webmaster/tools/

The number one search term which my blog comes up under is Rosie The Riveter. There is a certain irony in this. It is exactly the type of thing which I don't mind being attached to. This is followed by monopoly pieces. I am rather partial to the hat. Then comes Mary Shelley. I do rather like Frankenstein. The internet can be both silly and amazing at times.

The keywords are almost on target. The number one keyword is thoughts followed by book. I do think a lot and read a lot of books. The keywords are not that far off.

I also like to look at http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ Yahoo's Site Explorer. I find it to be more interesting and accurate than most other site exploration functions including the hit counter on my blog. I usually find out about some rather interesting sites that are linked to my blog.

Here are a few that are not in my blogroll. I wonder sometimes if I should include a set of links for non-book related sites in my sidebar. There are a few blogs which follow me very regularly which have other functions than books. Chicago History Journal is where I get the majority of inbound links for my blog. I find it rather interesting. http://www.chicagohistoryjournal.com/ .

Another blog which I enjoy a lot is Cromely. The pictures of gardening, travel and conventions are wonderful. He has some excellent comic book material, material on Star Trek, and a few book reviews. If a blog has a lot of book reviews, but is not purely a book review blog, is it a book review blog. Blogs are very flexible in their content. http://cromely.blogspot.com/

There were also a few book blogs which linked to my site in their blogger profile, but not necessarily in their blogroll; Bookish Ruth, http://www.bookishruth.com/ , Lexie, http://lotuseyes.livejournal.com/ , Magdalena ball, http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/ , and Sandra http://freshinkbooks.blogspot.com/ .

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn came in for me to read. This is for me to read for my Readers Advisory 101 class. Occassionally, we have to step out of our normal reading habits and try books which are a bit different, not necessarily our favorite subjects. Reading it would be part of my continuing education as a librarian.

Today, I focused a bit on getting the Bookletters page ready, took one more look at the Suggestion an Item form for our library website, and printed up some flyers for the upcoming poetry program. I also talked to someone about a table they set up in the lobby. They are offering computer classes for adults something which a lot of people have been asking for at the library.

We finally have a new bestsellers page put together from Bookletters and a suggest an item for purchase form up on our website. I have worked a little bit more on evance which is an online sign up form for summer reading. It is the second year we are going to be doing the adult section of the summer reading program.

I also picked up a short paperback called Food Rules An Eaters Manual by Michael Pollan. He is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I read some of The Viscount Who Loved Me. It is easily one of the most atrocious books I have ever attempted to read. The rakeViscount Bridgerton father dies after being stung by a bee and his love interest reads gossip sheets. It is awful. On the cover of the book are the words USA Tdoay Bestselling Author. It made me sleepy.

I do occassionally read romance titles. I like Elizabeth Lowell and Linnea Sinclair. I am even intrigued by some of the settings in romance, the Harlequin NASCAR romances seem like they would be interesting. We get lots of requests for romance, especially African American romance, Brenda Jackson and Rochelle Alers are asked for a lot. We get a lot of historical romances. Kathleen Woodiwiss is very popular.

Linnea Sinclair Rebels and Lovers

Linnea Sinclair Rebels and Lovers


Linnea Sinclair writes science fiction romances. This is a sequel to the novel Hope's Folly. Hope's Folly was nominated for the Reviewers Choice Award by Romantic Times. It is a story of forbidden love and rebellion. Devin Guthrie, the scion of a wealthy family is chasing after his nephew, Trip Guthrie who has run off to join the rebellion.



Devin and Trip must avoid imperial forces and criminals who are attempting to kidnap Trip. There are many classic devices used; the bar fight, the chase, the family betrayal, the evil imperial bureaucracy. It makes for light hearted escapist reading.

While this is happening Devin falls in love with Makkaiden Griggs, a down on her luck starship captain. She needs a bit of saving. The saving adds a bit of spice to the love scenes.

There is just the right amount of technical wizardry to make it science fiction. Trip hacks the computer of a spaceship, there are laser pistols, a few aliens, and even a medical malady caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.

If you want to read some lighthearted science fiction romance, Linnea Sinclair's novels are very entertaining. I especially liked The Down Home Zombie Blues, it had some poetry and musical lyrics in it. Her website is at http://linneasinclair.com/books.html

The world's most romantic couple?

Romance is as romance does. Who's to say how romantic one is, unless you're one of the people inside the relationship?

