July 10, 2013 • 38 mins
For their annual summer reading episode, Caroline and Cristen discuss the impact of gendered book covers, the viral "cover flip" challenge, and whether books written by women are taken as seriously by publishers and critics.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House to
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and this is our Summer Reading
two thousand thirteen episode. Every summer we talk about books
(00:25):
because this is the time of year when folks are
hopefully having a little extra time to read. Hopefully, hopefully
you're on a beach somewhere and you're reading, and then
you can tell us about it. I would love to
hear I have really weird beach reads. Let me tell you.
Last summer it was a Curt Vonnegut book. I can't
remember which one. I have a couple of myself. I
(00:45):
can't remember which one was. And the summer before that,
it was The Lee Family of Virginia, So like an
entire book of nonfiction on the leaves, like Robert Ealie
of Virginia. Because I'm just like that sounds like a page.
I know people at the beach are like, what is
They're holding their mystery novels, holding their fifty shades of
(01:05):
gray inside of like an economist magazine? Right, look, legitimate,
are you reading anything right now? Any good? Any good books?
I actually just finished Monkey Mind, a Memoir of Anxiety
by Daniel Smith, because I myself have like just a constant,
low grade baseline anxiety that peaks now and again, and
(01:26):
you can tell because I get really sweaty um, And
I have started reading. I'm taking a break from the
clinical nonfiction stuff to go to uh Lamb, the story
of Christ's childhood pal, written by Christopher Moore. Huh, it's funny.
Um so far, I'm like only like a hundred and
(01:48):
fifty pages into it, and then I kind of want
to read Brain on Fire by that journalist who I
can't remember her name at the moment, young journalist who
basically like kind of law sit for a couple of months. Yeah,
there was an interview with her on NPR that I've
been wanting to listen to her on a Fresh Air. Yeah,
I'm I'm kind of obsessed with books that have anything
(02:10):
to do with the brain or anxiety or anything like that, because,
like I said, I do get anxiety, but also I
get migraines, and so that's why I love reading like
Oliver Stacks, who's a neuropsychologist and talks about hallucinations and
all sorts of brain circuitry stuff. Well, I have been
on more of the lighter side. As I mentioned on
Facebook a few weeks ago, I have now finished Wild,
(02:33):
the memoir by Sherl Strait, who I mentioned in our
episode on Advice Columns. I have a huge writer and
just person crush on. She's fantastic and in so many ways,
and I've been wanting to read her memoir and I did,
and it's great and I highly recommend. I know a
number of listeners commented that they had read it as well.
(02:54):
And kind of randomly, I'm reading Carson mccullor's Wedding guest
or guest at the Wedding Um, about a twelve year
old girl who has quite an imagination. It's more of
a novella, and I just kind of wanted something to
just stip through. It's like a fiction paletate cleanser. And
I'm also reading A Natural History of Breasts or it's
(03:15):
called Breasts a Natural and Unnatural History. And hopefully we'll
have the the author on, but I haven't asked her
to come on yet. So if you're listening, author, this
is your formal invitation. Well, I mean, okay, so what
we're talking about for this summer reading episode is you
know the title can you judge a book by its
(03:36):
gendered cover? And I was thinking about that with when
I walked out of the bookstore with my copy of
Wild and Wedding Guests and this book about Breast, all
of which were slightly feminine. I mean, Wild is a
boot hiking boot on a white background. The Carson mccolor's
(03:59):
book Is is a blurred picture of a young girl
so dancing in the field, which was very prototypical female
author book. And then Press, as you can imagine, it's
got a silhouette of a lad figure. Um. But we
wanted to talk about book covers more than maybe the
substance of books, because online lately there has been a
(04:22):
lot of discussion prompted by female authors about hey, guess
what's going on with these covers. Yeah, and not just
the covers, but we'll also get into a little bit
of the attitude of male authors being taken more seriously
than female authors. There was there was quite a big
debate about that online and you might have heard of this.
It's called the cover flip challenge, and it all started
(04:45):
out on Twitter when author Marine Johnson, who by the way,
I went to her personal side. I thought it was
kind of interesting. She has a very pinkish personal side.
But she kicked off this cover flip challenge to highlight
the high le gendered quote unquote soft sell book covers
in more marketing violence that are often used for books
(05:08):
written by women, And she tweeted, I do wish I
had a dime for every email that says, please put
a non girly cover on your book so I can
read it, Signed a guy, And then she tweeted project
redesigned book covers by literary dudes, imagine they have been
reclassified as by and for women hashtag challenge and hundreds
(05:29):
of people responded. And doing this challenge sort of brought
up the fact that there is this attitude about gender
and about gendered looking books that they're not for boys
or for men, which is ridiculous because it's not like
boys and men can't read books written by female authors,
(05:49):
or not even that they can't or that they don't
want to write right exactly. And so yeah, she just
thought that this whole idea of girl books versus boy
books and chick lit, and she says, whatever is the
guy equivalent of chick lit? Give credit to absolutely no one,
And she just wanted people, as she says, to be
freed from some of these constraints. And so some of
(06:12):
the cover flips that were featured in a side show
Overundhuvington Post were of the book carry Game of Thrones
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by
Sherman Alexei Neil, Game in Stardust, which I know is
a favorite of a number of listeners on the Road
by Jack Kerouac, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, which kicked off
(06:32):
a discussion which we'll talk about as well about gender
and literature. UM. Also a clockwork orange David sedariss Me
talked pretty one day and so forth. And what they
did was they made female versions of these and I
say female in quotes, female versions of these uh covers.
And it was really striking to see the visuals. And
(06:56):
I wish that for a moment that we could somehow
do like a video in lay in this podcast so
that you could see what we're talking about. UM. But
I just trust this when we say that it was
not very hard to turn something like a Game of
Thrones into all of a sudden Game of Throne, you know, right,
(07:18):
And there was one big to do in particular over
one book, and that is Sylvia Platts The bell Jar
uh Favor Books over based in England, rerelease it for
its fiftieth anniversary, and people freaked out because the cover
(07:39):
image was of a quote unquote retrobabe applying makeup, which
which what it looked very prototypical chicklick cover. You would
have no idea. If you had no idea who Sylvia
Plata is, what the bell Jar is about, it would
seem like you were picking up a story about a
girl who I don't know it's going to go on
(08:02):
a lot of dates, or maybe like a ya ya
Sisterhood sequel. And the theory accorded by graphic designer Barbara
de Wilde was that, hey, you know what, maybe this
publisher is just trying to drag in a young crowd.
And the theory was confirmed by said publisher, who wrote
in our endless endeavor to keep our backlist writers in
the minds and hands of new readers, we often look
to packaging as a way of describing an old work afresh,
(08:25):
and their defense of putting you know this, it's a
bright red cover, uh sorely script and a woman applying makeup,
they say, the image on the cover picks up on
the beginning of the story where the narrator is encountering
conflict between new freedom and old assumptions about women's aspirations. Well,
regardless of the defense, I think a lot of people
still got their feathers ruffled by it. Absolutely, And well,
(08:48):
it might seem trivial to spend so much time talking
about book jackets when perhaps you might think, well, does
it really matter what the cover looks like? Is long
is where you know, reading what's inside and really gleaning
the meat from that. But in terms of how we
consume that media and for new readers out there who
were just browsing through bookstores, it absolutely does matter. And
(09:11):
I feel like that point was summed up really well
in a quote from a New York Times article that
came out by The New Republic's Chloe Shama, and she
she wrote a brief piece asking the question of why
there are so many images of female bare backs on books,
And there was this illustration that they did for it.
