- Indiana University's Lilly Library has an exhibition (from August 19th 2024 – February 15th 2025) celebrating romance:
In 2021, the Lilly Library became the first major American special collections library to take romance seriously—and we owe the foundation of this visionary collection to author, scholar, and antiquarian bookseller Rebecca Romney, cofounder of the bookselling firm Type Punch Matrix. A romance reader herself as well as an expert on the history of the book, Romney set out to assemble a collection of 100 important works in the history of romance fiction from 1769 to 1999. Because some of the hundred entries in the catalog contain multiple titles (such as the first 1,500 Harlequin Presents romances), these substantial and carefully researched selections became the core of the Lilly’s new romance collection. One of the things we love most about Romney’s selections is her focus on diversity—the history of the romance novel has never been only about straight white men and women.
As we continue to add historical and 21st century titles to the collection, our focus remains on the importance of the romance genre in the history of the book, the ways in which it empowered readers and writers, and also on the potential the genre holds for those who are not taken seriously by people in power to tell their stories of finding a “happily ever after” ending.
- Women's Weekly has an article marking Harlequin Mills & Boon's Australia office's 50th birthday. The article on M&B's history heavily features IASPR's Dr Jodi McAlister.
- Slate reports on a trend in anti-billionaire romance novels.
New books are questioning the ethics of billionaires, having the heir to a family fortune come out against his father’s unethical business practices, and (in the historical context) having the wealthy risk their place in society by supporting progressive causes like the abolition of slavery. At least one author is trying to put together an antibillionaire romance anthology.
- Time has an article on the evolution of romance covers. This complements their list of the best 50 romances to read, curated by author Casey McQuiston, who also wrote an article for them explaining why "Romance Novels are Literature."
Even at its cheekiest or darkest or most satirical, it’s a genre made of sincerity. Opening ourselves earnestly to an emotional experience feels dangerous, and danger makes us nervous, and when we’re nervous, we laugh.But if we don’t laugh, if we don’t turn away, if we stop pretending to be too cool or too intellectual or too ironic to acknowledge our own desire, romance has so much to show us about ourselves. Which is exactly what literature should do.
This may be slightly tangential to the thrust of your post, but there's this The Guardian article on increased sale of "steamy" (code for genre romance irrespective of explicit sexual content, for some reason) in the past few years: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2024/08/why-steamy-books-sales-have-doubled-via.html
ReplyDeleteThanks! I feel like I should be able to work up a pun about "the thrust of my post" but instead I'll just add a direct html link here to the article you mentioned about "steamy" books (assuming I can get that to work!): https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/06/my-weeks-of-reading-hornily-steamy-book-sales-have-doubled-and-i-soon-found-out-why.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I could/should have added to the post, but which I temporarily forgot, was that I found out recently that there's a newly opened romance bookshop in Edinburgh, which really surprised me as I haven't heard of any others in the UK. It's Book Lovers Bookshop.