Podcast Transcript 105: Catching Up on Listener Email, Fandoms, Recommendations, and More
by SB Sarah
Here is a text transcript of Podcast 105: Catching Up on Listener Email, Fandoms, Recommendations and More. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on!
This podcast transcript was handcrafted by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
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Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to another DBSA podcast. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today I am catching up on lots of email, because you have all emailed me wonderfully interesting things, and we took a week off, so I have a lot of email! How have you been? We are going to talk about fandoms, fangirling, reader recommendations, things that people have listened to and said, oh, my gosh, that was awesome, or, no, dude, that was totally wrong, and, you know, assorted other things that y’all are emailing me about.
The music that you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have more information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and how you can make it your very, very own.
And of course, most importantly, our sponsor. Yay! This podcast is brought to you by Signet, publisher of The King, the latest in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward, now available in paperback.
I got a lot of email, and I’m going to read it. I’m very tempted to use some of the special effects here in my editing program, because I can make myself sound like an alien or like I’m running around the room, and I have a feeling if I did that, whoever was listening to this in a room with a dog would be, well, their dog would be really unhappy, so I’m not going to do that, as tempting as it is.
So now, on with the podcast.
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Sarah: Our first email for the day comes from Elizabeth, and she says:
Hello!
I just started listening to your podcasts, and they have been so much fun. It is like finding my people with all of these intelligent conversations about romance novels. Anyway, one thought I had while listening to one of your podcasts was that while I agree that the designations alpha and beta might be deemed by some to denote superiority or manliness, I think that the perception on that one is in the eye of the beholder. I would absolutely rather be with a beta hero. I married more of a nerdy beta type, so don’t think there’s anything negative about it at all. I enjoy a good alpha story, but even the best alpha heroes can get on my nerves. In real life, I would be running for the hills after a couple dates with an alpha, which is why it makes me sad to think that we might squash the terms without any replacements, because I really love getting good, great beta recommendations. I would love a good discussion about how to otherwise distinguish these types of heroes. They are truly fairly different, and I feel that betas are definitely underrepresented in the genre.
Which brings me to your recent questions about fandoms. To me, Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice is probably the ultimate beta hero: really in love with the heroine, and despite doing something stupid, spends the rest of the book quietly redeeming himself. In college, I got totally immersed in Pride and Prejudice fanfic, some good, some terrible, but it often transported me back to that world. I particularly enjoyed variation plots, like those by Abigail Reynolds.
Thanks for the podcast, and I always enjoy listening.
Sarah: Thank you for your email, Elizabeth. Oddly enough, when I was in Australia in early August, one of the events was a literacy high tea to raise money for a local literacy foundation, and one of the events and pieces of entertainment was a debate where three authors were defending the alpha as the best type of hero and three people were defending the beta. I was on the beta team with Anne Gracie and Amy Andrews, and Anne and Amy are formidable debaters, and I was the closing argument. I was batting cleanup if you spoke baseball metaphor in Australia, which I don’t recommend, ‘cause they all just kind of look at you funny. We were up against a team of very, very good speakers, including Cherry Adair, Jennifer St. George, and Christina Brooke, all of whom defended the alpha admirably, but because I happen to love beta heroes, I had a lot of fun with this argument. And one of the nice things about going last is that I got to take all of the things that they said and then re-, re-, rebut them, which is fun.
