Random Notes…

Though I’ve been, as I mentioned, completely snowed under (TOTALLY metaphorical, as I live in California, for which nobody on the other side of the country is going to feel sorry for me AT ALL) with work, I did run across a couple of interesting book-news items here and there around the Interwebs, so I thought I’d share those for your infotainment.

Please to enjoy whilst I attempt to cling to the last shreds of sanity:

• Firstly, the VIDA count came out again, the study that tracks gender disparity in books reviewed and in book reviewers themselves. While the news is still less than stellar, there was this: “The [New York] Times showed improvement in this year’s VIDA count: In
  2013, the number of male and female book reviewers was almost equal, and
  they reviewed 332 books written by women and 482 by men. [Pamela] Paul took over
  as editor during that time, and she says diversifying the book review
  section was a priority for her.” That is definitely something.
• Have you checked out Guys Lit Wire lately? We’ve got some new reviewers and a lot of great titles getting written about: among them, much to my excitement, is a new title by John David Anderson, whose Cybils nominee Standard Hero Behavior was highly enjoyed around these parts. (Check out our WBBT interview with him here!)
• What NOT to name your book? Try these: Pie-ography: Where Pie Meets Biography. Or, Working Class Cats: The Bodega Cats of New York City. STRANGE BUT TRUE. They’re both in the running for the Diagram Prize for the year’s oddest book title, a contest that’s been around since 1978. Here’s another, from a past year’s contest: Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop. Methinks I will look forward to this contest almost as much as the Darwin Awards, the Ig-Nobel Prizes, and the Bulwer-Lytton Awards….