And indeed, I mean it was just like title after
(09:33):
title that she was listing, and it wasn't necessarily a
thing where it was only women's backs on books. By women.
It was male and female authors, but there seemed to
be something to do with all of well, with it
being just this go to image, but the back issue aside,
and why book designers may or may not be kind
(09:54):
of obsessed with the female back. Her novelist friends said,
a book jacket seems to like the single most efficient
way to signal whether a book has substance or not.
And I feel like that really sums up the point
of even having a conversation about the book jacket, because
if you are an author, it's a very important process,
(10:14):
not just the selecting of the title, but also the
design of your book jacket probably says a lot about
how it's going to be marketed, how it's going to
be reviewed, and whether or not a publisher is really
taking it seriously and considering it, you know, a piece
of literature that they are proud to put out right.
(10:34):
I mean, I know this isn't a book written by
a woman, but the book Lamb that I just referenced
by Christopher Moore, I mean a lot of his book covers,
including Lamb, are very kind of, lack of a better word,
goofy looking, and so you kind of know, like all right,
he's going to write something funny, and I'm okay with that,
and that's what I'm going after. You know, it's I
probably would be put off if I bought a book
with a really serious cover ended up being hysterical. Well,
(10:58):
speaking of which, just on a side out, there was
an article in the Chicago Tribune talking about this and
it mentioned how there was an addition it's actually the
addition that I have of the Feminine Mystique, which has
this giant flower on the cover, and I hadn't really
thought about that before, but it said that this it
(11:18):
was the perfect example of kind of how this marketing
is at work. And they interviewed a professor of feminist
media studies of the University of Iowa, and she said,
these covers are using every stereotype of mainstream femininity to
visually represent work that specifically challenges those very stereotypes. So
(11:38):
it's a really crazy paradox that's going on with the
example of something like the Feminine Mystique, Right, it is funny.
I mean, like, you know, are they literally they well
they must be the publishers literally must just be trying
to get it into the hands of new people and
there's absolutely nothing wrong with publishers wanting to sell books
right now. You and I are very much pro books,
(12:00):
were pro reading. But uh, within these literary circles, Uh,
there's a lot of questions about how all these books
are being sold. And even though the cover flip challenge
sprang up pretty recently, a public internet fuel conversation over
women writers and how they're marketed and regarded in literary
(12:21):
circles as well really first sprang up in two thousand ten,
right after the publication and swift Pulitzer nomination of Jonathan
Franson's book Freedom, which I read it was great. I
love Jonathan Fransen. But Jodi Picole, who wrote House Rules,
My Sister's Keeper, she's a very best selling author. She
makes a lot of money off of her books. But
(12:43):
nevertheless she tweets n Y T New York Times raved
about Franson's new book, is anyone shocked? Would love to
see the n Y t rave about authors who aren't
white male literary darlings, And oh my goodness, I remember
when that happened and it set off this online fire storm. Yeah.
And Jennifer Weiner, who wrote Good in Bed and In
Her Shoes other books like that joined in the conversation,
(13:06):
and she said, I think it's a very old and
deep seated double standard that holds that when a man
writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L,
but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance
or a beach book. In short, it's something unworthy of
a serious critics attention. And they really took the conversation onward,
(13:27):
talking about, you know, who makes the money and who
is the critical success and a lot of times both
of them are men. Yeah, And the the idea that, uh,
you know, a book written by a woman is going
to inherently possibly be considered differently to a critic also
goes along with that whole marketing thing of well, how
(13:48):
are these books even being packaged and sold? And while
all this is going on. Just as another example, uh,
Deborah copecan Cogan writing over the Nation about her own
experience and is more like horror stories really with the
publishing world said there's a reason j. K. Rowling's publishers
demanded that she used initials instead of Joe Anne. It's
(14:10):
the same reason Marian Evans used the pen name George Elliott.
The same reason. Robert Southey, then England's poet Laureate, wrote
to Charlotte Bronte, literature cannot be the business of a
woman's life, and it ought not to be, basically saying
that in order to get the respect, then you know,
maybe you need to cloak some femininity even in your name.
(14:30):
If it comes to that. Well, I mean, if we're
going to talk about that kind of issue and you know,
things being taken seriously, perhaps we should have a sidebar
and talk about a recent issue that Vice magazine ran
into with women literary figures O mercy. This was I
you know, I run across Vice every now and then,
(14:51):
and I mean I get it, Vice, I get you.
I've gotten you for a long time. But and I
never want to get riled by Advice because I feel
like as soon as I get riled about something that's
in Vice, or or think to myself, oh, distasteful vices one,
you know, there's a hipster taking a shot of whiskey
at a bar, you know, and laughing about me. Um.
(15:12):
But Vice had to publicly apologize, probably the first public
apology even that it was kind of a weak one
that they've ever issued, because it put out its Women
in Fiction issue, and in the back of it there
was a fashion spread entitled last Words, which depicted famous
authors including Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, and Dorothy Parker, all
(15:33):
killing themselves, all all mid suicide, wearing wearing clothes that
they had on, and the sidebars calling out the labels
and where you could get them. And I mean, I'll
just say they weren't even well styled, but um, I mean,
and the the Internet rightly freaked out about it, saying
this is disgusting first of all, like you are depicting
(15:57):
the suicide of real people. But I felt like Michelle Dean,
writing over in New York Magazine, made some really insightful
points about it. She said, suicide is fair game for commentary,
regardless of how many others on the Internet crite otherwise
when seeing this spread. But slouching, indifference and sloppiness do
not a real sensation make to address these women's lives
(16:18):
and pain. The work should at least be as smart
as those featured. And I felt like that bit about slouching,
indifference and sloppiness really still gets at the heart of
this larger conversation that is happening among women writers. Well. Also,
I think there's an issue of Jennifer Weiner brought this
up to kind of the fact that men's books, like
(16:40):
like Frandsen's books, can you know their literature with the
capital L versus the family books, like she said, And
there's something to men's books that just become universal. You know,
you write some epic family saga story and it's taken universally,
everybody feels welcome to read it. But there's something about
maybe a woman writing a family saw aaga that maybe
(17:01):
has a woman's back on the cover, and people are like, oh,
that's just like a just like a beach read about
family stuff. Yeah, it's it's it's often more niche, it's
a soft cell. It's chick lit or something. We did
an episode on chick lit a long time ago. And
while there are definitely books that focused on you know,
(17:22):
women meeting men and having martinis and running on beaches
and such, and that's totally fine too, UM, but it's uh,
I think it sometimes can do a disservice for UM
writers at large. Well. But also there are other people,
it's not just the general population who maybe doesn't take
(17:43):
women writers or women's novels seriously. There's also the whole
issue of reviewing books, because you know, if if you
haven't been at the bookstore and a while, you're not
keeping up with what Amazon's telling you you should read like,
you know, you might pick up a magazine, newspaper, or
internet review about books. And a lot of studies have
(18:03):
pointed out that the New York Times Book Review mostly
mostly reviews white dudes. Yeah. VITA, which is an organization
that focuses on women in literary arts and a couple
of years ago, started up a statistical tally of things
like the number of books written by women that are
reviewed in places like New York Times Book Review, also
(18:27):
uh the number of female journalists featured in magazines, etcetera.
