The Fragile Masculinity of the Male Book Club

When you imagine a book club, you generally think of a group of women, maybe late 20’s to late 50’s, sitting around, discussing a thriller or romance novel. Perhaps it’s a high-brow book club and they like to read award-winning novels. Maybe these ladies are having snacks in a coffee shop or in someone’s living room.

Apparently some men feel left out of this great book club culture. In an article published today in the New York Times  entitled “Men Have Book Clubs, Too” Jennifer Miller plunges into the world of Men Only book clubs, where strict masculine standards are kept, and low-key misogyny rules. The main book club she focuses on is Man Book Club, located in California, this club of middle-aged men has three rules when selecting its next book:

“1. No books by women about women (our cardinal rule)
2. Under 500 pages
3. Author has won/been nominated for a major literary award (or any award)”

The man hosting that meeting has to cook food related to the topic of that evening’s selection, and then later a review of the evening and of the book is posted onto their blog. Ignoring the fact that it’s typically seen as a feminine duty to cook and host events in one’s home, the men put up nice photos of them enjoying each other’s company. It would be sweet if there wasn’t the bizarre undercurrent of misogyny.

Having a men-only book club would be perhaps more acceptable if they still read books by women about women, as most women dominated book clubs still read books by men. To ignore men would be, unfortunately, to ignore most prize-winning literature. Not allowing books by women isn’t a stand of solidarity for the obviously persecuted middle-aged white American male, but sheer misogyny and an example of acting out when there is one environment where men don’t feel entirely welcome or don’t feel like they are in a place of power.

There’s also the fact that their reading list still includes books by women and books about women. Included in their list of books read includes The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which, by the way, is about a girl. They have also read Just Kids by Patti Smith, the the weak justification that the book does focus on Robert Mapplethorpe. They also read Breakfast at Tiffany’s which, if I’m not mistaken, does focus quite a bit on Holly Golightly.

Yes, so masculine. You can just feel the testosterone oozing from her tiara.

There is no problem with men reading literature by men. There’s no issue with men gathering to read. I just take issue with men refusing to read literature by women. This is a step back to a time when women had to publish simply using their initials so that men would buy their books. Refusing to read books that focus on female characters is to refuse to read books that speak of a human experience that is different from one’s own. And isn’t that the point of reading in the first place?

Summer Reading Lists!

School is wrapping up, finals are here, I am crying and sleeping with my books. But all will be well. Soon I will be home and in the city for the summer. As a lit student, summer is the time for me to fall back in love with reading. Being able to choose what books I read is now a luxury given all the reading that I have to do for my courses. Summer is my time to shine.

For this summer I have a few books on my list:

• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
• Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
• Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink by Kevin Young

It’s a varied, strange list. But I’m very excite to read some non-fiction and memoirs along with literature. It’ll be a good few months.

What are y’all reading for the summer? Anything I should check out?

BFG Trailer is Big, Fun, and Gorgeous

Okay, excuse the cheesiness above. I can’t help it. I’m terribly excited.

I love Roald Dahl. I love his books, I love the movies based off of them, I love the anecdote about his burial. Don’t know the anecdote about his burial? I’ll put it at the bottom of this blog post. Now you have to read it. Muahahahahaha.

But back to the point. The BFG. The Big Friendly Giant. One of the best children’s books out there. What’s not to love about a little girl, a runty giant, and the queen of England teaming up? It’s a beautiful book, filled with the imagery of dreams swirling in jars. It’s a dream in itself.

Roald Dahl’s books are so filled with imagery that they seem to lend themselves very well to film. Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, they all translated so well that their movies are an integral part of my childhood. Who doesn’t remember the great chocolate cake scene in Matilda? Or Veruca Salt being accosted by squirrels? Or the beautiful peach soaring into the sky?

So now, at the age of 21, I’m thrilled about the idea of watching The BFG come to life on the big screen. This summer I’m going to be dragging quite a few people to the theaters to see it with me.

I MEAN, LOOK AT HOW GREAT THIS TRAILER IS!!!!!

It’s a whizzpopper. And it’s releasing on 7/1/2016 in the U.S

 

********Anecdote********

“Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, partway through writing a third Charlie Bucket story, titled Charlie Bucket and the White House. He was buried with some of his favourite items, including: a power saw, HB pencils, chocolate, red wine and his snooker cues.”

Source (I suggest reading the rest, it’s an interesting article)

 

 

 

Thoughts on a Women Dominated Industry

I’m a girl trying to enter the publishing industry. When I enter a small publishing house, or a literary agency, it’s most likely that the person I will be meeting with will be a woman. This also often goes for mid-sized or even large agencies and houses. In publishing, women dominate.

