- The Week (30 November 2013 / Issue 948)
- The Week (7 December 2013 / Issue 949)
- Round Ireland With A Fridge by Tony Hawks (1998)
- Read to B over 3 months, with a little judicious on-the-fly editing. He loved the silly humour, but was puzzled by Tony's constant pursuit of women.
- How To Talk So Teens Will Listen And Listen So Teens Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish (2006)
- A simple guide with useful advice. It is essentially the basics in non-judgmental, non-confrontational discussion, applied to a specific relationship type; that of a parent and child. Good to be reminded.
- Guitarist (January 2014 / Issue 376)
- The Week (14 December 2014 / Issue 950)
- The People's Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records by Stuart Maconie (2013)
- The Week (21 December 2013 / Issue 951)
- Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner (2009)
- The Week (28 December 2013 / Issue 952)
Showing posts with label reading 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading 2013. Show all posts
31/12/2013
Reading - December 2013
29/12/2013
Perfecting Sound Forever
The Story Of Recorded Music
Greg Milner
2009
Perfecting Sound Forever (the title is taken from a Pavement track) is a look at the technological history of recorded music, from wax cylinders to software codecs. It's fascinating to revisit the analogue vs. digitial debate in the context of similar debates down the decades: cylinder vs. disc, acoustic vs electric recording, 33 vs 45 - there's always been people prepared to swear blind that their method of sound reproduction is better. (More amazing is that there are people who will defend the original acoustic wax cylinder - and even more still that they might, according to the author of this book, have a point.)
What is also interesting to any student of rock and pop is the detail of how the advancing technology has shaped the sound of the music we listen to. It's well known that the advent of multi-track recording enabled more advanced and creative uses of the studio in the service of music production (as opposed to merely music recording). However, what I hadn't appreciated was how the increasing number of tracks changed the music; both by reducing fidelity - 24 tracks on a 2 inch tape is less accurate than 16, for example; and by changing the practice of recording - why bother getting a perfect performance when you can piece it together from several takes? This latter is taken to extremes now that software allows an infinite number of tracks, but was also responsible for the sound of late seventies rock - that dead, dry, pristine sound perfected by Steely Dan, and caused the separation of instruments required to allow the editing to work.
There's a very interesting chapter on the way that the "loudness war" has further deteriorated the fidelity of what we listen to as a direct result of the greater dynamic range available with CD, and a discussion of how even more technology allows us to reduce fidelity yet again by tricking the brain into hearing what's not there - the era of the lossy compression algorithm (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC and so on). It's difficult to avoid the ironic conclusion that all the advances have failed to advance anything with respect to the accurate preservation (that is, the other sense of "record") of sound.
Well worth reading. Oh, and bonus points for featuring Tony Bongiovi fairly prominently without mentioning his more famous second cousin once.
Greg Milner
2009
What is also interesting to any student of rock and pop is the detail of how the advancing technology has shaped the sound of the music we listen to. It's well known that the advent of multi-track recording enabled more advanced and creative uses of the studio in the service of music production (as opposed to merely music recording). However, what I hadn't appreciated was how the increasing number of tracks changed the music; both by reducing fidelity - 24 tracks on a 2 inch tape is less accurate than 16, for example; and by changing the practice of recording - why bother getting a perfect performance when you can piece it together from several takes? This latter is taken to extremes now that software allows an infinite number of tracks, but was also responsible for the sound of late seventies rock - that dead, dry, pristine sound perfected by Steely Dan, and caused the separation of instruments required to allow the editing to work.
There's a very interesting chapter on the way that the "loudness war" has further deteriorated the fidelity of what we listen to as a direct result of the greater dynamic range available with CD, and a discussion of how even more technology allows us to reduce fidelity yet again by tricking the brain into hearing what's not there - the era of the lossy compression algorithm (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC and so on). It's difficult to avoid the ironic conclusion that all the advances have failed to advance anything with respect to the accurate preservation (that is, the other sense of "record") of sound.
Well worth reading. Oh, and bonus points for featuring Tony Bongiovi fairly prominently without mentioning his more famous second cousin once.
16/12/2013
The People's Songs
Stuart Maconie
2013
When I was five, I had my tonsils out. This entailed a two night stay in hospital, and without parents staying over, either. Not a fun experience, particularly, but the silver lining was that, as a reward for being good, I got a record player (an old, portable, valve-powered Dansette type), a handful of singles from that week's top ten ... and a lifelong love of pop.