Anyway, in the course of my remarks, I said that exact thing, that Mr. Darcy is a beta, and this is what I had for my notes: In the beginning, he’s masquerading as an alpha, socially demanding his due and demonstrating superiority, but he is doing it out of a sense of discomfort, for self protection, and motivated by insecurity. He only acts like a total assbag because he is not comfortable in social situations and feels like that’s what he is supposed to do, but it’s not natural, and it comes across that way. When he proposes and Elizabeth refuses, he doesn’t kidnap her and take her to his yacht or take her to a made-up principality. He doesn’t ruin her reputation with false rumors or blackmail her or take over her father’s business. He accepts it, and more importantly, he learns from it, and most importantly, when he truly demonstrates his feelings and his respect for Elizabeth through all of the incredible amounts of effort he makes to intervene on her behalf socially, does he want anyone to know? No! He does not! So Mr. Darcy is totally the heart of a beta, which is probably why we like him so much. He’s got all the power and all of the influence and, like, pots and pots of money, but he is very much behind the scenes and much more comfortable not being an alpha, even though he has to act like one, or so he thinks. I love beta heroes. I love them so much. Anyway, I have tingles now. (laughs)
As for the other point of your letter, why, why the terms don’t work and why they do work, the thing is, I don’t think it’s possible to replace those terms because they’re way too well known at this point. I don’t think it would be possible to replace the terms alpha and beta and gamma and rogue and all the things that we’ve been talking about for so long because they’re still a part of the online discourse of romance, which is just always growing and never shrinking. The thing is, the more discourse there is, the more discussion there is, the more we can say, okay, well, you think this when I say beta, and I think that, but the more we have a common understanding of what a beta hero is, and the more that that definition is not made up of defining what the beta is not in reference to the alpha, the more we’ll have a common understanding of what the beta is. So the more we talk about what a beta hero is and what we like about them, the better, I think, the term becomes understood. I don’t think it’s possible to replace it, and I totally get where people think that it’s derogatory or it denigrates that hero. I completely understand. But I can’t think of a better one, and I can’t think of one that would easily replace it, either. So the more we talk about what we like, the better we are.
And that’s kind of the point of the online review community, in my opinion, anyway. It’s not just about finding books to read or learning about other people’s opinions of books you’re thinking about reading. Part of the point, I think, of the online romance review and discussion community is that we’re developing a common language about the books that we love, so that when I say a marriage of convenience story with a friends-to-lovers plot and a beta hero, you’re going to understand exactly what all of those pieces are. Once we can have a common language to describe the pieces of the books that we like, the better we’re able to understand one another and the better we’re able to find books we want to read, which is totally the whole point.
Anyway, thank you for your letter. That was really awesome. And yes, Mr. Darcy is totally a beta hero, in my opinion. I completely agree.
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This next letter is from Jacqueline, and she writes:
Dear Sarah,
While listening to your awesome discussion with Nikki a few days ago, you threw out the question of what fandoms us humans in podcast-listening land were into. Well, I want a gold star for participation, so get ready for some holy epic listopedia – I have got a ton to throw your way.
Sarah: Oh, fun! And in the background, you are now hearing Oliver, my 17-year-old elderly cat. He is currently singing to the water dish. He’s not sure if the water is to his liking. He might come over and insist that I give him fresh water, even though I just did. So anyway, yes, special guest appearance from extremely elderly and somewhat confused cat. Now, back to the podcast.
Jacqueline writes:
The longest I have ever been in love with something is Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series. Seriously, I have been a fan of this author for a decade, when back in 2004, a really kickass Books-A-Million saleswoman suggested I try reading the book Night Pleasures. She took one look at the slew of smutty, awesome books in this pimpled freshman girl’s hands and apparently decided to give me one more to try. Fun fact: It was my birthday. My parents took me out shopping for the only thing I wanted for my 16th birthday, romance novels, and that was the best single day of my life, because I immediately fell in love with Sherrilyn Kenyon and the Dark Hunter series. For any in podcast land who haven’t read the series, they’re paranormal vampire books, but actually original. The writing is dark and hilarious and filled with complex characters and kickass heroines and hella unique plots. The Dark Hunters are humans from history turned into immortal warriors who fight against the Daimons, vampires in the world who consume human souls to artificially elongate their lives. The Dark Hunters sold their souls to Artemis in exchange for an act of vengeance, and oh, my God, read them; they’re awesome. Anyway. I’ve fallen in love with every book Sherri has ever written. I own way too much of her merchandise. I’ve met her, like, eight different times at signings. I read everything the woman publishes, including her science fiction League series, as well as her historicals, the MacAllisters and the Brotherhood of the Sword; her parahistorical series, Lords of Avalon; her contemporary military suspense, Bureau of American Defense series; her Young Adult series, Chronicles of Nick; and her manga adaptations. So, yeah, big Kenyon Menyon fangirl right here. Hell, I have even made scrapbook layouts in dedication to my favorite characters; that’s how big a dorkface I am about Sherrilyn Kenyon.
