People were interested.

I also asked folks if they knew any of the bad girls listed in the index, and if they were experienced with them. Everyone had at least one story to tell.

So it’s about how less adventurous, milquetoast girls can learn the man-eating ways of sexually confident, experienced women, right?

The full title is:

Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets. Emphasis mine.

Nope. Nothing of the sort. It is in fact a mirror image of that idea, describing in detail the sub-species of Bad Girls (The Gold-Digger, The Sex Siren,the Ball Buster, The Husband-Stealer etc) and how men can identify a weakness for – and avoid falling for – any of them.

Now that’s useful information.

Important Point: The research behind the concepts presented is thorough and well written. Even more valuable is the way in which the author, Dr Carole Lieberman, carefully explained the vulnerabilities of certain men to the “attractions” of specific “bad girls”. I found myself described in there, and the type of Bad Girl who fits my weakness.

Guess which. * LOL*

So, I have no hesitation recommending this book to anyone interested in understanding some of the possibilities as to why men choose certain women, AND why women end up clearly fitting some of the Bad Girl stereotypes.

That said, here are some random thoughts:

~ I wonder if this book stands out because Dr Lieberman is a psychiatrist, NOT a psychologist.

~ Whomever came up with the sub-title had not read one word of the book. It just doesn’t fit.

~ I remain a little confused as for whom the book was written; men or women or both?

~ Pet Peeve: Editing and Layout. If the book is meant as a How-To, I think it needed a whole lot of creative input. As it is, page after page of standard text alternating with italicized real-life research excludes the kind of reader who might want to dip in-and-out. Fortunately, the writing style is clear, but it could work so much better. SO much better. It succeeds almost despite itself.

~ As an example of the poor production values, chapter commencement pages listed in the index do not match the actual pages in the book. Lazy and sloppy.

But these are all quibbles about publishing, not the material.

This book is worth your time.

Bad Girls. Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets, By Dr Carole Lieberman.

ISBN 978-2-923865-12-6

Published by Cogito Media Group.

Review originally published at Kissnblog.

Explanatory notes are for after digesting the complete book meal, if you’ll forgive the unbalanced metaphor. I like to think of them as a nice fig or a spoonful of tiramisu, a sweet syntactical end-point.

Secondly, I refrain from reading any kind of cover blurb. Actual negative comments are as rare as dodos, and for the same reason – reviewers who disparage a book or its author are dead as far as book publishers and PR people are concerned.

All of which is a somewhat ironic introduction to my review of a book called Love, Sex and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating. The photograph, above, is of the co-authors, a mother-and-daughter duo who created this opus, Lisa Hultin and Claire Hultin.

The trouble, in my opinion, begins with the sub-title: The Chronicles of Online Dating. I’ve been around dating blogs and books for five years now, so to imply that this book has any kind of rank in the world of writing about online dating is risible. Talented, smart, creative people are out there every day blogging about the dating game. Anyone can relate a story – the brilliance lies in interpretation and dissection. Fortunately, we’re living in an age of surfeit in this area.

I should explain that the book is a series of chapters containing a series of tales from alleged online daters. The chapters group similar experiences (Disaster Dates From Hell, Navigating Through A Jungle) punctuated with advice from the authors;

“Unfortunately, the Internet is a mysterious medium popular with predators looking for opportunity. Even a mafia gofer will eventually find a willing participant. I once had a lady admit she made a vast majority of her sales by networking online dates. If you run into a con, report and abuse or block them from contact.”

Wise. Good. But for whom is this advice intended? Surely anyone who has ever been on a regular date understands not all people are truthful with their intentions? Why would online dating be different?

Which highlights my overall ill-will towards this book – it feels more like a kids’ edition than anything an adult could use. There’s no insight, no intelligent deconstruction, nothing to make you go Ah-Ha! More than that, a depressing quality surrounds all the dating tales. Either the person dating is a dope, or the people they meet are mopes, or they’re both both. Uplifting thoughts are rare.

My own personal view of online dating is clear – I am opposed. But the fact is that every day people find their significant other, and hundreds of them marry. Obviously, I am wrong. For some folks the electronic dating scene is the best thing that ever happened, which makes me happy to be wrong.