I loved those records, and still do. The intro of David Essex's "Gonna Make You A Star" always gives me an anticipatory shiver. I will go toe to toe with anyone who dares argue that "Love Me For A Reason" by The Osmonds isn't one of the best pop ballads of the last forty years. "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" sounds magnificently odd even today and remains a career pinnacle for Sparks. And, oh, best of all, one of the finest number ones of the seventies: "Sugar Baby Love", instant time travel in vinyl, plastic or bytes, a song that whisks me effortlessly back to my bedroom in Kenton where I would beat the purple carpet and dream of playing drums for The Rubettes.
I can hold my own with any rock snob but anyone lucky enough to have caught me in the right mood or with enough drink inside me will know that my passion is pop music: cheap, disposable, sentimental, trashy, exploitative and glorious pop music. The best pop marks a moment, a mood or a memory like nothing else, and it's intensely personal. What the songs above do for me, they don't do for you; what they mean to me, they won't mean to you; and what I hear, you can't. But what they do for me, nothing else can; what they mean to me is ineffable; and how they sound is utterly unique.
This is what pop music is really about and why, ultimately, it is far more important than the orthodox canon of classic albums and iconic artists that appear in weighty lists and turgid books. Which is why I like the idea of The People's Music so much. It operates from exactly this point of view, and picks fifty pop songs from the last sixty years that encapsulate a period in time or summarise a cultural shift. Maconie's introduction articulates much better than I can why pop history is social history, so central is it to so many people.
The radio series - sorry, landmark Radio 2 series (it says here) - is essential listening for any fan of pop. The book, introduction aside, is a little lacklustre by comparison. It consists of the scripts for each programme - as entertaining as you'd expect from Maconie - but, without the interviews that are the programme's raison d'etre (it bills itself as an "aural history", after all), each individual piece seems too short and somewhat disjointed. And of course the book can't include any music at all. Thank goodness for Spotify, eh?
2013
I loved those records, and still do. The intro of David Essex's "Gonna Make You A Star" always gives me an anticipatory shiver. I will go toe to toe with anyone who dares argue that "Love Me For A Reason" by The Osmonds isn't one of the best pop ballads of the last forty years. "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" sounds magnificently odd even today and remains a career pinnacle for Sparks. And, oh, best of all, one of the finest number ones of the seventies: "Sugar Baby Love", instant time travel in vinyl, plastic or bytes, a song that whisks me effortlessly back to my bedroom in Kenton where I would beat the purple carpet and dream of playing drums for The Rubettes.
I can hold my own with any rock snob but anyone lucky enough to have caught me in the right mood or with enough drink inside me will know that my passion is pop music: cheap, disposable, sentimental, trashy, exploitative and glorious pop music. The best pop marks a moment, a mood or a memory like nothing else, and it's intensely personal. What the songs above do for me, they don't do for you; what they mean to me, they won't mean to you; and what I hear, you can't. But what they do for me, nothing else can; what they mean to me is ineffable; and how they sound is utterly unique.
This is what pop music is really about and why, ultimately, it is far more important than the orthodox canon of classic albums and iconic artists that appear in weighty lists and turgid books. Which is why I like the idea of The People's Music so much. It operates from exactly this point of view, and picks fifty pop songs from the last sixty years that encapsulate a period in time or summarise a cultural shift. Maconie's introduction articulates much better than I can why pop history is social history, so central is it to so many people.
The radio series - sorry, landmark Radio 2 series (it says here) - is essential listening for any fan of pop. The book, introduction aside, is a little lacklustre by comparison. It consists of the scripts for each programme - as entertaining as you'd expect from Maconie - but, without the interviews that are the programme's raison d'etre (it bills itself as an "aural history", after all), each individual piece seems too short and somewhat disjointed. And of course the book can't include any music at all. Thank goodness for Spotify, eh?
30/11/2013
Reading - November 2013
25/11/2013
A Field Guide To The English
Sarah Lyall
2009
There is a surprisingly popular and populous sub-genre of non-fiction that attempts to analyse and categorise the English. Some represent a serious attempt to understand the unique cultural and sociological factors that distinguish Englishness. Some use the excuse of defining "the English" as a way of pedalling their own prejudices. Still others are happy to play off stereotypes for comic effect.