And in their tally, they found that of all the
authors reviewed in the publications that it tracks, and it's
high level publications like New York Times Book Review, nearly
three fourths were men. So sigh, yeah. And the Fairness
(18:49):
and Accuracy in reporting two thousand eight report on this topic,
they looked at the New York Times Book Review from
March two thousand eight to January and found that of
the US authors, and this is niche of political books,
were non Latino whites. And I know that it's not
just white men writing books on you know, historical politics
(19:10):
or current day politics, but it, I mean, that is
something interesting to point out because a lot of the
Times reviews like that, especially from those high level publications,
are what drives people to go pick up that book. Well,
and racial diversity too is something that we're not really
addressing in this podcast, but it's something that other authors
(19:31):
have brought up in this whole conversation of saying, yeah, yeah,
women writers too, but hey, guess what writers of color
also exist, and we get even more of a short
shrift than probably white women like a Jodi Picole. I mean, no, nothing,
absolutely nothing against Jodi Picole, but um, you know there
it goes down even even deeper than just a gendered issue.
(19:54):
But go back to gender. Meg Wallets are talked about
this in the New York Times book review actually in
March of and she brought up that issue of the
book jacket. She said, look at some of the jackets
of novels by women, Laundry hanging on a line, a
little girl in a field of wild flowers, like the
Carson mccullor's book that I'm reading right now, a pair
(20:15):
of shoes on a beach, or a single hiking boot,
perhaps an empty swing on the porch of an old
yellow house. Compare these with the typeface only jacket of
Chad Hardback's novel The Art of Fielding, or the jumbo
lettering on the corrections. Such covers, according to a book
publicist I spoke to, Meg Waltz or Rights, tells the reader,
this book is an event. Yeah, And I can totally
(20:37):
see what she means by that. I you know, I
am really drawn to books with strong, bold covers. I
I tend to like that, that that look of a
novel that has like the faded wild flowers on the cover.
I'm like, if there, if there's an empty rocking chair,
(20:57):
I'm probably gonna keep walking. Probably so and so, you know,
covers like the Corrections I find really interesting to look at,
Like and the cover of um and this will take
switch us switch our gears a little bit. But the
cover of Like a Visit from the Goon Squad, which
though was in fact written by a lady, it just
happened to also have a strong graphic cover like some
(21:19):
of those other books we mentioned. Yeah, Jennifer Egan's book
Visit from the Goon Squad is often cited as an
exception to this rule because it is very kind of
linear and straightforward type of design. Whereas as Emily Temple,
writing over at Flavor Wire, who looked at the gendered
cover stuff when she read that Meg Walletzer piece in
(21:42):
New York Times, and she took a group of books,
some written by men and some written by women, and
found that for books like Jeffrey Genity Is the marriage
plot ar to Fielding by Chad Hardback that we mentioned,
the Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen,
i q eighty four by Haruki Murakami, and The Pale
(22:02):
King by David foster Ballas she said, they all had
things in commons such as big block efonts, lots of
white and blue and neutral covers, and even the ring
on the marriage plot almost looks masculine. It looks more
like a wedding band. I thought it was a great
The writers who brought up the cover of the marriage
plot had great things to say. And one of the
points that I really enjoyed was because I I love
(22:24):
Jeffrey ugenitys and I loved his book, The Marriage Plot,
But one of the writers that we looked at did say, like,
all right, that's a man has a strong, bold cover.
But if it had been written by a woman, if
a woman had written a book by the name of
the Marriage Plot, what kind of cover would they have
given that? And would anyone have read it? You know? Like,
(22:44):
I mean, Jeffery Ugenitys is a wonderful writer, and so
I think regardless of what his cover looks like, people
are going to pick up his books. But it was
that question of, like, I mean, are people just gonna
walk by a book about marriage or so they assume
by a woman. Well, and you still often up the
funt even though the script is a little bit uh seraphi.
But you soften it up a little bit, and you
(23:07):
make it a diamond ring instead of a wedding band,
and you put the outline of a bride in a veil,
and it's instead of Jeffrey Eugenitys, it's January Eugenities. What
is the female equivalent of Jeffrey Jessica Jessica Eugenities, Jennifer Jenugenities,
Jenny Okay, a lady named Eugenities, And yeah, it's like
(23:31):
a completely different experience. Um, but with the the group
of female written books that Emily Temple pulled together. She
looked at The Tiger's Wife by Tea oh Brett, all
of kidder Dge by Elizabeth Strout, swamp Landia by Karen Russell,
a Visit from the Goon Squad, the Exception to the Rules.
We talked about the Buddha and the Attic by Julie
(23:52):
Otsuka and The Help by Catherine Stockett, and she said
that they were typified by more seraph's golden yell, low coloring,
more delicate lettering in general, and more illustration. I mean,
but why do you think that is? Why do you
think that a publisher can take or will take a
family saga written by a woman and make it more
(24:13):
flowery script than if a man writes a family saga
which becomes bold lettering and primary colors. Well, I wanted
to try to find whether any book designers had something
to say about this, because I don't think that it's
it's not some conspiracy. We're not trying to comclaim some
conspiracy that all book jacket designers are out to make
(24:36):
sure that women's books never get read or are only
read in chick lit book groups, which you're fine too, um,
but I did find a two thousand seven article in
Poets and Writers that talked about the author's often limited
role in book jacket design. And they interviewed Karen Temple,
who was the founder of the site Readaville, and she
(24:58):
noted how quote unquote list women's fiction, i e. Chick lit,
which I mean you wouldn't call something like a visit
from the goon squad midlist women's fiction, but just speaking
about like uh more of the kind of what would
you say, just like run of the mill books written
by women, she said, it's fallen victim to book jacket tropes,
(25:19):
kind of in the same way that science fiction is
often treated with their very science fiction a types of designs.
And she says, you take a really lovely stock photo,
especially a landscape or a cityscape, legs or shoes, you
superimpost some very pretty star up and there's that word again,
letter space type preferably white. Thereupon it's become every bit
(25:40):
as cliche as any other genres covers. So maybe there's
a little bit of laziness going on. Maybe it's just
you know that it has become such a strong and
probably well selling um genre, that whole midlist women's fiction
thing that maybe publishers just kinda up but all together
and send it out. I don't know. Well, you know,
(26:03):
we talked earlier about um, you know, reviews driving sales,
but designer Terry Juliana Long for Indie Reader does confirm that, hey,
people are out there judging books by their cover and
that solid writing, descriptions and reviews do count. But excellent
book jackets can also snag sales. Excuse me, And I
know I'm I'm not guilty of it because it's not
(26:25):
something to be ashamed of, but I've picked up some
really attractive looking book covers and bookstores that I might
not otherwise have well, And I wonder if a piece
of all of this is the fact that, you know,
women do comprise a majority of book buyers. Um. I
don't have the statistics in front of me, but that's
a pretty well accepted facts. I mean, you can if
you break it down by genre, then you then you
(26:45):
have some differences, but overwhelmingly women do tend to buy
more books than men do. So maybe what's going on
is in the design process they're saying they're going to say, hey,
who is our number one customer? Most likely it's going
to be a woman. What a lady's like laundry on
a line and a breeze, I don't know, and a
(27:06):
a vase full of flowers in the window. And I'm
you know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that,
but I'm a lady who does like some really good
graphic design. And I'm sure you do like flowers in
the vase in the window. I like real flowers in
a vase on a window. Um. But I do hope
that we hear from some authors who may have gone
through this process of getting a book published and getting
(27:26):
a jacket designed, especially if they're doing it with a
publishing house, because it seems like, unless you are an
a list writer, your hand in that and even selecting
the title might not be all that much. You might
get a book sold, and then I hope you like
what it looks like on the outside. And the thing is, though,
(27:50):
the argument that kind of gets swept into all of
this that I don't think is valid is the idea that, oh, well,
we're just complaining that well regarded women writers don't exists.