Obviously, I’m not recommending this book unless you have a ten-year-old you are trying to keep away from dating. For that purpose, it’s a great buy. Otherwise, spend time to find good blogs about real-life online dating and read them. You’ll be infinitely more entertained.

In keeping with my policy, here’s the first paragraph of the introduction, quoted verbatim:

“We are a mother and daughter that (sic) have dated online, compared notes, collected hundreds of hilarious dating stories from around the country, and decided to write a trendy little lit (sic) concerning research, short stories, tips and tricks that are related to personal internet dating experiences. Part of the impetus for doing the book-and the rational (sic) for the title: Love, Sex, and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating is that throughout dating, everyone has either expressed finding true love, to great sex, or has at least been deceived once or twice.”

If I’d read this first, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time actually reading the infernal thing.

Grade: F

Love, Sex and Deception: The Chronicles of Online Dating by Lisa Hultin and Claire Hultin

Published by Morgan James

ISBN 978-160037-775-4

To less interesting matters: I think in the end, the eBook will win, given that the technology of the readers will improve quickly. Talking to people about their preferences, even old-fashioned book people like me love – I mean really LOVE – their eReaders. The folks with iPads are even more in love, if that’s possible. Can we call that infatuation?

There’s no way to replace the smell and the feel of a book. The heft of the thing contributes to the experience too, even as weight counts against it for travelers. No doubt the idea of having literally hundreds of books available will eventually convince me, the lighter weight a collateral benefit.

Here’s an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal helping us navigate the horserace. [link] Most valuable is the conclusion: Wait! If you’re in the market for an eReader (like the Kindle) it might pay to be a late adopter. In the meantime, we have plenty of books to read and review.

Illustration from here [link]

And then scratched my head.

You see, the title of this book is “Rock Her World: the sex guide for the modern man.”

I’m pretty sure that Wombat knows that I am a woman.

Or maybe this was Wombie’s helpful way of helping me get inside the mind of today’s Modern Man?

Geez, I hope not. Not because I didn’t enjoy the book. I did. It was pretty humorous and had lots of funny stories and diagrams. [Some pretty gross one's too. One in particular a cartoonized hemorroid. I kid you not.]

Or was Wombat hoping that I would learn something from Mr. Seymore Butts, supposed lover to over 600 women?

Would he be shocked to discover that I actually have some things to add to this supposed all-encompassing sex guide?

I was with the same person for over 11 years. Let’s say an average of sex 3 times a week (you know, multiple times a day in the beginning and then the later on ‘I need a massage first’ variety). You need to keep things new and interesting, m’kay?

Instead of reviewing the book, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite or what I think are most helpful parts. And then add my 2 cents. Because well this is my blog, and I can I will also be a bit more frank than usual. It could be TMI.

So if you’ve gotten to this point, read on dear readers read on….

1. Easy one’s first. Chapter 7 gives very helpful lessons on what food products will make your spunk taste rancid. Seymour recommends staying away from meat, fish, dairy, curry, garlic, onions, junk food, and especially asparagus.

I’d like to know how he knows this, but I digress. Pineapple. OMG, pineapple! If you want to be kind to women-kind (or at least the one you want to give you a BJ), stay the frick away from pineapple. And cranberry juice *shudders*

2. Chapter 11 is about hygiene. Seymour safely recommends shaving the face, carrying around chapstick for smooth lips, and clean nails and ears. All good stuff.

I have a love/hate relationship with facial hair. I find ‘scruff’ absolutely ridiculously hot. Makes my panties wet and all that. But you better be damn careful if going down south, if you know what I mean.

He lost me at shaving all the hair in his nether regions. Ew. This may be a personal preference, but I like my men a little hairy. A man in shorts with a bit of manly leg hair is definitely worth salivating over. Plus, it prevents friction. Very important.

3. Chapter 12 has a nice little section on how to turn a woman off. He sure nailed these! Especially the ‘eager beaver syndrome’. Quote: “Women don’t want things made too easy for them…if you call her and she does not return that call, move on, she’s not interested!”

My girlfriends have been seeing a decided epidemic of the ‘Eager beaver syndrome’ in the metro DC area this summer. All girl’s know this rule. I’m a busy gal. If I haven’t called you back, it could be because I’m at work/the gym/with friends/waiting for a good time to chat. Calling or sending 2 texts in a row will freak me out. One every hour will put you permanently into ‘stalker’ category.

