quoththeraven

True; wasn't looking at them, either. What can I say? It was a surprisingly tiring week. Having to get up early (for me) on Wednesday for a municipal court hearing on a ticket I got when my car was totaled (the ticket was dismissed but I had to pay court costs) did me in.

Yes, so Gman informed me by PM. :oops: 'Twas not a factor my brain considered.

Should really be purple.

Cryogenics?

Bite your tongue.

I didn't get any -- was in a hurry and had close to 3/4 of a tank -- but the local Costco (NNJ, NY metro area) was selling it for $1.43 yesterday. I saw it elsewhere for $1.47.

Yes, it was. That's the format in which I have the first two books also. I'll spend that much (or sometimes more) for a well-known traditionally published mystery writer or series, but I don't usually spend that much for genre romance, whether m/m or otherwise. On the other hand, although Manga in America is very readable (with the possible exception of one chapter), it is a specialized academic study published by the scholarly arm of Bloomsbury, so I expected to (and did) pay more -- $23 for the Kindle edition. (Softcover would have cost $30.) For those of you who might be interested, here's a spoiler-free joint review of King's Rising at an influential website devoted to reviewing romance novels that rates it as a recommended read. There are links to reviews of the earlier volumes as well.

I read the 1st two installments of Pacat's Captive Prince, as the series used to be known, and would have bought and started the third but for the near-$10 price. (I also know people who got to read it ahead of time.) Now I'm waiting to see if it'll go down or eventually be on sale temporarily. But I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

I could have put this in Friday Funnies, but thought I'd try to revive this thread: Truth. (Source) I finished some books recently but I'm not sure how interested anyone here would be in them: Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics by Casey Brienza (based on her PhD dissertation and research), The King's Man by Elizabeth Kingston (medieval historical/romance novel), and Special Interests by Emma Barry (contemporary romance set among D.C.'s political class). What I'm in the middle of now might be: The Cuckoo's Calling, the first in the Cormoran Strike mystery series by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling. What are you reading, or what have you read recently?

I think this one doesn't have to be exiled to Politics, Religion and War: Source

Supposedly from an actual trial transcript. I am not vouching for anything other than its humor. ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?' ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you? WITNESS: My name is Susan!

I am old enough to remember Guernica from the days when it was displayed at MOMA because Spain was still run by Franco. I haven't been back to MOMA since well before its closure for renovation (and apparently it's being renovated yet again), but it's well worth visiting if you like modern art. Its admission policies are less liberal than the much-larger Met's, though. I haven't been to the Guggenheim in years after having been twice as a kid. (For some reason, it's one of the places we went on the sixth grade trip to NYC. I'd also visited with my parents not long before that.) It's expanded since and has a large collection of Mapplethorpe photos. (My interest was piqued by photos of his that were part of a special exhibit on nudity in photography at the Met.) I should go there. The Rubin is on my list of places to visit. I didn't know it existed until a year or so ago.

I love art museums, but these days I don't have the endurance I once did, so I appreciate museums that are small enough to get through everything in the course of three hours or less like the Cloisters in Manhattan, an outpost of the Metropolitan in Fort Tryon Park, probably most famous for the Unicorn tapestries, and the Newark Museum, which has an excellent collection of Asian art for a museum its size, a late Victorian townhouse with fabulous furnishings and decorative elements, and plenty of American but no European paintings. Both are museums that request donations rather than a set admission price. (When I first went, the Newark Museum was free.) I also love the Met but it's overwhelming. I hesitate to make a qualitative judgment about its collection because it seems to me that there is little there of low or no quality and its useful to have the context. The last time I was there I decided that Velazquez's Juan de Pareja was the most accomplished painting ever painted, but my general overall preference is late medieval/early Renaissance painting, which the Met has lots of. Which is not to say I don't appreciate other periods and styles, especially the Impressionists, who were my mother's favorites and thus my very earliest favorites. The National Gallery in DC is kinda like a mini-Met when it comes to European paintings. I saw half the European paintings (the more recent half) three years ago after viewing the Pre-Raphaelite exhibit originating with the Tate in London. I've seen most of the museum before, but that was many years ago. It's been decades since I've been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (or to Boston, for that matter). I also like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Frick, although both are more house museums with art than cohesive art museums. As for people-watching: it can be fun, but it's not why I go. Mostly I try to guess what country the people I can tell are foreign tourists are from. That happens mainly at the Met, particularly in special exhibitions. I do not go to see, nor do I care much, about the eye-candy. I did once, however, run into a college classmate at the Met while I was there with my boyfriend during the summer. I guess when you're from New York, going to a state school, and visiting the largest art museum in NYC (or possibly the US), you should not be surprised to run into a classmate there.