No that's absolutely not true, and that's not what we're saying.
I mean, do we need to go through a list
of awesome women writers just to prove it we have some?
(28:11):
And also I do think that the argument that well,
men just aren't reading books by or about women is
also a flimsy one. Over at Slate, Esther Bloom actually
took on that idea that you know, men don't want
to read books by or about women, and she says,
really blame the publishers, which brings it all back to
this whole cover flip challenge thing and the marketing angle
(28:33):
to begin with. And she writes, because publishers, editors and
agents fear that men won't read books by women, they
encourage people like J. K. Rowling to hide behind gender
obscuring initials or pen names, and thus they exacerbate the problem.
A male seeming author of a well loved book doesn't
help the change the perceptions of a male reader, just
as a child who atees spinach doesn't come to love
(28:53):
it when it's blended skillfully into his cupcake. And the
whole marketing thing doesn't doesn't help much either. I don't know.
I'm gonna be curious to hear from readers and listeners
on this, because there were some points when I was
reading this and I was thinking, maybe this is too
much out of nothing, but then hearing directly from authors
(29:17):
who have gone through this process, because it's not just
about the cover, but it's how it's the cover process,
it's the entire publication process, marketing, reviewing, actually breaking into
the upper echelons of literary circles, which you know, I'm
sure as herculean effort, right, And we we sided Meg
Waltzer earlier, but she pointed out, I mean, it was
(29:40):
her opinion, but she says that some, particularly men, see
most fiction by women is one soft, undifferentiated math that
has little to do with them, and I think part
of that could be the covers. I mean, book blogger
Dan wag Stuff said that the assumption is that women
only want to read certain kinds of stories, and that
men don't want to read books by women at all,
That they tend to be pink, that the pictures tend
(30:01):
to be pretty and domesticated and completely inoffensive and wistful,
and so yeah, I think that does contribute to the
idea that they are all one kind of soft mass
where if you actually looked into them deeper. I mean,
there are plenty, As we said, there are plenty of
incredible female authors out there, and it would be a
(30:22):
shame that something like the book cover just put people off. Yeah,
I mean, I think there should definitely be that variety.
I mean, I'm thinking about this book called The dud
Avocado that was written I think in the forties or fifties,
and it was recently re released, and the cover was
this bright, cheerful green and this picture of a girl
(30:46):
probably I don't know, ninetior twenty years old, very prototypical
girl book. But as soon as I saw it, I
loved it. I immediately wanted to read it because I
was like, I know exactly what this book is going
to be, going to be about a zany girl trying
to figure life out. And then it's sometimes that it's
exactly what I want, and it was, and I just
(31:08):
felt like when I was reading this stuff, I kept
thinking about that. I was like, but that's totally fine,
you know. But contrast that with the Bell Jar and
having like a very similar cover image for that, where
it's like a girl about nineteen or twenty looking like
she's trying to figure out life maybe zany. Well, I
mean that goes back to that whole argument that that
(31:29):
one professor made about like it's it's one thing to
take a book about a z any girl finding her
way through life and put that cheerful, you know, cookie
cover on it. But then you take a book like
The Bell Jar or The Feminine Mystique and you put
like a flowery, uh, super girly makeup cover on it,
and it's like, well, no, but that's what they're talking about,
(31:51):
not being But you know, I would like to toss
this fact out though, um, just as a nod to
the fact that we don't think there's some like massive
conspiracy trying to keep women authors down. Especially this is
about like women fiction writers. For instance, the New York
Times did vote Beloved by Tony Morrison as the best
(32:13):
novel of the past twenty five years. It's fantastic. So
we got that, and we got Jennifer Egans a visit
from the goon Squad, and like a million other books
by women. And I'm not saying that we should only
write read books by women or you know, men's books
are over appreciated. I love male authors as well, but
there is that attitude that women writers aren't as serious
(32:33):
that we still do have to overcome. And I'm not
they're bad male authors. They're bad female authors. I've read
them books. I've read good and bad books by both genders.
But uh, I think there are some attitudes out there
that we can overcome. Yeah, well, I know we've got
some librarians who listen, booksellers, writers who want to hear
(32:54):
from all of you, people who are might be a
little closer to the industry, really curious to get your
thoughts and all. So for just listeners, in terms of
your beach reading, what are you reading and when you're
picking out a book, does the cover make a difference?
Do you judge your books by their cover? Or are
all of your books e books and so you don't
(33:14):
care or notice what the cover looks like. That is
such a good point too that we didn't even bring up. Well,
now we will leave it to our readers to educate us, okay,
or you know you're you're our listeners, but you are
also readers. Yes, we do a very a very literate audience,
I know. So I can't wait to hear from everybody
on this mom stuff at Discovery Dot com is where
(33:35):
you can email us. You can tweet us your thoughts,
that mom stuff podcast, or send us a Facebook message.
And we've got a couple of messages to read. But
before we do that, we're going to take a quick
break and we'll get right back. And now back to
our letters. And these are a couple of messages we've
gotten from Facebook. Bonnie Rights, I'm thirty and just about
(33:56):
to undergo a prophylactic mystectomy, and I was wondering if
you could do a podcast on the Brocco one into
gene variants. Those are, by the way, known as the
breast cancer jeans. And she says this gene is in
fact patented, although update the Supreme Court did a rule
that you cannot patent gene, so it is no longer patented.
(34:16):
She says, knowing this information is really crucial information for
young woman who may have a history a breast cancer
or ovarian cancer in the family. And I wanted to
read her message because a long, long time ago we
did an episode on gene patenting focusing on Brocco one
into gene variants and with the whole news about Angelina
(34:39):
Jolie's preemptive mostectomy for instance, and the developments with Jeene patenting.
I wanted to reach out to listeners to say, Hey,
do you all want an update episode on the breast
cancer gene and if so, we'll do it. But we
gotta hear from you, So tweet us, Facebook us, send
us a telegram. Actually, you can't send alegrams anymore, singing telegrams.
(35:02):
Send us up a jamagram yea. But yeah, if you
want to hear an update episode on the breast cancer jeans,
just let us know and we'll do it. Okay. Well,
speaking of books and librarians and such, and the librarian
wrote to us and said, in response to the podcast
about gender and financial literacy slash illiteracy, I have a
(35:23):
fantastic book recommendations for listeners of any gender that wants
straightforward information about how investments work and more importantly, how
to make your money work for you. It's called The
Bogelhead Guide to Investing by Taylor Laramore, Mel Lindauer, and
Michael L. Book. The title is certainly not as sparkly
as some of the titles mentioned in the podcast, but I,
(35:43):
as I imagine many others also do prefer that these
financial concepts be explaining accurate, real world scenarios as opposed
to being compared somehow to buying shoes. I know, seriously,
and I know me too, Okay, so she continues. The
advice is met for people of all income Braggetts, and
it has certainly helped me understand where my money goes
and how to create a strong financial plan. It's available
on Amazon and bookstores and of course from Anne at
(36:07):
her library. And she includes a PS that I enjoy
because I get really angry when strange men on the
street or on the train or really anywhere tell me
to smile, because get out of my face. What is
your problem? I just wrote a blog post about that recently,
(36:28):
which people good bond and O how stuff works blog well,
she says. PS. I also have a topic suggestion which
we welcome all of your topic suggestions, she says. Street harassment.