4. The perfect first kiss he describes as: “Slowly move your hands to rest on either side of her face. Slowly move your face closer to hers. Gently use your lips to kiss each of her lips individually….while engaged, use your fingers to massage her earlobes, her head, or the back of her neck.

Sounds a bit boring to me. I love first kisses to be passionate and full of feeling! If you have to do things slowly and think about it, you’re not kissing the right person. Although one of the most memorable kissing moments I’ve had (not the kiss itself, which was awful) was when the guy caressed my cheek while he kissed me. Oh, and held my hand after and caressed my thumb. So Mr. Butts may be right after all. Dangit.

5. He lists 6 types of female orgasms: Vulva, uterine, vulva/uterine, anal, g-spot, and anal g-spot.

He’s missed one. Tsk tsk. Without making this an x-rated blog, maybe we’ll call it the ‘Mammalian’?

6. On page 147, there is a series of diagrams of ‘what to do once you find [the g-spot].

Oh, so that’s what Mr. Fish did! Mr. Butts calls it ‘The Flutter’. I wonder if Mr. Fish has read this book.

7. Chapter 22: Seymour apparently has a fetish for anal. He says there are two types of women: those open to the idea and inexperienced and women who seem to be closed to it.

I’d say there’s a third of been there, done that, and could care less. The end.

8. The book is actually filled with a lot of advice on treating women with respect, equal partnership in the bedroom, telling the difference between love and lust, protecting against pregnancy and STD’s, and other things I didn’t expect from this type of book.

I’m still wondering why Wombat sent it to me though.

My verdict: Something for a 13-year-old boy to pick up in the bargain books section. With my added additions, of course.

Rock Her World, The Sex Guide for the Modern Man, by Adam Glasser, AKA Seymore Butts. Published by Gotham Books.

ISBN 978-1-592-40447-6

Reviewed by Life Begins at 30ty.

The theory posits that there are five ways in which human beings essentially communicate love: words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, acts of service, and receiving gifts. We may respond to (or “speak”) all of these in some way, but there is always one that means more to us than the others. This is our “primary love language.” Not only will we respond better to those who recognize (or luck out, to be cynical fair) our own language, but if we wish to show someone how much we care for them, we should also strive to speak their respective language.

(Barf. Gag. Ugh. I know…but I got the rant out of my system last night/this morning, so just bear with me through my brief bout of soul-searching. Kay? Thanks.)

So much of this makes sense to me because I have (more than once) found myself wondering why the hell a boyfriend or friend insists on executing the relationship on their terms. “Why,” I ask myself, “is it all about them?” After I’ve exhausted myself throwing a hissy fit and start acting like a big girl again, I inevitably realize that my disappointment is partly my fault. I never communicated how I wanted to be treated. (I don’t want to hear a WORD from the peanut gallery about my inability to communicate emotions/feelings in general. I am AWESOME.) Now, some things, such as Natty doesn’t appreciate it when you fall in love with other women while we are in a relationship, should be understood. (Seriously?) But others could have been addressed if only I had (a) recognized this need and (b) shared it with Captain NotWorthy.

(Rambly, rambly, rambly….the point, already?)

This entire theory presupposes that you give a crap enough about the relationship on which you are focusing to even attempt to recognize the needs of another. And, if you’re feelin’ ambitious, you might even go out of your way to try to meet those needs. For another person. Crazy talk, I know.

The lesson I’d like to leave you with, dear children, is that we all want to feel loved and appreciated. For those people already in your life (as well as those who have yet to arrive) who matter to you, know that with just a modicum of effort you can make all the difference in their hearts and in their heads. Pay attention to what makes them light up. And if you’re lucky, they’ll give a damn enough to do the same for you.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Published by Northfield Publishing.

Reviewed by Natalie Cottrell, whose blog is called Use Your Words, Little Girl.

Review originally published at Natalie’s place.
ISBN-13: 978-0802473158

This review, more of a love-letter really, is of one such book I found recently. It’s “Fools Paradise” by John Gierach. The cover blurb tells you everything (and nothing) about the author: “The world’s most popular fly-fishing guru.”