Despite its almost serious title, A Field Guide To The English fits firmly in the last category. Notwithstanding occasional references to the "research" she has conducted for various New York Times pieces, Sarah Lyall - an American journalist - has clearly used the standard journalist practice of using her friends and other people within easy reach to support her own preconceived ideas. Accordingly, English people are afraid of intimacy and sex (the men are all borderline homosexual, apparently), we all have bad teeth, the aristocracy are completely mad (and ludicrously mean with money), we have incomprehensible enthusiasms about trivial things like hedgehogs ... and so on.
This portrait is of course unrecognisable to any real English person - or, at least, only recognisable as a small but prominent part of our society. What is obvious to anyone is that Sarah Lyall has married into a comfortably upper-middle class English family (she lives in Kensington and weekends with Earls, for goodness sake) and has been happy to draw over-broad generalisations from the narrow section of society she has been exposed to. Her observations are generally shallow and cover surface manifestations only. This is all the more odd when you consider that she mentions (and has therefore hopefully read) Kate Fox's peerless Watching The English and should therefore have acquired some understanding of the deeper causes.
To be sure, she manages to score a few points against the more obvious targets: yes, the conduct of politicians in an out of the Houses of Parliament is just embarassing; of course our tabloid "news" papers are a disgrace to journalism. No-one with any sense disputes this. No country is without its peculiarities. Lyall is a good writer and the book is amusing in places. I just would have liked more observation and fewer stereotypes.
2009
Despite its almost serious title, A Field Guide To The English fits firmly in the last category. Notwithstanding occasional references to the "research" she has conducted for various New York Times pieces, Sarah Lyall - an American journalist - has clearly used the standard journalist practice of using her friends and other people within easy reach to support her own preconceived ideas. Accordingly, English people are afraid of intimacy and sex (the men are all borderline homosexual, apparently), we all have bad teeth, the aristocracy are completely mad (and ludicrously mean with money), we have incomprehensible enthusiasms about trivial things like hedgehogs ... and so on.
This portrait is of course unrecognisable to any real English person - or, at least, only recognisable as a small but prominent part of our society. What is obvious to anyone is that Sarah Lyall has married into a comfortably upper-middle class English family (she lives in Kensington and weekends with Earls, for goodness sake) and has been happy to draw over-broad generalisations from the narrow section of society she has been exposed to. Her observations are generally shallow and cover surface manifestations only. This is all the more odd when you consider that she mentions (and has therefore hopefully read) Kate Fox's peerless Watching The English and should therefore have acquired some understanding of the deeper causes.
To be sure, she manages to score a few points against the more obvious targets: yes, the conduct of politicians in an out of the Houses of Parliament is just embarassing; of course our tabloid "news" papers are a disgrace to journalism. No-one with any sense disputes this. No country is without its peculiarities. Lyall is a good writer and the book is amusing in places. I just would have liked more observation and fewer stereotypes.
10/11/2013
How To Be A Woman
Caitlin Moran
2012
The book is partly an autobiography, but Caitlin Moran uses the stages of her life as jumping-off points for discussions about issues affecting modern women. For example, the onset of puberty leads into a discussion of why it is now considered necessary for women to shave all pubic hair. Ageing sparks a debate about why so many women attempt to stall their years at the late thirties with extensive cosmetic surgery.
The whole thing is both very entertaining and thought-provoking. As a fellow left-ish liberal, I find little here to disagree with or anything that doesn't just seem like common sense. One of Moran's central observations (I think) is that modern "feminism" seems to have split into a dichotomy of extremist man-haters and the successors to the "new ladettes", for whom freedom is the freedom to flash their knickers or knockers at whoever they want. Her point is that, inevitably, the truth lies somewhere in between; her repeated question is "are the men doing this too?" - and, if not, why not?
The only thing that doesn't strike quite true is the way that she describes "all women" as being subject to a series of pressures - to look young, to get a Brazilian, to slim down, to get married. Now, obviously I am a man in his forties and so miss much of what pressures are applied to teenage or young women (although I expect to find out in about three years when my daughter reaches that age). However, I really don't get the sense from the women my age that they feel the pressures mentioned here to that degree. All of them are well able to distinguish between the simplistic, sensationalist and stupid attitudes of the media ("Get this season's must-have trousers! Don't let your man see your wrinkles!") and real life. I'll have to get one of them to read it and comment.
Anyway, very enjoyable and only made slightly disconcerting by the fact that in her picture on the cover Caitlin looks exactly like my friend Ruth.
