Sunday Soup, November 15

In The Soup This Week... Eva Leigh, miscellany

Soup Dish:  on my mind
I wish I could say something eloquent and moving about the situation in Paris, and indeed, globally.  Words fail.  Religious extremists are the bane of humanity.

✽I've always been unapologetic for my lack of interest in, and patience for, literary fiction, but I have to admit, this article makes me want to know more about these: Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature.

✽I tweeted this article earlier this week; it's a good one:  "I’m not dominating the world and you can, too." Tsh's blog, "The Art of Simple," is one I really enjoy. It's a little spot of serenity on the internet. The article is good on its own, but, fair warning, is promoting the guest author's new book, Write Without Crushing Your Soul (catchy title, no?).

✽The Library Journal published their "Best Romances of 2015" list this week.  A funny thing happened to me when I started blogging -- as my horizons opened up to less-known authors, I've stopped keeping up with my once-auto-buy authors.  That's not OK!  I've read shockingly few of these books but almost all of them are favorite authors.  Maybe I'll go on a binge over Thanksgiving.

What I'm reading
✽Well, it feels like I've done a lot of reading this week, but it turns out that the only thing I actually finished was Eve Leigh's Forever Your Earl.  My fellow Avon super-readers have be raving about this author, and when I found out that Leigh is a penname for Zoe Archer, I couldn't resist any longer. This regency really delivered, with a working class, independent woman and, of course, an Earl. While I love books that incorporate the characters' professions with their personalities, I'm always a little bit leery of heroines who are writers.  It can feel a bit self-indulgent, a bit self-referential... but like anything, in the hands of an expert, it can become a feature rather than a bug:

Of all the names he'd been called in his life --"rogue," "prodigal," "libertine" -- *rake* had always been one of his least favorite.  It implied a certain leering, cheap smuttiness. "We don't need to use that word."

"Oh, but we do," she answered, face shining. "Other than the word *duke*, nothing intrigues potential readers more than *rake*. You do want people to read the columns, don't you?"

A little inside joke for romance readers-- it made me chuckle.

✽I guess that's it for the week.  Clearly I need to buckle down on my reading schedule!