Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
the ask@AAR: Has ebook pricing changed lately?
June 21, 2024I’m pretty upfront about how terrible I believe Amazon and Kindle Unlimited are for authors and the book industry writ large. It’s not just me–the web is full of stories…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What’s your favorite STEM based romance?
June 14, 2024Yesterday we reviewed–and loved–the latest by Ali Hazelwood who is one of the doyens of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) romance. I think she might be the first author…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What do you think of AI now?
June 7, 2024I wrote about AI and its writing prowess over a year ago in this column. Many of those of you who commented then felt that ChatGPT’s writing was soulless and…
Read Article
I need a new TV show… what do you recommend?
June 3, 2024Dr. Feelgood and I have been watching Fargo–the TV show, not the iconic film–and, midway into season three, I think we’re done. The first two seasons were wildly violent but…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Did you hear the latest about RWA?
May 31, 2024At one point in time, RWA (Romance Writers of America) was the envy of other genre writers. With over 10,000 members, a robust conference, and courses and tools for published…
Read Article
Birth control bummers
May 27, 2024I just finished a contemporary romance that has lots going for it. It’s oftentimes hilarious, it has an appealing himbo hero, and an interesting locale. On those merits, I’d give…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What’s up at AAR?
May 24, 2024Well… a lot, actually! For starters, the annoying ads are generating much needed revenue for us. I am deeply appreciative you guys are putting up with them. Thank you! We’ve…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Are we harder on authors we’ve loved before?
May 17, 2024Last night, as I was tried to fall asleep, I was distracted. I was, I realized, irate. I’d just stayed up past my bedtime reading a book by an author…
Read Article
You guys really love historical romance!
May 13, 2024We will be launching our poll for the 2024 AAR Top 100 Romances list later this week. There will be 200 books to choose from, taken from a combination of…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Wanna talk about dark romance?
May 10, 2024This week some comments at AAR got me thinking about dark romance. The sub-genre is a broad one but, in general, dark romances have, duh, dark themes. They often traffic…
Read Article
I’m sorry but Anne Hathaway is too beautiful for The Idea of You
May 6, 2024A few nights ago, Dr. Feelgood and I watched The Idea of You. If you live in the States, you’ve probably seen one of the bazillion article/videos about this Amazon…
Read Article
Narrowing down the Reader Nominated List
May 4, 2024OK! We had 92 books that were mentioned at least twice in our recent reader nominated poll. We will keep the 37 books that received three or more mentions. That…
Read Article