If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! RIASS stuff: When book cover quotes are the critical equivalent of “you’ve had a haircut” In which I look at hilariously useless book cover quotes like “hotly anticipated” “It’s a place that devours...

(With my sincerest apologies to Dr Seuss) Stalker man Stalker man Stalker man That stalker man That stalker man I do not like that stalker man! Do you like That stalker man? That stalker man! I do not like that stalker man. Do you like his possessive plan? I do not like it, stalker man! I do not like a jealous man. …Would you like him a billionaire? I...

I consider myself very much a thematic reader. I’m someone who draws parallels and connections and links wherever possible, and no matter how tenuous the relationships involved. And though it’s been far too long since I’ve indulged my love of short fiction with a dip-in, dip-out collection, one of the reasons that I’m drawn to short...

“When my first novel (Clean Sweep, formerly titled Cha Cha Cha) was published in 1994, the term ‘chick lit’ hadn’t even been invented,” says bestselling author Jane Heller. At the time she was told that she was writing “contemporary women’s fiction”. It was a categorisation she assumed was used strictly for booksellers so...

“Harry says she’s awfully intelligent.” It’s a comment that’s dripping with contempt. The unnamed “she” of the sentence is Stevie Steiber, a forthright, forward woman who is not known for endearing herself to others by toeing the lines of propriety and mid-century gender roles. An American female journalist in 1940s...