There's been a lot of buzz lately about artists Tatiana
faz Laaliza Day and her stop telling women to smile
Gorilla campaign. I think it would be interesting to explore
(36:48):
why men harass women on the street, Gender differences in
street harassment, in the debate between it being harmless or threatening,
and degrading. Well, I've got good news. There's a podcast
of about it and the title is why do Men
cat Call? I Believe? And we talk about Hollowback, which
is a great organization that has really taken on street
(37:10):
harassment and empowered women to stop street harassment and its
tracks safely. So maybe I'll post a link to that episode.
Um and yeah, thanks to everyone who's written in. We
love your suggestions. Keep them coming. Mom Stuff at discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Like us
(37:32):
on Facebook, leave us a message there. You can follow
us on Tumbler as well. It's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot tumbler dot com. And finally you can watch
us as well. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We come
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and don't forget you. Subscribe for moralness than thousands of
(37:56):
other topics, does it housetof works dot com tw
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House to
works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and this is our Summer Reading
two thousand thirteen episode. Every summer we talk about books
(00:25):
because this is the time of year when folks are
hopefully having a little extra time to read. Hopefully, hopefully
you're on a beach somewhere and you're reading, and then
you can tell us about it. I would love to
hear I have really weird beach reads. Let me tell you.
Last summer it was a Curt Vonnegut book. I can't
remember which one. I have a couple of myself. I
(00:45):
can't remember which one was. And the summer before that,
it was The Lee Family of Virginia, So like an
entire book of nonfiction on the leaves, like Robert Ealie
of Virginia. Because I'm just like that sounds like a page.
I know people at the beach are like, what is
They're holding their mystery novels, holding their fifty shades of
(01:05):
gray inside of like an economist magazine? Right, look, legitimate,
are you reading anything right now? Any good? Any good books?
I actually just finished Monkey Mind, a Memoir of Anxiety
by Daniel Smith, because I myself have like just a constant,
low grade baseline anxiety that peaks now and again, and
(01:26):
you can tell because I get really sweaty um, And
I have started reading. I'm taking a break from the
clinical nonfiction stuff to go to uh Lamb, the story
of Christ's childhood pal, written by Christopher Moore. Huh, it's funny.
Um so far, I'm like only like a hundred and
(01:48):
fifty pages into it, and then I kind of want
to read Brain on Fire by that journalist who I
can't remember her name at the moment, young journalist who
basically like kind of law sit for a couple of months. Yeah,
there was an interview with her on NPR that I've
been wanting to listen to her on a Fresh Air. Yeah,
I'm I'm kind of obsessed with books that have anything
(02:10):
to do with the brain or anxiety or anything like that, because,
like I said, I do get anxiety, but also I
get migraines, and so that's why I love reading like
Oliver Stacks, who's a neuropsychologist and talks about hallucinations and
all sorts of brain circuitry stuff. Well, I have been
on more of the lighter side. As I mentioned on
Facebook a few weeks ago, I have now finished Wild,
(02:33):
the memoir by Sherl Strait, who I mentioned in our
episode on Advice Columns. I have a huge writer and
just person crush on. She's fantastic and in so many ways,
and I've been wanting to read her memoir and I did,
and it's great and I highly recommend. I know a
number of listeners commented that they had read it as well.
(02:54):
And kind of randomly, I'm reading Carson mccullor's Wedding guest
or guest at the Wedding Um, about a twelve year
old girl who has quite an imagination. It's more of
a novella, and I just kind of wanted something to
just stip through. It's like a fiction paletate cleanser. And
I'm also reading A Natural History of Breasts or it's
(03:15):
called Breasts a Natural and Unnatural History. And hopefully we'll
have the the author on, but I haven't asked her
to come on yet. So if you're listening, author, this
is your formal invitation. Well, I mean, okay, so what
we're talking about for this summer reading episode is you
know the title can you judge a book by its
(03:36):
gendered cover? And I was thinking about that with when
I walked out of the bookstore with my copy of
Wild and Wedding Guests and this book about Breast, all
of which were slightly feminine. I mean, Wild is a
boot hiking boot on a white background. The Carson mccolor's
(03:59):
book Is is a blurred picture of a young girl
so dancing in the field, which was very prototypical female
author book. And then Press, as you can imagine, it's
got a silhouette of a lad figure. Um. But we
wanted to talk about book covers more than maybe the
substance of books, because online lately there has been a
(04:22):
lot of discussion prompted by female authors about hey, guess
what's going on with these covers. Yeah, and not just
the covers, but we'll also get into a little bit
of the attitude of male authors being taken more seriously
than female authors. There was there was quite a big
debate about that online and you might have heard of this.
It's called the cover flip challenge, and it all started
(04:45):
out on Twitter when author Marine Johnson, who by the way,
I went to her personal side. I thought it was
kind of interesting. She has a very pinkish personal side.
But she kicked off this cover flip challenge to highlight
the high le gendered quote unquote soft sell book covers
in more marketing violence that are often used for books
(05:08):
written by women, And she tweeted, I do wish I
had a dime for every email that says, please put
a non girly cover on your book so I can
read it, Signed a guy, And then she tweeted project
redesigned book covers by literary dudes, imagine they have been
reclassified as by and for women hashtag challenge and hundreds
(05:29):
of people responded. And doing this challenge sort of brought
up the fact that there is this attitude about gender
and about gendered looking books that they're not for boys
or for men, which is ridiculous because it's not like
boys and men can't read books written by female authors,
(05:49):
or not even that they can't or that they don't
want to write right exactly. And so yeah, she just
thought that this whole idea of girl books versus boy
books and chick lit, and she says, whatever is the
guy equivalent of chick lit? Give credit to absolutely no one,
And she just wanted people, as she says, to be
freed from some of these constraints. And so some of
(06:12):
the cover flips that were featured in a side show
Overundhuvington Post were of the book carry Game of Thrones
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by
Sherman Alexei Neil, Game in Stardust, which I know is
a favorite of a number of listeners on the Road
by Jack Kerouac, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, which kicked off
(06:32):
a discussion which we'll talk about as well about gender
and literature. UM. Also a clockwork orange David sedariss Me
talked pretty one day and so forth. And what they
did was they made female versions of these and I
say female in quotes, female versions of these uh covers.
And it was really striking to see the visuals. And
(06:56):
I wish that for a moment that we could somehow
do like a video in lay in this podcast so
that you could see what we're talking about. UM. But
I just trust this when we say that it was
not very hard to turn something like a Game of
Thrones into all of a sudden Game of Throne, you know, right,
(07:18):
And there was one big to do in particular over
one book, and that is Sylvia Platts The bell Jar
uh Favor Books over based in England, rerelease it for
its fiftieth anniversary, and people freaked out because the cover
(07:39):
image was of a quote unquote retrobabe applying makeup, which
which what it looked very prototypical chicklick cover. You would
have no idea. If you had no idea who Sylvia
Plata is, what the bell Jar is about, it would
seem like you were picking up a story about a
girl who I don't know it's going to go on
(08:02):
a lot of dates, or maybe like a ya ya
Sisterhood sequel. And the theory accorded by graphic designer Barbara
de Wilde was that, hey, you know what, maybe this
publisher is just trying to drag in a young crowd.