Unlike most industries, where men are most often seen and women unheard, women are entering the publishing world at an unprecedented rate, with 85% of hires in publishing with 1-3 years of experience identifying as female. According to this 2010 article in Publishers Weekly, this may be because more women are majoring in English or that more women are willing to accept the lower salaries found in publishing.

To me, both are acceptable. I love that this industry is women-friendly. I love that I can go into work feeling comfortable with my gender, and know that I will have a lower possibility of being discriminated against because of gender.

The article in PW indicated however that some editors were concerned about the lack of gender diversity in publishing, and speculated that less male editors may lead to publication of books that only appeal to women. There is a high level of concern over the lack of younger male readers. According to the article, the male market between 18-32, due to the long held trend of men being less frequent readers. Are female editors less likely to publish material that will appeal to men?

I believe this concern is inherently a little sexist, but also ignoring the long history of publishing and women’s reading habits. Publishing, like almost all other industries, was for most of its history run by men. Men were publishers, editors, agents, and somehow, women still read. Women have been reading what men have chosen and edited and written for centuries, so I can believe that what women choose can still appeal to men. They just have to open up the book to read it.

Summer Internship!

New semester, new internship. Given that I’ll be home this summer, I decided it was finally time to apply to literary agencies aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnd I got one! It’s at a mid-sized, well-established agency located in midtown. The agents seem really friendly and great to work with. I’ll be starting in late May and working there until Mid-August, which is plenty of time to learn as many things as I can.

Luckily for this internship, a lot of the my responsibilities are similar to the same ones I had at my prior publishing house internship, but I’ll be learning a few new skills as well. For example: reader’s reports. I can do those now. I’ll also, of course, be learning more about the agenting side of the industry, and a new perspective can never hurt, particularly now that I can apply my arts management coursework.  However, I  still get to delve into the wonderful world of unsolicited slush. Beautiful, awful slush.

I’m very excited.

B&N’s New Concept

One of the bibles of the publishing world is Publisher’s Weekly, an industry journal with a fantastic website. Recently they released the news that Barnes and Noble is planning on opening a concept store. This store, conveniently located near me, in Westchester, NY, is supposed to capitalize on one of the growing trends in the publishing industry: the hybridization of digital and print media.

Courtesy of Publishers Weekly

This store will ironically be in the same location as a former Border’s (RIP). According to PW, the store will have an outdoor seating area and some form of restaurant. It will be “…not be like anything you’ve seen in other Barnes & Noble stores”. Patrons will take an escalator to the main floor that will open up into “the piazza area.” which is just fancy talk for a large open space. The bookshelves will arranged around the common space. And apparently there will be cloud lighting. Whatever that is.

These stores are supposed to open in October 2017, with three or so locations planned. These locations are supposed to encourage people to buy online products while still in the physical location. This is an interesting concept because you can apply the help of in-store sales associates while still being online. I suppose also having a lot of the books for sale online would also make life a heck of a lot easier for the sales associates themselves. Quite a few less boxes to unpack.

It’s nice to think that even though we’re in the digital age, even though we’re constantly surrounded by people on their phones, companies are still looking to create spaces for people to congregate who love books.

Welcome to the bookshop future, I suppose.

 

The Guilt of GoodReads

I’m a procrastinator.

The world’s worst procrastinator, in fact. About 21 years running, I have won the infamous award for always pushing things off until the last moment, and sometimes even after that. And whenever I do get to what I’ve been pushing off, I go hard. This is the relationship I’ve had with school, with work, and with GoodReads.

Whenever I do go on GoodReads, it’s once in a blue moon and I suddenly feel stressed to update it constantly. I understand that it’s a great site for finding new books, and connecting with others over what you’re reading, and for authors to promote their books, but I feel like you can do that almost anywhere else. I personally never feel the need to automatically update my GoodReads account the moment I finish a novel. In fact, upon checking today, I haven’t updated my account since 2015. Apparently I’m still reading Mrs. Dalloway. Actually, that’s a little correct.

 

I’ve been putting off finishing Mrs. Dalloway. Sorry Virginia.

The Necessity of Passion

Today at my college, the director of HR for one of the ‘Big Five’ publishing houses came to speak. She spoke about how publishing houses are divided, the role of interns in the publishing world, and how one can ‘break into’ the industry.

Over everything else though, she kept on mentioning the term ‘passion’.

How you have to be passionate about books, about literature, about the work you intend to do in order to possibly gain acceptance into this mysterious culture of book lovers, writers, and all of those hard-working individuals who get literature into the hands of readers.