Sarah: And there’s a picture! Which I will totally put in the podcast entry. Anyway, back to the letter:
Outside of that, I’m into a lot of the geek culture shows, like Doctor Who. I even had a Doctor-Who-themed wedding last December. I walked down the aisle to 331Erock’s cover on YouTube called the “Dr. Who Meets Metal.” Google it; it’s amazing. Other shows include Supernatural, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Mr. Selfridge, Call the Midwife, and just, oh, my God, the list is endless.
The third and final group of things that I fangirl over is basically Asian content. I have recently really gotten into anime and manga, but specifically shojo. It basically translates to little girl in Japanese and is typically marketed to girls between the ages of 10 to 18 with a strong focus on human and romantic relationships, and since I love Love, it’s perfect! Similarly, I’ve also really gotten into Korean and Japanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong, etc. dramas. If you don’t mind reading subtitles, these are wonderful. Korean and other Asian countries are interesting in that their televised content is very unlike America’s. Specifically, Korea and other countries rarely make open-ended, years-long-running shows. Instead, they produce and air miniseries. The romantic melodramas and romantic comedy miniseries can be anywhere from 16 to 20 episodes, about the standard for most Korean dramas, all the way up to 50 plus episodes for Taiwanese and Chinese dramas. I really love romantic K-dramas and Asian dramas because they’re long enough to give you character development and emo-tastic feels with the couples, but actually have a conclusion. I like that because it feels good to get a satisfying ending, as opposed to American television where we just draw that shit out as long as humanly possible.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough, so assuming you read my letter on the podcast, Sarah, I’ll be kind and give your voice a rest. (S: Laughs.) Thanks, as always, for the awesome stuff you do. The podcast gives me happy ear-brain-gasms with every episode, and you rock!
Sarah: Well, thank you! And, okay, yes, you are my soul mate as far as American television is concerned, because, yes, I have ranted about this before. I don’t actually like American television writing because it, it is not interested in having an end. It wants renewal, and so there will be things that are developed as a possible plot that get dropped and stupid-ass contrived conflicts to keep the series going for another season, and characters who, you know, dream an entire season of a really good show, and of course I’m talking about Dallas. The season that was a frickin’ dream was actually a really good season, because in the end of that season I remember that Sue Ellen and J. R. were just about to reconcile, and of course in the following season, they went back to hating each other, and if there was ever a couple I really wanted to just be happy already, it was J. R. and Sue Ellen, even though his infidelity and her other problems would make that nearly impossible. Anyway, yes, you are totally right.
One thing that I find really odd is that in my inbox I will find a confluence of various people talking about the same thing, so oddly enough, you are not the only person to email me within the last two weeks about Korean film, Asian television, and also Bollywood films and how much of an emphasis on romance and what you would call emo-tastic feels there are in these particular genres. It’s like everyone’s would like me to watch television from other countries, which I am totally down with, ‘cause I can do that. The fact that we have never-ending, open-ended, looking-for-renewal stories bugs the crap out of me, but I have no problem with subtitles, so Jacqueline, if you would like to recommend some shows that we should perhaps be watching, please email me some suggestions, because I would like to know.
And I will share the scrapbook layout, because it’s really cool. I particularly like the skull and the leather strap across the top, because it’s almost like the urban fantasy belt. It is the urban fantasy belt! You’ve, you, you, you put the urban fantasy belt in a scrapbook. I, I, I, I have to go sit down. Wow. That’s awesome! Thank you for writing to us.
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I’m still recording letters, and I am still answering email, but now my other extremely elderly cat, Grace, who is Oliver’s littermate, who is also 17, has decided that the corner of my laptop is the only thing she wishes to deal with right now, and so she is attempting to chew on it, and I am attempting to keep her distracted, so if you hear more cat, apparently it is elderly cat guest star day here on the DBSA podcast. I don’t think they have any book recommendations, but Grace would tell you that the very best place to sleep is in front of the radiator in the dining room, because when the heat comes on, that’s the one that gets hot first. But that’s probably her only relevant tip that would be applicable to humans. Otherwise, she sleeps most of the day, ‘cause she’s 17.