And the theory was confirmed by said publisher, who wrote
in our endless endeavor to keep our backlist writers in
the minds and hands of new readers, we often look
to packaging as a way of describing an old work afresh,
(08:25):
and their defense of putting you know this, it's a
bright red cover, uh sorely script and a woman applying makeup,
they say, the image on the cover picks up on
the beginning of the story where the narrator is encountering
conflict between new freedom and old assumptions about women's aspirations. Well,
regardless of the defense, I think a lot of people
still got their feathers ruffled by it. Absolutely, And well,
(08:48):
it might seem trivial to spend so much time talking
about book jackets when perhaps you might think, well, does
it really matter what the cover looks like? Is long
is where you know, reading what's inside and really gleaning
the meat from that. But in terms of how we
consume that media and for new readers out there who
were just browsing through bookstores, it absolutely does matter. And
(09:11):
I feel like that point was summed up really well
in a quote from a New York Times article that
came out by The New Republic's Chloe Shama, and she
she wrote a brief piece asking the question of why
there are so many images of female bare backs on books,
And there was this illustration that they did for it.
And indeed, I mean it was just like title after
(09:33):
title that she was listing, and it wasn't necessarily a
thing where it was only women's backs on books. By women.
It was male and female authors, but there seemed to
be something to do with all of well, with it
being just this go to image, but the back issue aside,
and why book designers may or may not be kind
(09:54):
of obsessed with the female back. Her novelist friends said,
a book jacket seems to like the single most efficient
way to signal whether a book has substance or not.
And I feel like that really sums up the point
of even having a conversation about the book jacket, because
if you are an author, it's a very important process,
(10:14):
not just the selecting of the title, but also the
design of your book jacket probably says a lot about
how it's going to be marketed, how it's going to
be reviewed, and whether or not a publisher is really
taking it seriously and considering it, you know, a piece
of literature that they are proud to put out right.
(10:34):
I mean, I know this isn't a book written by
a woman, but the book Lamb that I just referenced
by Christopher Moore, I mean a lot of his book covers,
including Lamb, are very kind of, lack of a better word,
goofy looking, and so you kind of know, like all right,
he's going to write something funny, and I'm okay with that,
and that's what I'm going after. You know, it's I
probably would be put off if I bought a book
with a really serious cover ended up being hysterical. Well,
(10:58):
speaking of which, just on a side out, there was
an article in the Chicago Tribune talking about this and
it mentioned how there was an addition it's actually the
addition that I have of the Feminine Mystique, which has
this giant flower on the cover, and I hadn't really
thought about that before, but it said that this it
(11:18):
was the perfect example of kind of how this marketing
is at work. And they interviewed a professor of feminist
media studies of the University of Iowa, and she said,
these covers are using every stereotype of mainstream femininity to
visually represent work that specifically challenges those very stereotypes. So
(11:38):
it's a really crazy paradox that's going on with the
example of something like the Feminine Mystique, Right, it is funny.
I mean, like, you know, are they literally they well
they must be the publishers literally must just be trying
to get it into the hands of new people and
there's absolutely nothing wrong with publishers wanting to sell books
right now. You and I are very much pro books,
(12:00):
were pro reading. But uh, within these literary circles, Uh,
there's a lot of questions about how all these books
are being sold. And even though the cover flip challenge
sprang up pretty recently, a public internet fuel conversation over
women writers and how they're marketed and regarded in literary
(12:21):
circles as well really first sprang up in two thousand ten,
right after the publication and swift Pulitzer nomination of Jonathan
Franson's book Freedom, which I read it was great. I
love Jonathan Fransen. But Jodi Picole, who wrote House Rules,
My Sister's Keeper, she's a very best selling author. She
makes a lot of money off of her books. But
(12:43):
nevertheless she tweets n Y T New York Times raved
about Franson's new book, is anyone shocked? Would love to
see the n Y t rave about authors who aren't
white male literary darlings, And oh my goodness, I remember
when that happened and it set off this online fire storm. Yeah.
And Jennifer Weiner, who wrote Good in Bed and In
Her Shoes other books like that joined in the conversation,
(13:06):
and she said, I think it's a very old and
deep seated double standard that holds that when a man
writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L,
but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance
or a beach book. In short, it's something unworthy of
a serious critics attention. And they really took the conversation onward,
(13:27):
talking about, you know, who makes the money and who
is the critical success and a lot of times both
of them are men. Yeah, And the the idea that, uh,
you know, a book written by a woman is going
to inherently possibly be considered differently to a critic also
goes along with that whole marketing thing of well, how
(13:48):
are these books even being packaged and sold? And while
all this is going on. Just as another example, uh,
Deborah copecan Cogan writing over the Nation about her own
experience and is more like horror stories really with the
publishing world said there's a reason j. K. Rowling's publishers
demanded that she used initials instead of Joe Anne. It's
(14:10):
the same reason Marian Evans used the pen name George Elliott.
The same reason. Robert Southey, then England's poet Laureate, wrote
to Charlotte Bronte, literature cannot be the business of a
woman's life, and it ought not to be, basically saying
that in order to get the respect, then you know,
maybe you need to cloak some femininity even in your name.
(14:30):
If it comes to that. Well, I mean, if we're
going to talk about that kind of issue and you know,
things being taken seriously, perhaps we should have a sidebar
and talk about a recent issue that Vice magazine ran
into with women literary figures O mercy. This was I
you know, I run across Vice every now and then,
(14:51):
and I mean I get it, Vice, I get you.
I've gotten you for a long time. But and I
never want to get riled by Advice because I feel
like as soon as I get riled about something that's
in Vice, or or think to myself, oh, distasteful vices one,
you know, there's a hipster taking a shot of whiskey
at a bar, you know, and laughing about me. Um.
(15:12):
But Vice had to publicly apologize, probably the first public
apology even that it was kind of a weak one
that they've ever issued, because it put out its Women
in Fiction issue, and in the back of it there
was a fashion spread entitled last Words, which depicted famous
authors including Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, and Dorothy Parker, all
(15:33):
killing themselves, all all mid suicide, wearing wearing clothes that
they had on, and the sidebars calling out the labels
and where you could get them. And I mean, I'll
just say they weren't even well styled, but um, I mean,
and the the Internet rightly freaked out about it, saying
this is disgusting first of all, like you are depicting
(15:57):
the suicide of real people. But I felt like Michelle Dean,
writing over in New York Magazine, made some really insightful
points about it. She said, suicide is fair game for commentary,
regardless of how many others on the Internet crite otherwise
when seeing this spread. But slouching, indifference and sloppiness do
not a real sensation make to address these women's lives
(16:18):
and pain. The work should at least be as smart
as those featured. And I felt like that bit about slouching,
indifference and sloppiness really still gets at the heart of
this larger conversation that is happening among women writers. Well. Also,
I think there's an issue of Jennifer Weiner brought this
up to kind of the fact that men's books, like
(16:40):
like Frandsen's books, can you know their literature with the
capital L versus the family books, like she said, And
there's something to men's books that just become universal. You know,
you write some epic family saga story and it's taken universally,
everybody feels welcome to read it. But there's something about
maybe a woman writing a family saw aaga that maybe
(17:01):
has a woman's back on the cover, and people are like, oh,
that's just like a just like a beach read about
family stuff. Yeah, it's it's it's often more niche, it's
a soft cell. It's chick lit or something. We did
an episode on chick lit a long time ago. And
while there are definitely books that focused on you know,
(17:22):
women meeting men and having martinis and running on beaches
and such, and that's totally fine too, UM, but it's uh,
I think it sometimes can do a disservice for UM
writers at large. Well. But also there are other people,
it's not just the general population who maybe doesn't take
(17:43):
women writers or women's novels seriously. There's also the whole
issue of reviewing books, because you know, if if you
haven't been at the bookstore and a while, you're not
keeping up with what Amazon's telling you you should read like,
you know, you might pick up a magazine, newspaper, or
internet review about books. And a lot of studies have
(18:03):
pointed out that the New York Times Book Review mostly
mostly reviews white dudes. Yeah. VITA, which is an organization
that focuses on women in literary arts and a couple
of years ago, started up a statistical tally of things
like the number of books written by women that are
reviewed in places like New York Times Book Review, also
(18:27):
uh the number of female journalists featured in magazines, etcetera.