2012
The whole thing is both very entertaining and thought-provoking. As a fellow left-ish liberal, I find little here to disagree with or anything that doesn't just seem like common sense. One of Moran's central observations (I think) is that modern "feminism" seems to have split into a dichotomy of extremist man-haters and the successors to the "new ladettes", for whom freedom is the freedom to flash their knickers or knockers at whoever they want. Her point is that, inevitably, the truth lies somewhere in between; her repeated question is "are the men doing this too?" - and, if not, why not?
The only thing that doesn't strike quite true is the way that she describes "all women" as being subject to a series of pressures - to look young, to get a Brazilian, to slim down, to get married. Now, obviously I am a man in his forties and so miss much of what pressures are applied to teenage or young women (although I expect to find out in about three years when my daughter reaches that age). However, I really don't get the sense from the women my age that they feel the pressures mentioned here to that degree. All of them are well able to distinguish between the simplistic, sensationalist and stupid attitudes of the media ("Get this season's must-have trousers! Don't let your man see your wrinkles!") and real life. I'll have to get one of them to read it and comment.
Anyway, very enjoyable and only made slightly disconcerting by the fact that in her picture on the cover Caitlin looks exactly like my friend Ruth.
31/10/2013
Reading - October 2013
24/10/2013
The Demon-Haunted World
Science As A Candle In The Dark
Carl Sagan
1995
I am so relieved to have finally finished this book - it's taken me over twelve years. I have started it regularly about once a year, but never made it past the first few chapters. It's not that I don't agree with the subject matter: I couldn't agree with it more; the absolute necessity of continued investment in science and scientific approaches, not just to technology but to life, religion, politics, education and everything else. It's vitally important that we equip our people and our children with the ability to distinguish between science and pseudo-science, between fact and fiction, and to question what they are told.
Unfortunately, the book itself is much, much too long and needlessly repetitive. It's audience is not - or shouldn't be - people like me. I don't need Sagan telling me, at length, that there are a host of plausible, rational, earthly explanations for the host of "alien abduction" claims. It needs to grab the doubters of science, the gullible, the blinkered. They're not going to read such a long book. It's arguable whether they would pick up anything that challenges their preconceptions, but if they do it needs to be short and to the point.
Carl Sagan
1995
Unfortunately, the book itself is much, much too long and needlessly repetitive. It's audience is not - or shouldn't be - people like me. I don't need Sagan telling me, at length, that there are a host of plausible, rational, earthly explanations for the host of "alien abduction" claims. It needs to grab the doubters of science, the gullible, the blinkered. They're not going to read such a long book. It's arguable whether they would pick up anything that challenges their preconceptions, but if they do it needs to be short and to the point.
20/10/2013
Build Your Own Electric Guitar
Martin Oakham
2006
Contrary to the identically titled Haynes manual, this book really does cover building your guitar from raw blocks of wood (although it does assume someone else has cut the tree down for you). From that point it has detailed steps of just about everything you need to do, including clear, colour photos nearly all of them. In this respect it would be, I expect, an extremely valuable guide to have around.
I have only a couple of minor gripes: firstly, it goes from start to finish with one guitar, a bolt-on (neck) with two humbuckers, and although there a couple of pages on different construction methods, it isn't much. Secondly, it makes a tiny, passing reference to finishing the body and neck. Granted this is a fairly specialised subject but you can't leave the wood untreated. Still, a superb companion piece to the other books I already have.
2006
I have only a couple of minor gripes: firstly, it goes from start to finish with one guitar, a bolt-on (neck) with two humbuckers, and although there a couple of pages on different construction methods, it isn't much. Secondly, it makes a tiny, passing reference to finishing the body and neck. Granted this is a fairly specialised subject but you can't leave the wood untreated. Still, a superb companion piece to the other books I already have.
10/10/2013
Build Your Own Electric Guitar
Paul Balmer
2013
I've been planning on building my own electric for over a decade now. I still haven't managed it, but I feel like I'm getting closer to having the time and space. So I've been stocking up on some more books about guitars. Plus I like books about guitars anyway.
I've read the Haynes Fender Stratocaster Manual and I really like the format - nicely bound, good quality pages, plenty of big, colour pictures. I also love the way that Haynes have so imaginatively branched out from automative manuals (there's even a Wallace & Gromit Cracking Contraptions Manual!)
The format hasn't changed here, and there's lots of interesting detail. I particularly like the in-depth look at "Red Special", the guitar made by the godfather of all home builders, the awesome Brian May (who also provides a foreword). There's a section on installing a piezo bridge - not that I expect to do this ever, but it's nice to know. The book is well structured and the illustrations are very clear - always a bonus, since I've seen too many fuzzy, monochromatic pictures that tell you nothing.