Sure reveals what the majority use the apps for.

My point had to do with ageism, the worship of youth, and close-mindedness by everybody, young and old. I don't think we disagree on the current realities as much as you may think, as I agree the majority (not willing to categorize further without actual data beyond personal observation) of young guys are not interested in guys over a certain age, whatever that age might be. I agree with the rest of your statement without reservation.

Anyone else notice that while the escort quoted said most of his clients are older men, he also said they're not unattractive or desperate and see escorts because it's convenient? It bugs me every time I see a post predicated on the thought that older men are unattractive and that's why they hire or that escorts are acting the entire time because their clients who are older are just not attractive. I'm not denying the effects of aging, but damn. Talk about lack of self-esteem. It's not just one poster, it's many, and thinking that looking and being young is the key to sexual success is not conducive to happiness and self-satisfaction as one ages.

I don't know exactly where to put this link. In some ways it deserves its own thread, in others it fits better in the discussion of gay romance but this is about slut-shaming female characters in romance novels, so it's focused on heterosexual romance. But broadly (pun welcome but unintentional) it fits here. Guest Rant: Slut Shaming in Romance (Smart Bitches, Trashy Books - this is one of the three big-name websites dedicated to reviewing and discussing romance novels no matter what the gender of the characters)

Make up your mind, Greg. Are you a honey badger or an otter?

Thank you for answering Axiom2001's call. It's good to have blond, brown and red-haired guys featured here, but there's a wider variety of good-looking men out there than that.

You're welcome. Ironically, Greenwall's review of A Little Life is the only one I've seen. I'm sure it was from a Twitter link, most likely one tweeted or retweeted by the woman whose advice I sought. I hope What Belongs To You is more to your liking than A Little Life turned out to be.

Here's what I learned, verbatim: "I haven't read it and don't want to but I've read a lot about it. I find the divergent opinions fascinating." Me: "I'm asking on behalf of someone who's 100 pages in and thinking of bailing bc he sees its main theme as suffering, not friendship." "a lot of people saw it that way, whether they liked it or not." There you have it from a community college English professor. Make of it what you will.

I mentioned Renault in post #25, which is so long I don't feel like attempting the massive edit on my tablet that would be required to quote only the paragraph about Renault.

I haven't heard anything back. There's one person in particular I will communicate with directly because I know she knows something about the plot, but I follow her book blog and don't remember her mentioning this as a book she read or had started to read. I did, however, read The Group a long time ago and while it may have spent more time on a few characters, it did not concentrate on one of them to the extent A Little Life does. So I think that's an incomplete or flawed analogy.

Except Dave Brandstetter never worked for law enforcement. He was an investigator for a life insurance company. The series fits the setting and part of the timeline, though. While gay-themed, they are primarily mysteries with near litfic-level writing and recurring characters, including Brandstetter's love interests, but his sex/love life was neither wild nor the point of the books. Donald Strachey of Richard Stevenson's similar series (Strachey was a PI) written over about the same stretch of time was much more of a slut, if I can put it that way.

One final rec, although I haven't read his books yet (I have at least one on my Kindle): David Levithan, young adult editor and writer, who co-wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson with megaauthor John Green and wrote Boy Meets Boy, Every Day, and Two Boys Kissing, among others. If you don't mind reading YA, they're reputedly well-written books that are probably long on plot and character and absent explicit sex.