And in their tally, they found that of all the
authors reviewed in the publications that it tracks, and it's
high level publications like New York Times Book Review, nearly
three fourths were men. So sigh, yeah. And the Fairness
(18:49):
and Accuracy in reporting two thousand eight report on this topic,
they looked at the New York Times Book Review from
March two thousand eight to January and found that of
the US authors, and this is niche of political books,
were non Latino whites. And I know that it's not
just white men writing books on you know, historical politics
(19:10):
or current day politics, but it, I mean, that is
something interesting to point out because a lot of the
Times reviews like that, especially from those high level publications,
are what drives people to go pick up that book. Well,
and racial diversity too is something that we're not really
addressing in this podcast, but it's something that other authors
(19:31):
have brought up in this whole conversation of saying, yeah, yeah,
women writers too, but hey, guess what writers of color
also exist, and we get even more of a short
shrift than probably white women like a Jodi Picole. I mean, no, nothing,
absolutely nothing against Jodi Picole, but um, you know there
it goes down even even deeper than just a gendered issue.
(19:54):
But go back to gender. Meg Wallets are talked about
this in the New York Times book review actually in
March of and she brought up that issue of the
book jacket. She said, look at some of the jackets
of novels by women, Laundry hanging on a line, a
little girl in a field of wild flowers, like the
Carson mccullor's book that I'm reading right now, a pair
(20:15):
of shoes on a beach, or a single hiking boot,
perhaps an empty swing on the porch of an old
yellow house. Compare these with the typeface only jacket of
Chad Hardback's novel The Art of Fielding, or the jumbo
lettering on the corrections. Such covers, according to a book
publicist I spoke to, Meg Waltz or Rights, tells the reader,
this book is an event. Yeah, And I can totally
(20:37):
see what she means by that. I you know, I
am really drawn to books with strong, bold covers. I
I tend to like that, that that look of a
novel that has like the faded wild flowers on the cover.
I'm like, if there, if there's an empty rocking chair,
(20:57):
I'm probably gonna keep walking. Probably so and so, you know,
covers like the Corrections I find really interesting to look at,
Like and the cover of um and this will take
switch us switch our gears a little bit. But the
cover of Like a Visit from the Goon Squad, which
though was in fact written by a lady, it just
happened to also have a strong graphic cover like some
(21:19):
of those other books we mentioned. Yeah, Jennifer Egan's book
Visit from the Goon Squad is often cited as an
exception to this rule because it is very kind of
linear and straightforward type of design. Whereas as Emily Temple,
writing over at Flavor Wire, who looked at the gendered
cover stuff when she read that Meg Walletzer piece in
(21:42):
New York Times, and she took a group of books,
some written by men and some written by women, and
found that for books like Jeffrey Genity Is the marriage
plot ar to Fielding by Chad Hardback that we mentioned,
the Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen,
i q eighty four by Haruki Murakami, and The Pale
(22:02):
King by David foster Ballas she said, they all had
things in commons such as big block efonts, lots of
white and blue and neutral covers, and even the ring
on the marriage plot almost looks masculine. It looks more
like a wedding band. I thought it was a great
The writers who brought up the cover of the marriage
plot had great things to say. And one of the
points that I really enjoyed was because I I love
(22:24):
Jeffrey ugenitys and I loved his book, The Marriage Plot,
But one of the writers that we looked at did say, like,
all right, that's a man has a strong, bold cover.
But if it had been written by a woman, if
a woman had written a book by the name of
the Marriage Plot, what kind of cover would they have
given that? And would anyone have read it? You know? Like,
(22:44):
I mean, Jeffery Ugenitys is a wonderful writer, and so
I think regardless of what his cover looks like, people
are going to pick up his books. But it was
that question of, like, I mean, are people just gonna
walk by a book about marriage or so they assume
by a woman. Well, and you still often up the
funt even though the script is a little bit uh seraphi.
But you soften it up a little bit, and you
(23:07):
make it a diamond ring instead of a wedding band,
and you put the outline of a bride in a veil,
and it's instead of Jeffrey Eugenitys, it's January Eugenities. What
is the female equivalent of Jeffrey Jessica Jessica Eugenities, Jennifer Jenugenities,
Jenny Okay, a lady named Eugenities, And yeah, it's like
(23:31):
a completely different experience. Um, but with the the group
of female written books that Emily Temple pulled together. She
looked at The Tiger's Wife by Tea oh Brett, all
of kidder Dge by Elizabeth Strout, swamp Landia by Karen Russell,
a Visit from the Goon Squad, the Exception to the Rules.
We talked about the Buddha and the Attic by Julie
(23:52):
Otsuka and The Help by Catherine Stockett, and she said
that they were typified by more seraph's golden yell, low coloring,
more delicate lettering in general, and more illustration. I mean,
but why do you think that is? Why do you
think that a publisher can take or will take a
family saga written by a woman and make it more
(24:13):
flowery script than if a man writes a family saga
which becomes bold lettering and primary colors. Well, I wanted
to try to find whether any book designers had something
to say about this, because I don't think that it's
it's not some conspiracy. We're not trying to comclaim some
conspiracy that all book jacket designers are out to make
(24:36):
sure that women's books never get read or are only
read in chick lit book groups, which you're fine too, um,
but I did find a two thousand seven article in
Poets and Writers that talked about the author's often limited
role in book jacket design. And they interviewed Karen Temple,
who was the founder of the site Readaville, and she
(24:58):
noted how quote unquote list women's fiction, i e. Chick lit,
which I mean you wouldn't call something like a visit
from the goon squad midlist women's fiction, but just speaking
about like uh more of the kind of what would
you say, just like run of the mill books written
by women, she said, it's fallen victim to book jacket tropes,
(25:19):
kind of in the same way that science fiction is
often treated with their very science fiction a types of designs.
And she says, you take a really lovely stock photo,
especially a landscape or a cityscape, legs or shoes, you
superimpost some very pretty star up and there's that word again,
letter space type preferably white. Thereupon it's become every bit
(25:40):
as cliche as any other genres covers. So maybe there's
a little bit of laziness going on. Maybe it's just
you know that it has become such a strong and
probably well selling um genre, that whole midlist women's fiction
thing that maybe publishers just kinda up but all together
and send it out. I don't know. Well, you know,
(26:03):
we talked earlier about um, you know, reviews driving sales,
but designer Terry Juliana Long for Indie Reader does confirm that, hey,
people are out there judging books by their cover and
that solid writing, descriptions and reviews do count. But excellent
book jackets can also snag sales. Excuse me, And I
know I'm I'm not guilty of it because it's not
(26:25):
something to be ashamed of, but I've picked up some
really attractive looking book covers and bookstores that I might
not otherwise have well, And I wonder if a piece
of all of this is the fact that, you know,
women do comprise a majority of book buyers. Um. I
don't have the statistics in front of me, but that's
a pretty well accepted facts. I mean, you can if
you break it down by genre, then you then you
(26:45):
have some differences, but overwhelmingly women do tend to buy
more books than men do. So maybe what's going on
is in the design process they're saying they're going to say, hey,
who is our number one customer? Most likely it's going
to be a woman. What a lady's like laundry on
a line and a breeze, I don't know, and a
(27:06):
a vase full of flowers in the window. And I'm
you know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that,
but I'm a lady who does like some really good
graphic design. And I'm sure you do like flowers in
the vase in the window. I like real flowers in
a vase on a window. Um. But I do hope
that we hear from some authors who may have gone
through this process of getting a book published and getting
(27:26):
a jacket designed, especially if they're doing it with a
publishing house, because it seems like, unless you are an
a list writer, your hand in that and even selecting
the title might not be all that much. You might
get a book sold, and then I hope you like
what it looks like on the outside. And the thing is, though,
(27:50):
the argument that kind of gets swept into all of
this that I don't think is valid is the idea that, oh, well,
we're just complaining that well regarded women writers don't exists.