So it’s about fly-fishing. Guys in waders. Guys in waders standing in water luring fish by fooling them with flies of various kinds: Flies of various kinds with hooks embedded in them. That’s fly-fishing, right? Well yes….and no.

Let me escape the subject matter of the book, and state for the record that this is another book I shall pick up again and again, reading it when I need the company of an old friend. Mr Gierach writes as I imagine he casts – damn, back to the fishing again – which is to say with clarity of purpose gleaned from knowledge, study, and observation. A spare good-humor haunts every paragraph in this book, with each sentence carrying no more fat that is necessary. As a reflection of the writer, I imagine this is pretty accurate physical cipher too.

The nuts and bolts of fishing for muskies turned out to be fairly straightforward. Muskies are said to like riffles – and I did get one vicious pull in fast water – but these are placid rivers that don’t have many riffles. We actually moved most of our fish in fairly quiet, knee-to thing-deep bankside water, usually with a jumbled, rocky bottom, a nearby drop-off and some kind of good cover like large rocks, sunken logs or brush piles. They came to the same flies you’d use for smallmouth bass – patterns resembling minnows, crawdads and frogs – and those critters were exactly what we saw while wading that kind of water during pee stops and coffee breaks.

The whole book is like this. There are lessons from nature, instruction on backwaters of biology, wonder at the beauty of life and a down-to-the-river self-deprecation that never strays beyond the amusing. As philosopher, Mr Gierach seeks out his own tilt at the world. Notable is the way fishing quickly grows as a metaphor for life, a link not immediately apparent to folks like me who like the idea of fishing more than its practice.

Here are nineteen stories, a collection of self-contained real-life fishing adventures that left me feeling better about the world. That wild fish and wild rivers still exist gives rise to that warm emotion we call satisfaction. I think that’s right – I feel satisfied that not everything is hot, or sexy, or new, or exciting.  That some folks still spend time walking and wading, watching and smelling in the outdoors refuels my faith in all people. Is fishing a noble activity, raising the sight level of even those who only read about it? Probably not. But the attitude required to be a successful fisherman, especially in the quiet, reverent way Mr Gierarch demonstrates, smells like it might be ennobling, a good start.

Books like this are like Christmas when I was ten. There’s no downside. Santa Claus still comes down the chimney. The tree hides gifts of variable utility. The food is memorable. What’s not to like? Mr Gierach is a different kind of Santa, for sure, but he gives with equal generosity.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9174-3

Grade: B+

Fool’s Paradise, by John Gierach. Published by Simon and Shuster in 2008.

Reviewed by Tim.

Imagine my delight upon finding this bargain by the same author, a remaindered hardback for two dollars. If a pot of gold really exists at the end of the rainbow, it contains hardcover books by life-changing authors for two dollars each.

Mr Ruhlman’s book tells the story of how he and his wife bought and renovated a house. This house is in the Cleveland Heights neighborhood, east of downtown, and was built, as Mr Ruhlman describes it, in the heyday of the suburb. It’s an old house, nearly one-hundred years old when they take possession, and it is wearily showing every one of those years. Taking this place from beaten-up to up-beat is the story.

Life in their new home turns out not so easy for Mr Ruhlman and his wife Donna. It’s more house than a youngish couple with two young children can afford, especially when the primary breadwinner (horrid word, that) is a self-employed writer. Trouble starts early on. Everything about this house is difficult; extracting the prior owners, dealing with the real estate agent, working with contractors – all create a wedge between the imagined happiness of owning a big beautiful old house and the reality of it.

That’s the skeleton of the book, a nostalgic revisiting of the renovation of a fixer-upper. This is one element of the American dream, the dream of a home of one’s own in which a nuclear family can create a history safe from the harsh world outside the front door. But Mr Ruhlman is pre-occupied with deeper thoughts. He riffs on the place of the home in society, and the literal placement of that home geographically. He and Donna wanted a house from which they can walk somewhere. After dinner walks, walks to shops, walks to neighbors’ houses – their idea is that a house should connect to the people and commerce around them, not be a mere set of walls to keep off the snow (of which, by the sounds of it, there is a fair amount in Cleveland.)