And now, back to your email. This next email isn’t so much a suggestion as it is a tip for all of the international readers. This is from Cheryl:
I have been catching up on previous podcasts, having listened to all the recent ones. All are awesome, to use your favorite word. (S: That is totally my favorite word, and thank you.) I love listening; you guys rock. Anyway, in number 76, one email mentions sites where one can sign up and get and give away books for free. I live in Tokyo and have used BookMooch.com for that. I have received and sent books around the world from Finland to the Philippines by way of this site. You get three points for an international mooch, one for mooching within your country. Books cost three points for international, one for same country. Maybe some of your overseas listeners might be interested.
Sarah: I had no idea of this amazing thing, but thank you for sharing that, because that is awesome! So if you’re an international reader, and you’re looking to trade paperbacks or other books, BookMooch might totally be awesome. Thank you very much for emailing us, Cheryl.
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Sarah: this next message is from Colleen, who has many things to share in terms of the books that she has liked and books that she recommends for young readers, ‘cause we’ve got more than those. Do. Not. Worry. If you were running out of things to give your young readers to read (laughs), we’re in luck. My children actually started school this week, because we go back to school later than everyone else in the world, and for fourth grade, my older son actually has to keep a reading log, so this has been the greatest gift ever. Thank you to everyone. This email is from Colleen, as I said:
Dear Sarah and Jane,
I have so many things I simply must share with you. First of all, I love the podcast. I’m an aspiring writer, and the interviews you do with authors are always fascinating. I learn a little more each time I listen about this industry that I hope to join. I was feeling a bit bereft, as I didn’t get any new episodes in my podcast app, did a little searching, and found that you had not been crushed under a pile of TBRs as I had feared, but technology had kept four new episodes from me. Cleared my counter, got cooking, which is about the only time I can get some time alone in a closed room. I have two little girls, aged 3 and 5. So, 24 chocolate muffins, 12 blueberry-citrus scones, and two gingerbread-girl cut-out quesadillas served with ham and veggies for costume designing later, I had finished my cooking and listening binge and had a whole new list of books to try.
Sarah: We would like to come to your house, Colleen, for dinner. We will be, all be there in a few hours. Colleen continues:
In the run-up to the binge, I had been making do with the older podcasts I had missed. I’m really enjoying The Girls of Atomic City from your show with Denise Kiernan, but it was your show with Jaci Burton that I really need to tell you about. When the two of you spent five minutes in mutual admiration of Julie James’s book It Happened One Wedding, I knew I had to try it out. Holy shit, my catnip meter hit 11! I live in Singapore, where books are crazy expensive, so I am living on iBooks right now. I downloaded this book at about 11 p.m. and finished reading it at about 3 in the morning. My credit card is weeping since I just bought most of her backlist, but my husband is a very happy man! I had to stop myself from getting out of bed to write you this email at 3 in the morning because I was very much wide awake and so excited. It takes place in my hometown of Chicago, and she gets it so right. I know all these places! I’ve eaten in those restaurants. It all fit! I love that her depictions of the careers were so detailed and interesting instead of just background plot points. I would swear that she knows some of my friends from college, because they completely show up in the book. I’m not even kidding; even the name is the same. I particularly love how the romance between the two characters is completely authentic and evolves very naturally, and the icing on the cake was that they danced to my wedding song, “At Last” by Etta James in a freaking gazebo. I love this book six ways to Sunday, and I just had to write and tell you, you were so right! Julie James is next on my list of people to email.
Last thing, I promise. I was a teacher in a former life, and there are so many great books out there for kids to try. In no particular order, I will list some of my favorites below. These are mostly at a fourth- to eighth-grade reading level, but great for kids who are reading up. Margaret Peterson Haddix, Among the Hidden series has great worldbuilding, an intro to seeing that there are other ways this world could turn out. Just Ella is a take on Cinderella after the happy ending. Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series, is an oldie but goody. Eva Ibbotson, Which Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, also excellent for magic lovers who are missing Harry Potter. Matt Christopher, the most prolific sports writer of the last 30 years. His stories appeal to boys who would rather be playing than reading but are stuck inside with a broken arm. Even though he died in 1997, books are still being written in his name.
