Summer readings



I’ve been visiting bookstores, trying to take a look on what they’re displaying as the must-read books for this summer. And I notice that something that was already big enough to have an exclusive shelf now has gained the main display, in the center of the store: the “chick-lit”.
Chick-literature is a term used to denote genre fiction written for women and marketed to young, single, working women in their twenties and thirties. Wikipedia tells us that “the genre's creation was spurred on, if not exactly created, by Sure Towsend’s Adrian Mole diaries which inspired Adele Lang's Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber: The Katya Livingston Chronicles in the mid-1990s.” The genre got much more attention and fans after Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones’ Diary became a movie, in 2001.
A good chick-lit title inevitably contains at least one of the following words: shoes, dresses, friend, sister, boyfriend, bride, girl, or a female name that refers to the main character in the book. The covers must be colourful (or cute), and there’s always a touch of pink somewhere.
I’ve read the “Devil wears Prada” two years ago just to realize that I liked the movie better. I started to read Marian Keyes’ “Watermelon” but gave up after reading two or three of the book’s dozens of chapters. So I’m ill-equipped to criticize the genre, and I don’t even want to do it. I’m just intrigued. Marian Keyes alone sold more than 10 million copies of her books (all chick-lit). There are books and blogs dedicate to the genre, and even Naomi Wolf criticizes it (oops: the link will take you to an Oprah show: “Stupid Girls”).
So who are the readers? What are they looking for in these books (distraction-enlightenment-help-something else)? How is this genre impacting on a generation of women?

All I know for now is that these books are not in my summer reading list... Have you read any chick-lit? Do you feel like reading it?

Royalty-free picture from "The Image Bank"

Comments

dasilvaorg said…
Diane,
you are really doing it well. At Least in my point of view. I skipped the two other posts about scoring our blogging ability and came direct here.
Besides (Bem, deixa eu ir para o Português) para não falar besteira. Rs Rs

São duas coisas legais que quero destacar. Primeiro, o uso da "técnica" pergunta ao final do post.
Tenho pensado sobre os tipos de perguntas. O que perguntar para de fato obter retorno?
Bem, isto tem que pressupor um leitor primeiro, não é?!

Vc já leu o artigo do Pedro Lincoln de Mattos sobre Dissertações e Teses em Administração?


2. O rodapé dos Feeds com a declaração do conteúdo do post. Acho muito interessante. Ví pela primeira vez no Sérgio Amadeu e agora no seu.
Ainda não consegui implementar no Netnografando, mas é porque acho que ainda não estou tão seguro do que colocar.

Ah... Finalmente, sobre Chick-Lit, se está nas prateleiras é consumo de massa, concorda?!

Acho que você deve estar mais para Long Tail's readings at summer, Ou não?
Thank's! Problogger again, on how to get more comments on your blog: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/10/12/10-techniques-to-get-more-comments-on-your-blog/

I didn't read that paper yet - could you please send it to me?
About tagging the posts: I think it helps readers to find what really interests them on the blog, so it's worthy the effort!
And finally, chick lit... I'm prone to think about its readers as a group bounded by age more than anything else - but just research could tell!

I'm currently reading Benjamim Barber's "Consumed: How markets corrupt children,infantilize adults, and swallow citizens whole". It may seem to serious for a summer reading but it has an ice pop on the cover!