Of course, as a writer, even though the characters are the one getting mushy with one another, I am in the middle of it all.

So here's a hint: the best romance is found in the sweet, little things of everyday affection.

~*~

Heather S. Ingemar has loved to play with words since she was little, and it wasn’t long until she started writing her own stories. Termed “a little odd” by her peers, she took great delight in exploring tales with a gothic flair, and to this day, Edgar Allan Poe continues to be her literary hero. To learn more, please visit: http://ingemarwrites.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heatheringemar

My First Favorite Book - Forever Amber???

So, maybe this wasn't my first favorite book! As most young readers, I devoured Nancy Drew and even read The Hardy Boys. I read every young reader sports biography I could get my sweaty little hands on — from Aaron to Zaharias.

But, I'll always remember Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor, the historical novel that was banned in Boston, among other places. I was almost 15, and getting bored with the reading material available in my small town library. In those days, the Young Adult category was non-existent.

Enter: The head librarian who also happened to be my dear aunt! She noticed my frustration with age-appropriate books and started stashing books under her desk that she thought I might like. Books that my mother would've fainted dead-away had she known, even though my aunt was careful to suggest books that had no erotic content or 4-letter words. Mostly just romance. As I remember, "heaving bosom" was about as bawdy as it got.

I read everything from Tolstoy to Belva Plain. But, the beautiful, historically relevant, Amber St. Clare still haunts me. Unfortunately, it isn't the romance that I remember most about the book, but, instead, the Great Plague! These were the first vivid accounts I'd read of this horrific event, but, don't worry, I'm keeping them to myself on this post. If you want to know more about the "rat plague," Google!

But, plagues aside, I have a decision to make. I'm torn between wanting to read Forever Amber again, after all these years, or simply keeping the memory of this special book and my special aunt in my heart.

What's your advice?


Mary Cunningham is the author of the award-winning 'Tween fantasy/mystery series, Cynthia’s Attic. Her children's mystery series was inspired by a recurring dream about a mysterious attic. After realizing that the dream took place in the home of her childhood friend, Cynthia, the dreams stopped and the writing began.

She is also co-writer of the humor-filled, women's lifestyle book, Women Only Over Fifty (WOOF), along with published stories, Ghost Light and Christmas With Daisy, A Cynthia's Attic short story.


Mary Cunningham Books
Cynthia's Attic Blog
Amazon
Kindle
Quake/Echelon Press

Hope's Folly by Linnea Sinclair

Hope's Folly by Linnea Sinclair

I picked up a copy of Hope's Folly on February 6, 2009 at New York Comic Con. They were displaying The Down Home Zombie Blues at the Bantam booth for science fiction and I asked them if they had a new book by Linnea Sinclair. They gave me the Advanced Reading Copy of Hope's Folly. It is due out on February 24, 2009.

It is deeply satisfying to be able to read a good book before anyone else does. There are a few minor elements that probably will be changed, but with an Advanced Reading Copy, it is very close to the finished product most of the time. Linnea Sinclair has written many award winning romance books. She has won the RITA, The Sapphire, and the Prism awards for romance novels. Her website is at http://www.linneasinclair.com/ .

There is a playlist of music in the front of the book which she listens to. She even lists a website for the recordings. http://www.blacktigerrecordings.com/ .

This book is what Star Trek might be like if it included hot sex, and more violent political intrigue. Including this adds spice where most space operas don't have it. This is the major reason I like her stories so much.

The dynamic of older man and younger woman is done very well. The older man is the commanding Admiral Philip Guthrie and the younger woman is his security officer, Rya Bennton.

What also makes this story so good is the political intrigue added to the typical shootouts and space battles. There are saboteurs on board the ship the Hope's Folly and Rya Bennton must find them. Also there is an assassination and a kidnapping attempt against the Admiral Guthrie. This makes for a fast paced story with excitement at every turn.

The setting is the classic rebel ship fighting an empire torn asunder space opera setting. The rebel ship of course is outnumbered and outgunned.

The book is printed by Bantam books. I don't think this book is purely formulaic. If you like science fiction and a little romance you will really like this book.

Razor Girl Love Cuts Both Ways by Marianne Mancusi

Razor Girl Love Cuts Both Ways by Marianne Mancusi

This is a silly campy novel. It is a postapocalyptic
zombie romance. The main character, Molly Anderson, is
a tribute to William Gibson's Neuromancer. She has
ocular implants and razor claws.