I believe that she meant for this term to be encouraging, to tell us that if we really really love books, that we may be able to succeed in this crowded industry. That this industry is full of creative individuals, just like us, who are so enthused and passionate about literature. That we belong amongst them. However, for me, I found the vagueness of the term passion to be a bit intimidating.

How do I know that my passion for books is equal to that of the person next to me? Can passion be measured in how many books I’ve read, how many books I’ve bought, how many hours I’ve spent reading or writing? It’s wonderful that this is an industry of passion and an industry where everyone is so deeply invested in what is being produced. It’s just intimidating when you’re not sure that your enthusiasm can measure up.

“I love books. Hire me.” – My entire cover letter

This summer I’m applying for more internships so that I can explore this book world more. Until requests for interviews come back to me, I guess I’ll just keep on reading.

 

 

What it’s Like to Be a First-Reader

Slush piles. The home to most unsolicited manuscripts. The piles of hopes and dreams of multitudes of authors.

My sophomore year of college, I was accepted as an editorial intern at an independent publishing house in the city. Amongst other various administrative and editorial duties (I sent A LOT of mail), I was tasked with reading through the slush. Unlike many major publishing houses, this particular one accepted unsolicited queries and it was the job of the interns to sort them into three piles:

1. Rejected: this is where the majority ended up.
2. Maybe: the editors maybe one day would possibly look at these. These varied from stronger maybes to weak maybes. Manuscripts sent by agents immediately went into this pile.
3.  Strong Maybes: this was always a very, very small pile. These manuscripts were definitely going to eventually be looked at by one of the editors.

Out of the ~60 books published by the publishing house each year, there was about one that was taken from the slush pile.Each day, there were at least 10 new manuscripts to read.  I have to say, this was probably my favorite part of the job.

You can find any number of blogs that tell aspiring authors what to put in their queries, and how many pages to send into publishing houses, so that won’t be my goal here. I’m just going to tell you what my personal experience as a first-reader taught me, and what caught my eye when skimming over queries and manuscripts.

First things first.

1. Respect the time of the reader. Even as an intern, I did not have time to read all 300+ pages of your epic novel. Most publishing houses and agencies that accept unsolicited manuscripts request a specific amount of pages to be sent. Stick to that number. The extra pages that were sent to me didn’t convince me that you wrote the novel of the century, they convinced me that you didn’t read the requirements on the website.
2. Please, please, please don’t try to compare you style to a whole list of other authors. Saying that your writing is comparable to the love child of David Sedaris, Jonathan Franzan, and James Joyce doesn’t impress anyone.
3. Know the genre that the particular publishing house is looking for! It’s a waste of energy if you send fantasy sci-fi erotica to a publisher who is looking for travel memoirs.
4. Keep up to date with who is working at the agency or publishing house. Sending a query to someone who no longer works there looks bad on your part, and shows a lack of interest in that particular entity.
5. Proofread your query letters. Seriously. Also remember to include your contact information! It doesn’t matter that you’ve written the novel of the century if there’s no way for the publishing house to reach you.

Having to read through the slush pile was always an amazing, and more often than not, amusing experience. There were many high-quality, intriguing manuscripts that were sent in and that I highly recommended to the editors. And…there were others that were unintentionally amusing and just a little ridiculous.

Too many people think that unless they have an agent, no one will take a look at their writing. That’s entirely untrue. With a proper query, and a good manuscript, it’s possible that with some publishing houses, your work may get passed on to an editor. Just remember to spellcheck!

 

 

 

What’s in a Book? Apparently, not always pages.

 

Promo image from grolierclub.org

Welcome to the world of ‘Blooks‘.

Until March 23rd, the Grolier Club in Manhattan will be exhibiting a collection of false books, referred to by their owner, Mindell Dubanky, as ‘Blooks’. These pieces range not only from the run-of-the-mill fake book with a cover to store things in (I really wanted one of these as a kid, Claudia had one in The Babysitters Club series) but also to alarm clocks and cookie jars and anything else you can imagine being shaped like a book.

Honestly, it sounded like a very kitschy exhibit when I was first sent the link to the New York Times Article. As I’ve thought more about it though, it kind of leads to the question of what constitutes a book, and even more importantly, why are books so important to people that they desire to shape objects to resemble them?

I’ll probably be heading down to the exhibit this weekend to check it out! The Grolier Club is located at:

47 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
212-838-6690

And their hours are Monday – Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm

The exhibitions are free, and as a college student, that’s my favorite kind!