What we think of as suburbs in modern America are actually exurbs. The difference is that suburbs were built in the era of streetcars, before the uprising of the automobile. A thirty year period – roughly 1880 to 1910 – captures the rise and apex of the suburb, the time during which workers could move out of downtown and into spacious houses close by without giving up their jobs. The middle class was born here.

The Model T Ford changed that. In the century since, the freeway system, mass housing and urban neglect led much of American to move to communities without connection, either within the exurb or between them. This is a subject close to my heart, too. It seems to me that the point of living in a city is so that one can combine one’s family, work and leisure as closely as possible. Living amongst unrelated people is a part of that, a state of being that cars and freeways and exurbs without footpaths work against.

New Urbanism is gaining strength as an architectural and town-planning standard, but there’s really nothing new about it. Mix commerce and homes, public transport and walking, quality houses on a human scale, and you have the old suburbanism Mr Ruhlman so yearns for. A new name is superfluous, but getting out of our cars is not.

You might be able to see from the photo how bashed-up is my copy of House: A Memoir. I’ve read it three times now, and every go-round is a pleasure.

Go buy it; go read it.

Grade: A.

House: A Memoir by Michael Ruhlman. Published by Penguin in 2005.

ISBN 0-670-03383-9

Reviewed by Tim R.

Mr Ruhlman’s Books.

I’m sure I was right.

So that you are kept up to date, Blogger Critics Network – this blogslashwebsite – is about books, bloggers, and book reviews. We want bloggers to take center-stage, by way of their criticism of the books they love or hate or something inbetween. If you write book reviews, we want to publish your work here. Mixing it up with other folks who aren’t professional critics sounds like a fun thing to us; we hope you agree.

You can find us at bloggercriticsnetwork@gmail.com. Drop us a line, or, better still, send us your review. We’ll list you amongst our critics, link to your blog, and – hopefully – find you an audience.

That’s the news this week in the volcanic eruption of electronic publishing. Kobo provides eReader applications [link] and an eBook library, which will be selling points for its new Android app.

Android appears to be the sleeper in the smart-phone wars, a fight in which Google (Android’s HQ) was handed a victory when Apple refused to give up on the worst phone/data provider in the US: AT&T. Those folks must be paying the lads in Cupertino BIG.

For we book lovers, the expansion of avenues and methods by which we can read is a wonder.

I’m disappointed on behalf of the author, Mr MacDonnell, because his book is worth the money and the time. The subject matter won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you can get over the background, the foreground of his description of life working at a porn magazine makes for good reading. An undertone (and, now I think about it, an overtone) of snark inhabits Mr MacDonnell’s writing, but he’s equally snarky about himself as all those around him in Larry Flynt’s business empire.

For the unfamiliar, Larry Flynt is the publisher of Hustler, the apogee of skin-mags. His empire (Larry Flynt Publications) is a grab-bag of flesh-driven enterprises that made him a centi-millionaire. “Prisoner of X” is an insider’s story, a tell-all of the ridiculous ways men like Larry Flynt make a fortune despite themselves.

Do I sound envious? Well, kinda. I was a fan of Hustler in its heyday, the 80s. Then it was the dirtiest of the big three news-stand-type mags, considerably to the south of Playboy and less air-brushed than Penthouse. (That’s a figurative concept, less airbrushed, not a literal one, because…well, you know, they all do it.) A subscription to Hustler said: He’ll Do Anything. Subscription to Penthouse said: He’ll Do Anything (mostly). And a subscription to Playboy said: He’ll lick your tits.)

Larry Flynt started in Lakeville, Kentucky and ended up in Los Angeles, California. That’s the architecture of success in America, or was, until recently. Our protagonist, Mr MacDonell, started in LA, first as a copy-editor on Hustler, so his story’s different from that of his boss. The concept of a copy-editor at Hustler is mildly disconcerting, like the idea of quality control in China. Nevertheless, such jobs exist, which makes my Hustler subscription vaguely mainstream.

So the take-down is that Mr Mac starts at the bottom (ahem) at Hustler, and ends up at the top, the executive editor. In the intervening period his personal and buff life make for a good if not great book.

If only he’d insisted on better cover art-work, this thing might have been a best seller.

Prisoner of X: Twenty-Two Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine, by Allan MacDonnell.

ISBN: 1-932595-13-9