'50 Shades of Grey' and the Elderly

While I was jogging at a local HS track with my friend (yeah, I know, me exercising --- funny, no?), she was telling me about an elderly gentleman, 87 years old, who came up to her at the info desk asking for a copy of  50 Shades.  He made no pretenses that it was "for my wife," like other male patrons have done in the past when it comes to borrowing romance-smut.  He told her about another book in his younger days that also caused a stir: Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Neither of us have ever heard of it so we had to look it up like an other good librarian would do.  After she placed the hold for him, and told him his place in the queue, #1,000+, he joked that he might not be around when his place comes  : \

I had a similar exchange when an 82 year old patron came up to me at the info desk and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper from her purse and asked to place a hold on some nonfiction book she heard about on NPR.  After I place her hold, she says, "Well, as long as no one else is here."  She took a furtive glance over both of her shoulders to only spot a young boy who snuck up behind her with his completed summer reading log in hand.  She blushed a little and quietly said, "Can you also place a hold on that 50-book?"  It clicked instantly what she meant, so I just smiled and gave a slight nod of the head.  I told her her place in the holds list and she just replied, "Oh my!  Is it that good?"  To which I could only reply, "No, no it isn't"...

No one cared about '50 Shades of Grey' until the media told people to.

Damn Sheeple!  Think for yourselves... Don't fall for the hype.

First off, the marketing team behind the 50 Shades books are pure geniuses.  They turned a trio of books filled with utter nonsense, into one of the most talked about  and read books in recent history.  If I was a billionaire, I would hire those people to run a nationwide campaign on using "Please and Thank You."  When I refer to the media, I am not talking about any reliable news networks, I am talking about those morning talk shows with those gabby hosts.

The only thing worse than the attention saying how "great" these books were, was the attention received from stupid libraries that said they wouldn't carry the book.  For all my hatred for these books, I do believe that libraries should add them.  You'd think the ALA would have a firm stance on libraries that declined to stock these books, since they love them some Banned Book ish.  But no, they pretty much turned all soft and said, libraries can do whatever they want, stop asking for our opinion.

For those claiming that 50 Shades are out-right "erotica" are highly confused.  The sex scenes, if you choose to call them that, seemed to have been written by Steve Carrell's character in 'The 40 Year Old Virgin': (obligatory NSFW dislaimer)





"I dated this girl... for a while, and she was really a nasty freak.
She just loved to get down with sex all the time.
She was like, any time of day, she was like: "Yeah, let's go. I'm so nasty."
And I'd be nailing her. She'd be like: "Oh, you're nailing me. Cool."
She loved to dirty-talk. Totally into it.
She'd be like: "Yeah, let's screw, let's... I wanna f**k."
God, it was so dirty.  She'd be like, "Me so horny, me love you long time."
You know, when you, like, you grab a woman's breast
and it's... And you feel it and...
it feels like a bag of sand when you're touching it."



Oh yeah, that's so urro-teak...  This is a disservice to those who actually write erotica.

I don't want to cause public panic or outbreaks of people shouting in the streets, "But what about the children!?!???"  But what if I told you that right now, there are millions of these poorly written smut-books sitting on the shelves in every library right now??

Okay, these are probably better written than '50 Shades'

Libraries chose to fall back on their trusty "Collection Development Plans" when it came to denying shelf-space to this trio of trash.  It's probably been a long ass time since they actually looked at them.  Libraries seem to be too busy trying to reinvent themselves as the "cool and hip" place to be, instead of working on their core principles.  Of course the media picked it up and that just further pushed the hive-mind agenda, the same rules apply to trolls, don't feed them.  Just let them starve from all the attention they aren't getting and we can all move on.  The libraries ended up caving in and bought the books anyway... pathetic.

Keep it Classy Harlequin...

I found these old pictures on an old memory card.  The books on the left were donations from a patron.  All of the titles are circa 1970.  For some reason, I just don't think these sold at the last book sale...

"Romance" Novels and My Case Against Them...



props to MotherMania

I would like to enter the picture to the left as Exhibit 5b into evidence as to why these so-called "romance" novels are ridiculous.

I would like to remind my peers of the jury that all of the results of extensive interviews and research conducted with world renowned doctors and experts have categorically denied the existence of the phenomenon known as a "Dick Attack" AKA Phallus-Arrest.

I came across this post at Reddit and it was too good to not repost here especially since I am such a big fan of romance novels.