The book starts out as Molly Anderson is falling in love
with Chase Griffin, the boy next door. This is during
the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. People start
turning into pus filled, man eating zombies. There are
of course references to George Romero films.

Numerous cliches abound. They have the feeling they are
meant to be there. Molly must shoot Erin her best
friend who has turned into a three eyed zombie. Molly's
father is a mad scientist who makes
supersoldiers.

Switch to six years later. Molly has been in a fallout
shelter. When she comes out of the fallout shelter, she
immediately tears apart a zombie with her razor claws
saving Chase Griffin her high school fling. He of
course looks like the cover of a romance novel. Fabio
here I come.

The novel switches back and forth between high school
zombie apocalypse; and the end of the world wasteland.
Molly must get to Disneyland to save her father. She
brings Chase Griffin and his eight charges, child
survivors of the apocalypse.

This novel is silly and fun. It is competently put
together. There is sex, zombie killing, and cliches;
lots of cliches. Marianne Mancusi writes young adult
novels and action romances. This is her blog
http://mariannem.blogspot.com/

Good Morning

WPA Adult Edution. Works Progress Administration New Deal. This is the way the United States will be heading if business people do not get their act together.

Good Morning

Last night I read some more of Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch on the train home. For a while the train was so crowded that I could not sit down so I didn't get as much reading done as I would have liked. The trains have been much more crowded lately. People are driving less. Cars are very expensive.

I finished ordering for romance paperbacks. There should be a nice solid order coming in. I went in the storage area and looked at the books I ordered. There are lots of computer books, Job Information Center books, business books, social science books, and professional books waiting to go out on the circulating shelves. There is something satisfying about seeing books which you have ordered on the shelves.

I am doing a film program at my library today. I just checked to make sure the room setup was done, small individual bags of popcorn and juice were ready. I'll make an announcement over the intercom later this afternoon. The computer technician is going to check the dvd to make sure it works. We have an extra copy of the film ready in case the one being checked doesn't work quite right.

We had fifteen people who came to the program, eight people stayed for the film, and seven more came for a short while. There were also a few people who came and looked in the room to see what was happening. I gave out two calendars of events for other programs. A lot of people come initially just because of the popcorn and juice.

I also compiled some patron requests for ordering. Items like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 on dvd, the author Zane, the subject of how to find and buy foreclosures, and a young adult paperback series--Angels In Pink.

Romance Books

It has been a rather interesting day like all lovely days.

Romance Books

My director asked me to place a large order of romance paperbacks. Apparently, our racks were emptying. So, I went to http://www.romantictimes.com and picked out a variety of romance paperbacks. I actually don't mind trashy romance paperbacks.

I sometimes read Elizabeth Lowell, and I reviewed Linnea Sinclair's The Downhome Zombie Blues which is kind of like Star Trek except for with sex. Elizabeth Lowell wrote as the science fiction author, Ann Maxwell, and was nominated for a Hugo award for her science fiction romance, Name of A Shadow.

There are a number of authors who are popular at our library in the romance section, Donna Hill and Gwynn Forster are two best selling black romance authors. I also like Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series which is quite interesting, it is a vampire romance story. There are of course all the campy contemporary authors like Amanda Quick, Candace Camp, and Linda Lael Miller.

In addition to spending time at Romantic Times, I also visited the Eharlequin site http://www.eharlequin.com . Eharlequin bought out BET Black Entertainments line of romance novels, so they now have an extensive set of African American romance books, including the Kimaru series. The other romance publishers I looked at were Avon Romance, Tor/Forge has a science fiction romance section, and Bantam/Dell. Dorchester Publishing which does the Hard Case Crime series of hardboiled mystery noire paperbacks also has a romance line which looks very campy. http://www.dorchesterpub.com/Dorch/NewRelease.cfm?L1=2&L2=0

I am about halfway through my order of mass market romance paperbacks. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.

I was busier than usual today, again. We had a meeting to discuss the agencies that served the disadvantaged and we divided up the telephone list to call different agencies for an open forum discussion.

Other than that, I spent some time as usual on the reference desk, did some weeding, and cleaned up my desk a bit more. It was a quite full day.

Good Morning

Young Romance Comic Book

Good Morning

Good morning, I'm up, I've had my coffee. I put a science fiction romance paperback on hold Linnea Sinclair Shades of Dark. I actually read romance novels on occasion. Mostly science fiction and horror romances. There is just a lot more sex and relationships than in most science fiction and horror which tends to have cardboard cutout action heros as the main characters.