And finally, I just wanted to touch on your comment that the Magic Tree House books never seem to go anywhere. I can understand why your son might find them boring, but to a kid who has just figured out how to read fluently and comprehend at the same time, usually somewhere in second or third grade, they are wonderfully comforting while he or she solidifies that skill. Knowing that there is a fun story with familiar characters that will be easy to read and will wrap up in about 50 pages makes that series a go-to read for many of my emerging readers. They aren’t ready to follow more complex changes in character, and that would also assume that they are able to read all 50 plus books in the series in order to follow the changes. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a classroom library, but that would be damn near impossible, even on the second day of school when the books are still somewhat organized. This is the same theory behind the Boxcar Children, Junie B. Jones, Geronimo Stilton. If a kid liked the first one, they’ll probably like the ninth one, until they grow more confident in their reading skills to move on.
Sarah: Thank you for writing, Colleen, and you’re totally right. I stand corrected. I completely understand the purpose of a book like that, and now that I think about it, I can think of several other series that are very similar in the way that they develop a plot but not so much the characters within the plot. Oddly enough, your comment made me think of another series that has nothing to do with younger readers, probably more like, and, you know, I kind of think that for me, the gateway that I had into the romance genre before I read my first proper romance was the Sweet Valley High series, and those follow a pretty similar pattern book to book. There’s not a whole lot of character development until a refrigerator kills one of the characters, but that’s much later in the series. I totally see your point about how the Magic Tree House is comforting and reachable for people who are just figuring out reading and comprehension at the same time. That’s very cool. Thank you for saying so!
And for those of you who are listening, thinking, dude, that was a really long list of books that I want to remember, I will list and link to all of the books that we mention in the podcast, as I do for every podcast, in the podcast entries that appear both on Smart Bitches and Dear Author, so fear not if you’re looking for some of the books that Colleen was talking about. I will have links to them, and you can find them later.
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Sarah: Ready for another email? Good! Because I am, and Grace is still here on the table, but she’s mercifully being quiet, so let’s keep going. This email is from Julia:
Hi, Sarah and Jane
A friend of mine reached out and asked me for recommendations in Regency and contemporary where the geeky girl gets the guy, even better if she’s 30 to 35. I sat down to think about it, and with the exception of Tessa Dare’s A Week to be Wicked and Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy, I came up short. I can think of a few contemporary and historical books where the man is a geek, but not the other way around. Do you have any recommendations I could pass along?
Sarah: Why, yes. Yes, I do, actually. First, I’m going to link in the podcast entry to a recent thread that we did for the Rec League, or the Recommendation League, of Brilliant Science Heroines Rule, I Would Like More, Please. There are about 50 comments, and there’s a lot of recommendations in the comment thread. The most obvious ones that pop into my mind immediately are Midsummer Magic by Laura Kinsale, because the heroine, Merlin, is extremely intelligent and an inventor. A Study in Seduction by Nina Rowan is a book that Jane and I discussed in a previous podcast. Jane liked it more than I did, but the heroine is a mathematician and has a very, very gifted intellect regarding mathematics, and I didn’t feel it was as successfully used as Jane did, though I know a lot of readers really liked it, because the way in which she is intelligent influences the way in which she sees the world. And finally, Cara Elliott’s To Sin with a Scoundrel was also recommended recently on Smart Bitches as having a very, very wise heroine. Most of these will probably be historical, these recommendations, but there are a few in that comment thread all about the science heroines. And if you have a science heroine to recommend, you can email us, [email protected].