However, this book is not really about building an electric guitar. It's about assembling a Strat. No other types of guitars are covered, and in any case the sample guitars are assembled from ready made bodies and necks. Now, this is an excellent way of starting, and I'm sure my first guitar will be made like this, so in that respect this is a very useful book. But there's a lot more to building an electric guitar than that. So this doesn't really replace the classic of the genre, Melvyn Hiscock's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar" (which also has an introduction from Dr. May).
Other gripes? The binding, while excellent quality, means that the book doesn't stay open by itself, which would be a pain if you wanted both hands free to actually do some work on a guitar. And finally, why oh why does it persistently refer to "S-type" guitars throughout? Myriad other books have no problem referring to Strats, Stratocasters, Teles and many other trademarked instruments without having to resort to such footling around. Call a spade a spade and a Strat a Strat! A minor but persistently annoying aspect of a generally good book.
2013
I've read the Haynes Fender Stratocaster Manual and I really like the format - nicely bound, good quality pages, plenty of big, colour pictures. I also love the way that Haynes have so imaginatively branched out from automative manuals (there's even a Wallace & Gromit Cracking Contraptions Manual!)
The format hasn't changed here, and there's lots of interesting detail. I particularly like the in-depth look at "Red Special", the guitar made by the godfather of all home builders, the awesome Brian May (who also provides a foreword). There's a section on installing a piezo bridge - not that I expect to do this ever, but it's nice to know. The book is well structured and the illustrations are very clear - always a bonus, since I've seen too many fuzzy, monochromatic pictures that tell you nothing.
However, this book is not really about building an electric guitar. It's about assembling a Strat. No other types of guitars are covered, and in any case the sample guitars are assembled from ready made bodies and necks. Now, this is an excellent way of starting, and I'm sure my first guitar will be made like this, so in that respect this is a very useful book. But there's a lot more to building an electric guitar than that. So this doesn't really replace the classic of the genre, Melvyn Hiscock's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar" (which also has an introduction from Dr. May).
Other gripes? The binding, while excellent quality, means that the book doesn't stay open by itself, which would be a pain if you wanted both hands free to actually do some work on a guitar. And finally, why oh why does it persistently refer to "S-type" guitars throughout? Myriad other books have no problem referring to Strats, Stratocasters, Teles and many other trademarked instruments without having to resort to such footling around. Call a spade a spade and a Strat a Strat! A minor but persistently annoying aspect of a generally good book.
06/10/2013
Get Fit Running
Owen Barder
2005
This is a short version of a longer book, Running For Fitness, which is rather nicely available for free online. I'm not even a beginner yet, but this strikes me as a good guide for a beginner. It's short and easy to digest; it has detailed suggested training programmes, including a "getting started from nothing" that covers the first six months; and it discusses elements of training programmes and nutrition.
I could have used more detail on some aspects, particularly how to combine running with other activities; for example, I would like to include swimming in my routine rather than just running, and so some information about how that might affect the routines would be useful. However, I'm sure I can work this out for myself over time.
2005
I could have used more detail on some aspects, particularly how to combine running with other activities; for example, I would like to include swimming in my routine rather than just running, and so some information about how that might affect the routines would be useful. However, I'm sure I can work this out for myself over time.
05/10/2013
100 Great Guitars
Owen Bailey (editor)
2013
A Guitarist special edition, this occupies a curious position half way between a magazine and a book. It's more of a keeper than the monthly version (not that I throw mine away, ever) but still has adverts.
I rather like the fact that it's titled as a selection of great guitars rather than claiming to be a definitive list, which is of course impossible. All the usual suspects are present, plus a few more recent and unusual choices. Obviously we'd expect to see several versions of Strats, Teles and Les Pauls, but I was pleased to see it includes those as functional as my main guitar, a Gordon Smith GS2-60, as well as some more outlandish choices, like the astonishing Gus G1 Purple Special.
The photography is superb throughout and really has made me think of which guitars I still "need": possibly a Gibson 339, ideally and Explorer, possibly a Dan Armstrong Plexi ... hmmm ...
2013
I rather like the fact that it's titled as a selection of great guitars rather than claiming to be a definitive list, which is of course impossible. All the usual suspects are present, plus a few more recent and unusual choices. Obviously we'd expect to see several versions of Strats, Teles and Les Pauls, but I was pleased to see it includes those as functional as my main guitar, a Gordon Smith GS2-60, as well as some more outlandish choices, like the astonishing Gus G1 Purple Special.