I think a lot of science fiction writers could learn something from reading a few romance novels. The exceptions of course are Philip Jose Farmer and Tanith Lee who have written science fiction novels about love. One of my favorite novels was Name of A Shadow by Ann Maxwell. It is a science fiction romanc that was nominated for the Hugo award. I think it probably would have won if people had less prejudice against the romance genre.

Romance is the most read genre of fiction. There is nothing like sex and relationships. Another author who started out as a writer of gothic romances is Marion Zimmer Bradley. She then switched to science fantasy with her Darkover novels. I rather enjoyed reading them when she was writing them. I don't particularly like the author who took her place to continue the series.

Morning Thoughts, Gods Debris

I am still on jury duty which is turning out to be an odd experience. I ran out of books from the libray where I work to read. I went back to my local library and picked up a copy of Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! by Scott Adams. So far it has been quite amusing. It consists of short one or two page diary entries from the authors life. Scott Adams writes Dilbert.

There is not a whole lot which has been happening with the blog for the moment. While I was looking through the entrecard listings, I noticed the Avon Romance Blog http://www.avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/. This is the only major book publisher on Entrecard. I have noticed that Avon is often willing to try new and innovative ideas. When I was at Book Expo America in 2007, they had just introduced a new line of Nascar romances which seemed a little different.

I will write some more when I get back.

Alright, I got back early from jury duty. It was exhausting even though it was short today. I have read a little more of the Scott Adam's book. While I was reading through it, I came across a book which Scott Adam's is giving away on the internet, God's Debris. This is a link to the free ebook. http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/ I am not even sure what it is about. All I know is that it is free and people like free things.

Apparently Scott Adams says this book has been downloaded over 200,000 times for free. I am not sure what that means in terms of free publicity and advertising for his works, but it probably means a lot more people will be reading his books which are already very popular.

I am about two thirds through the book Stick To Drawing Comics Monkey Brain!, but I am tired so I will take a nap for a bit.

The Down Home Zombie Blues-- Linnea Sinclair-- Review

Illustration by Howard Pyle; Pirate Romance

This is a science fiction romance. It is what you might get if you read star trek or stargate and added a decent amount of sex and romance to it. The book is campy and fun. It is full of cliches about science fiction.

Guardian Force Commander Jorie Mikkalah is hunting biomechanical zombies in the earth system. She must slip in with her crew and destroy the zombies without the earth people knowing about it.

Things don't go quite right and suddenly Jorie is hot and heavy with a greek cop from Miami named Theo. Theo saves Jorie from one of the monsters by using Jorie's laser pistol to burn out a zombies eyes. He understands how to use the pistol because it looked like something from Deep Space 1.

What will Jorie do? She has become involved in forbidden contact with an earth man. And eventually forbidden sex. Jorie really likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Theo. Earth food is wonderful and earth men must be even more wonderful.

Theo is taken aboard Jories ship where he is told that he will be sent to Paroo, a tropical island planet like Hawaii, because he has seen a guardian force ship. Then, Jorie convinces her crew that Theo should help them out. He knows about earth and can help them kill the zombies. The crew is kind of amusing. There is "something like a miniature Wookie".

Theo brings the alien Guardians to his house where they set up a base of operations with an invisible forcefield and get ready to hunt zombies. Theo wonders what the neighbors will think, he needs a cover story for Jorie which he can explain to his aunt Tootie. This is pretty silly. He has a hot woman in his house.

Things go wrong and Jorie's ship disappears. There is a secret group of evil aliens on the planet controlling the zombies. Things get scary for Jorie (and really steamy between Jorie and Theo).

The Tresh, a group of aliens that look like absolutely perfect humans with a love of giving others pain are on the planet. The Tresh remind me of Khan Noonien Singh played by Ricardo Montalban in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed."

There is the dichotomy of pain and pleasure going on in the background. One of Jorie's crew must be rescued from the Tresh who have taken over Theo's house. Jorie and Theo retake the house. They must take a rescued crew member to a veterinarian to have the pain implant removed. Jorie is very pleased, veterinarians are the highest form of doctor on her world. If you pay close attention to the novel there are a lot of ridiculous things like this in the novel.