**Disclaimer**
Symptoms of a "Dick Attack" may include delusional thoughts that you will be whisked away by a foreign billionaire who unconditionally loves you just the way you are even with your obessions of LOL Cats and/or picturing yourself watching the sunset on a beachside cliff with a long haired, shirtless Fabio.  Please, if you or anyone you remotely care about is experiencing these symptoms, stop reading at once.

On Being a Team Player...

There are times at work when you just have to suck it up and do the dirty work no one else will do.

It is commonplace in the public library setting.

I was confronted with such a situation when the returns bin for romance novels was filled to the brim.

I faced this challenge head on and dug elbows deep and survived...  Afterward, I used a whole bottle of hand sanitizer to cleanse myself from that retched pile of smut.

Rant Against Romance Novels Part II

Why Every Chick Flick Is Starting to Look The Same [CHART]

"I could not have said this any better..."

Nicholas Sparks stated that he has no contemporaries.  No one else does what he does.  He writes unpredictable love stories, not trashy run-of-the-mill romance novels like Shakespeare.

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If You Can't Stand the Heat... Get Out of My Library

I'm a religious follower of the cartoon 'Unshelved' (www.unshelved.com), as I'm sure most library workers are. I remember a few weeks back they were making fun of the point that their library was being advertised as a relief shelter from the summer heat, despite their A/C not working.

Well I can relate, but our A/C actually works. It just isn't set low enough to feel any negligible difference between outside and inside. The county raised the temperature threshold of all the buildings, so it can get very warm inside. A lot of patrons have complained but that hasn't changed anything. This building isn't exactly new so the ventilation is not great. While its tropical humid at the circ desk, its cool 2 feet away in the backroom, and downright frigid in the stacks near sci-fi. Can't wait to see what it'll be like in here during winter. I'm all for an open bonfire in the middle of circ, I know some great romance novels that would burn nice and toasty - Harlequin Series, I'm looking right at you!

I Despise Romance Novels...

I despise romance novels. You know the ones where the cover art has some shirtless Fabio looking flamer holding some half dressed floozy in his arms, preferably over some cliff looking over the ocean, both of their hair is windswept, and its usually depicted during a sunset. Yes, those horrible books. But my hatred is not just reserved for those outlandish titles alone, Nicholas Sparks I'm looking your way---Damn you and your Notebook. I blame these so-called "romance" novels for the high failure rate of marriages/relationships in this country.

Its not that I don't believe in love or romance but I think these books put an extraordinary extraterrestrial-high level of standards that girls expect their boyfriends/spouses to live up to. I really don't think that these books preach the morals and virtues of what love really is anyways.
Case in point, have you ever read any of the titles of these books? They've become quite the topic of discussion at work whenever we come across them. Its like MadLibs for trashy books: "The [insert adjective] woman finds true love with a [insert foreign ethnicity] millionaire and move away to [insert exotic location]."
Really, these types of books are cookie cutter stories. They're all the same, once you've read A Scandalous Mistress I really don't see the need to read His Lady Mistress. Take one lonely, loveless woman, one rich bastard, and an exotic locale and there you go.

Females always hope for the day to find some foreign bazilliionaire who will sweep them off their feet and take them to some far away mansion. Honestly, do you really think the chances of that are worth holding out for? Don't you think that said rich guy would want to find a rich lady instead of someone looking to marry for just the money? If that did happen, all you would be is another one of his "bought possession s," which could ultimately be replaced with the snap of his fingers and his man servant has his next wife to be flying in on his G-5. If anything these books espouse the complete opposite of what love is. Is it really romantic if some guy were to make you his "mistress?" I suppose just as long as the guy was rich everything would work out. Before I turn this into something sentimental and lose my sarcastic edge: love is about understanding, accepting and working together through the ups and downs on each others flaws and insecurities. Love is not dependent on money alone --- Do you think someone who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry would sweep a high school dropout off their feet and turn out to live happily ever after?

On a few occasions I've encountered husbands who are checking these books, either in or out, for their wives and when I look at the covers and look at their faces, there is a look of sad resignation, like a part of their soul died with each romance novel their wife read. One guy commented to me, "There are all these books around (waves his arm toward the vast expanse of paper bound knowledge) and my wife chooses to read these. I asked her if she wanted me to pick up a mystery book for her, 'no,' she said she'll stick with these [looks with great disdain at the handful of romance books]." He sighed heavily and headed towards the exit with this new delivery of literary trash for his wife to read. He walked away with his head hung low and his shoulders slumped, and I knew he just died inside.