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Sarah: I have two more email messages about young reader recommendations to share with you. This first one is from Lea:
I’ve been listening to all the podcasts with the children’s book recommendations, and I don’t have any kids, but I did and do enjoy a few books I haven’t heard mentioned, maybe because they’re a bit too obvious. The Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery – I am reading this series as an adult, and I love it. I wish I’d found them as a young teen. The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace – I also read this as an adult and feel deprived that my young life didn’t include these lovely girls. The Mother-Daughter Book Club series by Heather Vogel Frederick – this series is actually why I read Anne of Green Gables and Betsy-Tacy. My book club started reading these, one per year over the past several years, and we also read the corresponding books the girls in the series are reading. When I was in grade school, I was in love with Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. My elementary school librarian used to send me postcards when a new book came in. I haven’t revisited the series as an adult, but 28-ish years later, I still remember them. Thanks for the great podcast. Definitely my most expensive listening experience.
Sarah: (Laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. I format and edit and then listen again to make sure I have all the books on the podcast entry, and while I’m doing all of that, I end up buying at least three. So I, I share that pain. Thank you for these recommendations. I had a friend in college who loved the Anne of Green Gables series so much that she would organize Anne-athons where everyone would come to her dorm room, and we would all watch them together. She was as perennially in love with that series as anyone could possibly be, and I think she still, still re-reads them every year. But I have not tried these other ones, so thank you very much for the recommendation.
And finally, an email I have been saving for this podcast because it is so great. I talked about Kat’s kids in the last episode when I interviewed Kat, and I linked to their podcast, but they also wanted to share some of their favorite books from their favorite authors. So this is the Backseat Bookworms:
Dear Miss Sarah and Miss Jane,
We have been listening to your podcast from the backseat of Mum’s car. You asked people to tell you about their favorite books for kids. We are kids, and these are some of our favorites: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl; Con-nerd by Oliver Phommavanh (S: Whoa, I’m going to mess that up); Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Guy-man, Gaiman; Rowan and the Travelers by Emily Rodda; Just Stupid by Andy Griffiths; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume; the Minecraft handbooks, Redstone, Beginners, Builders, and Combat; The Gorgon in the Gully by Melina Marchetta; the Rainbow Magic collection by Daisy Meadows; The Wishing-Chair and The Wishing-Chair Again by Enid Blyton; Where’s Wally?; and Aesop’s Fables. Our favorite authors are Roald Dahl, Emily Rodda, Enid Blyton, Judy Blume, Andy Griffiths, Jonathan Burningham, and Mem Fox. This is all we can think of right now. We love your podcast, and we can’t wait to hear what books other kids love. See you in Australia!
From,
The Backseat Bookworms
Sarah: Hi, guys! Thank you. That is an awesome list, and I very much appreciate it. I can’t wait to link to all those books. It’ll take me, like, three years, and I’ll buy all of them, because temptation, it is a problem. Thank you very much for writing to me, guys. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope you have a new episode of your podcast up.
Finally, before we go and before I wrap up and give you all the closing information, I have a weird recommendation for you. This past week I started reading the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan because I was pretty sure that my older son, who’s going to be nine in November, would really like them, because he likes fantasy and he likes stories with adventure and quests and battles, being age-appropriately obsessed with Pokémon and recently Beyblades and getting into all kinds of animation and cartoons and anime. I thought, you know, this series might really appeal to him, but he kept saying, no, he didn’t want to read it because he’d seen the movie previews and didn’t like them. Now, I have heard, but I haven’t seen personally, that Rick Riordan himself absolutely loathes the movies and will go on at length about how much he hates them, so I’m guessing that they’re pretty far from the books. I haven’t seen the movies at all, but I started reading the books, and while I haven’t convinced him to read them yet, I’m having a great time.
Have you read these books? They’re, they’re really freaking fun, people. The, the nice thing about them is that there’s a great deal of mythology, the plot moves very quickly, every chapter ends on a quasi-cliffhanger so you just keep going, and before you know it, you’ve been reading for, you know, two or three hours. Oddly enough, we went to the library to see if they had books two or three in print, and this dude who was, like, older than my son but only younger than me by a little bit was like, oh, I love this series! So I had this 20-minute conversation in the fiction aisle of the library with this dude who was excited about the series and had read all of them multiple times. He was, like, the, the, the most knowledgeable Percy Jackson person in the world. Like, he knew everything about every series, and I thought this was really great, and I look over my shoulder, and my son’s, like, backing away slowly, like, uhhh, my mom is geeking out with another guy about a book, I gotta go! It was great.