The photography is superb throughout and really has made me think of which guitars I still "need": possibly a Gibson 339, ideally and Explorer, possibly a Dan Armstrong Plexi ... hmmm ...
04/10/2013
Wonder
R.J. Palacio
2012
B was given this by his reading group at the local library; he enjoyed it and I thought I'd find out what he was reading. I was slightly concerned, because a (somewhat lazy) review on the cover compares it with Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time, which I don't consider to be a children's book. However, this is; older children, certainly, but still simplistic enough to be understood.
That's not to say it's a simple book, or even that it's been written down. It's a good story, well told. I thought the use of different view points was excellent, and I cared about the characters. The turnaround is a little sudden and the ending somewhat clichéd, but it's a happy ending and I like those.
2012
That's not to say it's a simple book, or even that it's been written down. It's a good story, well told. I thought the use of different view points was excellent, and I cared about the characters. The turnaround is a little sudden and the ending somewhat clichéd, but it's a happy ending and I like those.
30/09/2013
Reading - September 2013
11/09/2013
The Olivetti Chronicles
John Peel
2008
The short article is a difficult form to master, or even manage tolerably, if the evidence of books in my collection is anything to go by. Reaching the economy of expression of Clive James' wonderful columns of TV criticism in the 70s takes practice, and if it's not your main occupation, you won't achieve it.
I think it's fair to say John Peel was not a natural writer. Margrave Of The Marshes is good - or, at least, the first half is, which is the bit Peel wrote - but it's clear that he developed slowly as a writer. Some of the later pieces here are fine, and there are amusing one-liners from all periods; he nails my opinion of Springsteen, in 1975, by observing that he "[...] offers us an enjoyable supper-club pastiche of rock's brief history, served up in West Side Story-styled tat". However, too many of the articles are rambling and inconclusive. Still, an easy read and enjoyable in parts.
2008
I think it's fair to say John Peel was not a natural writer. Margrave Of The Marshes is good - or, at least, the first half is, which is the bit Peel wrote - but it's clear that he developed slowly as a writer. Some of the later pieces here are fine, and there are amusing one-liners from all periods; he nails my opinion of Springsteen, in 1975, by observing that he "[...] offers us an enjoyable supper-club pastiche of rock's brief history, served up in West Side Story-styled tat". However, too many of the articles are rambling and inconclusive. Still, an easy read and enjoyable in parts.
31/08/2013
Reading - August 2013
- A Point Of View by Clive James (2011)
- This is a collection of 10-minute scripts written for Radio 4, rather wonderfully also available in their entirety, for free, in text on Clive James's web site and in audio through the BBC iPlayer. The book adds an introduction and a postscript to each piece, slightly undermining the author's statement in the introduction that his principal aim was concision. Nevertheless, each piece is a little nugget. Now that I have listened to a few, I prefer the written versions, because, such is the author's skill at compression, I can't comprehend the messages in real time. Or possibly I'm just too slow.
10/08/2013
The Mighty Quinns
Marcus, Ian & Declan
Kate Hoffmann
2006
If you think that romantic fiction is all hearts and flowers and other soppy stuff, then you've not read enough - category romance has something for all tastes. Generally, the more rosy pink the cover, the more purely romantic the story, while more intense colours indicate racier content.
These three books, in one volume with a dark purple cover, are very explicit - bordering on erotica. (And it's definitely the first time I've seen furries or plushies mentioned in one of these kind of books!) There are still the emotional journeys required of any romance, although you might miss them in amongst the constant sex, and a hint of drama in a couple too.
I enjoyed them, but the men are too assertive for my liking; there's a difference between taking advantage of a moment and taking advantage of a woman, and characters like this are open to the standard critique that "Mills & Boon"-type romance diminishes women and their right to choose.
Kate Hoffmann
2006
These three books, in one volume with a dark purple cover, are very explicit - bordering on erotica. (And it's definitely the first time I've seen furries or plushies mentioned in one of these kind of books!) There are still the emotional journeys required of any romance, although you might miss them in amongst the constant sex, and a hint of drama in a couple too.
I enjoyed them, but the men are too assertive for my liking; there's a difference between taking advantage of a moment and taking advantage of a woman, and characters like this are open to the standard critique that "Mills & Boon"-type romance diminishes women and their right to choose.
31/07/2013
Reading - July 2013
30/06/2013
Reading - June 2013
31/05/2013
Reading - May 2013
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