Eventually, alone and isolated on the planet, Jorie and Theo seek out help to destroy the remaining zombies. Theo manages to convince a few of his friends to help him kill zombies by showing off some of Jorie's super alien toys. Look we have a forcefield, a holoprojector, and a laser rifle, wow aliens.

There is a final showdown with the alien zombies. The showdown kind of reminds of a video game. The zombies are much larger than before. They must get past the big zombies to shoot the super big boss ending the zombies. It is a boss fight.

For the final cliche, Jorie's ship reappears and she is promoted to Captain. Of course, there is a happy, sexy ending. Jorie gets assigned to earth to watch it for future "alien zombie infestations" and Tresh. She can be with her alien lover whenever she wants.

A trashy, campy, sexy, sometimes ridiculous, and funny science fiction romance. Apparently Linnea Sinclair has won quite a few romance book awards for her speculative fiction romances, like the 2006 RITA award for Paranormal Romances, 2003 Prism Award,2nd Place for Best Futuristic Romance, 2002 Affaire de Coeure Award for best Futuristic Romance, and many other romance awards. I am used to things like the Philip K. Dick, Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Nebula, and Hugo awards.

There are two songs before the book opens, they are The Down Home Zombie Blues Lyrics by Linnea Sinclair & Ed Teja, Music by Ed Teja (ASCAP), and the Downhome Divorced Guy Blues words by Ed Teja and Uncle Steve, music by Ed Teja.

I found this paperback listed in Locus magazine in their new books for December section. They don't usually list science fiction romance books. This is better than most. Despite some of the ridiculous qualities in the book, I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

Serial Novels and Packaged Books

More and more books are being sold as a complete package. This means that many books are designed so they can be written as an endless series and have dozens of different products spun off of them. The people who do this are called "packagers." I am not particularly fond of this. It seems to stunt creativity.

First you have a book or movie, then it books a comic books, an action figure, a television show, then many other products. I sometimes wonder why they continued with Star Trek Deep Space Nine, after creating a very nice original series.

When I go to my local library, there are more packaged fantasy and science fiction novels than original novels in the fantasy and science fiction section. You can get Warhammer 40K, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Star Trek, Deathlands, and other series, but not as many original stories.

The majority of these are atrociously written. Serials are written from guidelines, the characters, setting, and actions must fit, or the next author can't continue the series with consistency. The fans want complete consistency and very little originality. This is the place for new authors to cut their teeth. Because the books fit a very narrow focus they are much easier to write. Romance novels follow the same pattern, a very specific outline for each specific series.

There are a few good authors who started this way. Peter David started by writing Star Trek, David Gerrold wrote quite a few Star Trek novels, and Marion Zimmer Bradley started her career as a gothic romance novelist.

I think this has gotten out of hand. It is the urge to monetize everything and milk a novel or book for every bit of money it can make. If a book doesn't start out as a serial, it is often turned into a very long series. There were three books in the Lord of the Rings, a good and proper number. Now we see things like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series being turned into an endless story. Some people find comfort in bestselling serial fantasy novelists like R.A. Salvatore, I find it stultifying.

Some authors write well enough that they can pull this off. The Sherlock Holmes pastiches and Lovecraft pastiches are often quite enjoyable. When I say pastiche, I am referring to novels written about a character after an author dies.

Some serials have even become pulp classics like the Shadow, or Flash Gordon, but for the most part these are long forgotten. They represent the stereotypes and angst of their time and often strike a deep chord in the collective psyche. Occassionally, they are hauled out of the closet and made into a movie like Dick Tracy or the Shadow. Batman never seems to go out of style in the movies.

I congratulate J.K. Rowling on her decision to end the Harry Potter series. It shows a level of maturity in writing. The series will maintain its integrity and originality.

There is money to be made in packaging, collectible action figures, plastic rings, and other things which bring back childhood and extend adolsecence. Now the serials have become collectibles, you have to have the complete run of a million products or you aren't a true Star Wars fan, Star Trek Fan, or comic geek. The cost bankrupts many people and occassionally destroys some lives.

I wish there was less of this. I like a good original novel. Sometimes I would like a novel to end. It seems that if you don't kill the main character, the publisher will ask writers to write another novel based on the same character. I am glad the Walter Mosley killed off Easy Rawlins in his latest novel Blonde Faith, it was a good and appropriate ending for an excellent detective. Now, Walter Mosley can concentrate on writing other things.