But I also wanted to tell you, because this rocked my world, recently – a couple months ago, anyway – Elyse wrote an article, and I will link to in the podcast entry, about the OverDrive media app. If you are in the States, there is a fabulous app called the OverDrive media app. Download the app and then, if you have a library card, connect your library through the app. It will give you access, if they use OverDrive, to all of their digital collections, so you can borrow eBooks through the OverDrive app. There is a reader in the app, but to my everlasting shock, the Bergen County Cooperative Library System, of which my library and many other libraries in New Jersey are a part of, even though we’re not in Bergen County, which is great because they have stupid blue laws and they don’t sell anything good on Sundays and the malls aren’t open, which makes no sense to me, but okay, Bergen County, that’s fine, I’ll stay here and do my shopping. Your library collective is rad! Because they have this huge cooperative of digital media and digital books, and it’s very, very easy to download them.
Plus, I must have missed a memo. I am probably the person who’s like, oh, yeah! I just discovered this, and everyone listening is going to be like, dude, we’ve known this for years. There is a way to download your library books through Amazon, and when I was offered the option of which one I wanted to use, I selected the Kindle app, because I am, have already formatted it and set it up exactly the way I want it for reading and brightness and text size and everything, and I could download the library book and check it in and check it back out using Amazon. I have had a lot of trouble getting the OverDrive website to work on my laptop, but the Kindle connection and the Amazon connection was pretty frickin’ sweet. So I could download a library through Amazon – excuse me, download a library? – I could download a library book through Amazon onto my phone and then return it using the Amazon website as well, where I manage all my data. It was really cool, and now I’ve gotten books three and four digitally for free. Yay! So if you’re thinking, oh, my gosh, I want to read all these books or I want to give them to my kid or I want to try to read these or we should read them together, see if they are available digitally at your library, and if you can use the OverDrive media app, you can connect them, to them and borrow them for free, which free?
Free is like the best thing ever, and you’ve already paid for them because property taxes. Yay! So I’m clearly the last person on earth to know about this, and I’m sure everyone’s rolling their eyes like, dude, we’ve known about this for years, but just in case you haven’t, the OverDrive media app is awesome. You can connect your library and connect your library card through the app so it knows who you are and it knows what privileges you have, and if your options are open to this, you may be even able to download books through the Amazon Kindle store, which means that they will appear in your Kindle app, which for people like me who have the eyes of a 125,000-year-old person is perfect, because I have already set that bad boy up exactly the way I want. So there’s your random service thing announcement review-type thing, and now I’m going to go and read more Percy Jackson, ‘cause they’re really fun!
And that is all for this week’s podcast. Future podcasts will continue with interviews and recommendations and lots of discussion about romance, ‘cause, well, that’s what we do here. And of course you knew that, right? Of course you did.
If you would like to email us with your suggestions, you have someone you would really like us to interview, you have a topic that you’d like Jane and myself to batle, debatle. Batle! That’s a word now. Batle. Debate. Battle and debate is batle. I have made a word; you all just heard me do it. If you’d like to hear us batle about something (laughs), you can email us at [email protected] or you can leave a message on our Google voice number, which is 1-201-371-DBSA. Please don’t forget to give us your name and where you’re calling from so we can work your message into an upcoming podcast.
We are on iTunes, we have a podcast RSS feed, and we’re on PodcastPickle and Stitcher. There are a lot of options, and if you’re having trouble using one of those options, email me at the podcast email address and I’ll see if I can help you.
This week’s music was provided by Sassy Outwater. This track is called “Dragons,” and it is by Caravan Palace. I will have links in the podcast entry as to where you can find this song and their album and their MySpace page, because it still gives me a ridiculous amount of joy to link to MySpace when I feature a new music, or an old music, or an awesome music, because it’s MySpace. Someday I’ll start linking to Friendster, and life will be even better.
This podcast is brought to you by Signet, publisher of The King, the latest in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward, now available in paperback.
And I hope wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are reading something most excellent. On behalf of Jane and everyone who emails me and myself, thank you for listening and have a great weekend.
(jamming music)
Categories: General Bitching