Small Scale Online Bookselling, Romantic Science Fiction

For a while when the science fiction bookstore which I helped at closed in Manhattan, I tried small scale bookselling online. I used the various books I had collected mostly signed and unusual science fiction to make some money on ebay and abe. Things like signed paperbacks by Isaac Asimov, or signed hardcovers by Greg Bear. I would first put the items for sale on ebay, then if they didn't sell, I would put them on ABE-- Advanced Book Exchange, http://www.abebooks.com/ . I never found Alibris another booksale exchange to be very appealing. It was a very interesting experience.

I could create both a backlist and front list of titles doing this. However, I found that finding new books was not that easy, unless I chose to put an ad in the paper and take all comers, or was willing to buy entire estate sales worth of books. At the time, I was in Brooklyn, so I didn't have a car. A lot of New Yorkers don't drive.

I learned that bookselling really is very much a labor of love. There is not a huge amount of money in it, unless you sell very high quality rare books, or can sell in very large volumes like the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, or Amazon online.

For me unless the book was very valuable, at least $25 for a book, and ideally abve $50 it seemed like a tremendous effort for very little return. With used books, you have to list every book separately, they don't tend to repeat themselves, unlike new books where you can set up one listing and sell them repeatedly. It requires meticulous care and the promise of quality customer service to very picky customers.

I spent quite a bit of time learning to pack and ship the books. This is really important, surprisingly, it is one of the few things that differentiates online used booksellers is their shipping.

Bookselling online is incredibly easy to get into, almost too easy. I think it is one of the factors that drove many of the used bookstores out of business. It was no longer necessary for the pickers, the people who went out to library booksales, church sales, thrift shops and other places to get old books to bring them in to the bookstore, they could just sell them themselves. This created an incredibly competitive environment. Most of the pickers I've met are older people looking to supplement their income with a hobby.

When you can go to something like the http://www.ioba.org/ -- The Independent Online Booksellers Associations and learn all the basics for free, or http://www.bibliomania.net/ it becomes much too easy to enter the field.

Also, it increases theft from bookstores and libraries. Suddenly, there is a very easy way for people to sell material that is stolen. They can take it and put it online. Please don't buy books with library markings online or from used bookstores, the item you are buying could be stolen. Ask about the stores policy about library books. If they are honest, they will tell you "We don't sell books with library markings." This is a really important policy.

It is amazing the variety and kind of library thieves there are. One of the most common refrains we here is, "I paid my taxes for these books, I should be able to take these books home and keep them."

The concept of returning or borrowing books is unacceptable to many people. We have to keep all the windows locked where we work, or they will go out the window. People mangle the books so they can take them home. Videos and dvds are even harder to keep from being stolen. The most common sign of a book thief is a combination of razor blades and string... No library is immune from this kind of behavior. There are stories of people going around to various libraries around the country and filling whole houses full of stolen books. I've read about this multiple times. This is a nice little article on map thievery, almost as common as book thievery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2209582,00.html

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Romance books are one of the most read type of books on the market. They account for most of the paperbacks that get printed. Something that is important to know is that mostly women read novels.

A good source for information and reviews on romance books is http://www.romantictimes.com/

One of my favorite cross genre writers is Elizabeth Lowell http://www.elizabethlowell.com/ She writes romantic suspense, historical romances, romances, mysteries, science fiction, and even has a screenplay. She is a best selling author. She wrote one of my favorite books, a science fiction romance called Name of A Shadow which was nominated for the Hugo Award.

Another science fiction writer who wrote a classic romantic science fiction book is Tanith Lee,

The Silver Metal Lover. This was followed up by Metallic Love, a story of near perfect robots who are used as entertainers and escorts who escape their designers in the end.

I am adding Romantic Times to the list of places for book reviews.

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I added a bestselling book widget and a comic book widget from widget bucks. I have also been posting on bumpzee.com and fuelmyblog.com to generate some more interest. The bumpzee widget is very large and cumbersome, I think. If they had something smaller, I might add it to my site.

It is rather interesting who is searching for and looking at my web site. There were two sites which I found rather interesting. One was Plaxo, an online address book site, and another was Zuula, a new metasearch engine.

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I looked through the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007 and chose two of them to put on hold. The first is Ha Jin A Free Life, the second is Pierre Bayard How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read -- a truly wonderful title. I do not read every book I reserve. I usually examine the first two chapters, the cover, and the blurb to see if I want to read the book. Not everything is worth reading.