No that's absolutely not true, and that's not what we're saying.
I mean, do we need to go through a list
of awesome women writers just to prove it we have some?
(28:11):
And also I do think that the argument that well,
men just aren't reading books by or about women is
also a flimsy one. Over at Slate, Esther Bloom actually
took on that idea that you know, men don't want
to read books by or about women, and she says,
really blame the publishers, which brings it all back to
this whole cover flip challenge thing and the marketing angle
(28:33):
to begin with. And she writes, because publishers, editors and
agents fear that men won't read books by women, they
encourage people like J. K. Rowling to hide behind gender
obscuring initials or pen names, and thus they exacerbate the problem.
A male seeming author of a well loved book doesn't
help the change the perceptions of a male reader, just
as a child who atees spinach doesn't come to love
(28:53):
it when it's blended skillfully into his cupcake. And the
whole marketing thing doesn't doesn't help much either. I don't know.
I'm gonna be curious to hear from readers and listeners
on this, because there were some points when I was
reading this and I was thinking, maybe this is too
much out of nothing, but then hearing directly from authors
(29:17):
who have gone through this process, because it's not just
about the cover, but it's how it's the cover process,
it's the entire publication process, marketing, reviewing, actually breaking into
the upper echelons of literary circles, which you know, I'm
sure as herculean effort, right, And we we sided Meg
Waltzer earlier, but she pointed out, I mean, it was
(29:40):
her opinion, but she says that some, particularly men, see
most fiction by women is one soft, undifferentiated math that
has little to do with them, and I think part
of that could be the covers. I mean, book blogger
Dan wag Stuff said that the assumption is that women
only want to read certain kinds of stories, and that
men don't want to read books by women at all,
That they tend to be pink, that the pictures tend
(30:01):
to be pretty and domesticated and completely inoffensive and wistful,
and so yeah, I think that does contribute to the
idea that they are all one kind of soft mass
where if you actually looked into them deeper. I mean,
there are plenty, As we said, there are plenty of
incredible female authors out there, and it would be a
(30:22):
shame that something like the book cover just put people off. Yeah,
I mean, I think there should definitely be that variety.
I mean, I'm thinking about this book called The dud
Avocado that was written I think in the forties or fifties,
and it was recently re released, and the cover was
this bright, cheerful green and this picture of a girl
(30:46):
probably I don't know, ninetior twenty years old, very prototypical
girl book. But as soon as I saw it, I
loved it. I immediately wanted to read it because I
was like, I know exactly what this book is going
to be, going to be about a zany girl trying
to figure life out. And then it's sometimes that it's
exactly what I want, and it was, and I just
(31:08):
felt like when I was reading this stuff, I kept
thinking about that. I was like, but that's totally fine,
you know. But contrast that with the Bell Jar and
having like a very similar cover image for that, where
it's like a girl about nineteen or twenty looking like
she's trying to figure out life maybe zany. Well, I
mean that goes back to that whole argument that that
(31:29):
one professor made about like it's it's one thing to
take a book about a z any girl finding her
way through life and put that cheerful, you know, cookie
cover on it. But then you take a book like
The Bell Jar or The Feminine Mystique and you put
like a flowery, uh, super girly makeup cover on it,
and it's like, well, no, but that's what they're talking about,
(31:51):
not being But you know, I would like to toss
this fact out though, um, just as a nod to
the fact that we don't think there's some like massive
conspiracy trying to keep women authors down. Especially this is
about like women fiction writers. For instance, the New York
Times did vote Beloved by Tony Morrison as the best
(32:13):
novel of the past twenty five years. It's fantastic. So
we got that, and we got Jennifer Egans a visit
from the goon Squad, and like a million other books
by women. And I'm not saying that we should only
write read books by women or you know, men's books
are over appreciated. I love male authors as well, but
there is that attitude that women writers aren't as serious
(32:33):
that we still do have to overcome. And I'm not
they're bad male authors. They're bad female authors. I've read
them books. I've read good and bad books by both genders.
But uh, I think there are some attitudes out there
that we can overcome. Yeah, well, I know we've got
some librarians who listen, booksellers, writers who want to hear
(32:54):
from all of you, people who are might be a
little closer to the industry, really curious to get your
thoughts and all. So for just listeners, in terms of
your beach reading, what are you reading and when you're
picking out a book, does the cover make a difference?
Do you judge your books by their cover? Or are
all of your books e books and so you don't
(33:14):
care or notice what the cover looks like. That is
such a good point too that we didn't even bring up. Well,
now we will leave it to our readers to educate us, okay,
or you know you're you're our listeners, but you are
also readers. Yes, we do a very a very literate audience,
I know. So I can't wait to hear from everybody
on this mom stuff at Discovery Dot com is where
(33:35):
you can email us. You can tweet us your thoughts,
that mom stuff podcast, or send us a Facebook message.
And we've got a couple of messages to read. But
before we do that, we're going to take a quick
break and we'll get right back. And now back to
our letters. And these are a couple of messages we've
gotten from Facebook. Bonnie Rights, I'm thirty and just about
(33:56):
to undergo a prophylactic mystectomy, and I was wondering if
you could do a podcast on the Brocco one into
gene variants. Those are, by the way, known as the
breast cancer jeans. And she says this gene is in
fact patented, although update the Supreme Court did a rule
that you cannot patent gene, so it is no longer patented.
(34:16):
She says, knowing this information is really crucial information for
young woman who may have a history a breast cancer
or ovarian cancer in the family. And I wanted to
read her message because a long, long time ago we
did an episode on gene patenting focusing on Brocco one
into gene variants and with the whole news about Angelina
(34:39):
Jolie's preemptive mostectomy for instance, and the developments with Jeene patenting.
I wanted to reach out to listeners to say, Hey,
do you all want an update episode on the breast
cancer gene and if so, we'll do it. But we
gotta hear from you, So tweet us, Facebook us, send
us a telegram. Actually, you can't send alegrams anymore, singing telegrams.
(35:02):
Send us up a jamagram yea. But yeah, if you
want to hear an update episode on the breast cancer jeans,
just let us know and we'll do it. Okay. Well,
speaking of books and librarians and such, and the librarian
wrote to us and said, in response to the podcast
about gender and financial literacy slash illiteracy, I have a
(35:23):
fantastic book recommendations for listeners of any gender that wants
straightforward information about how investments work and more importantly, how
to make your money work for you. It's called The
Bogelhead Guide to Investing by Taylor Laramore, Mel Lindauer, and
Michael L. Book. The title is certainly not as sparkly
as some of the titles mentioned in the podcast, but I,
(35:43):
as I imagine many others also do prefer that these
financial concepts be explaining accurate, real world scenarios as opposed
to being compared somehow to buying shoes. I know, seriously,
and I know me too, Okay, so she continues. The
advice is met for people of all income Braggetts, and
it has certainly helped me understand where my money goes
and how to create a strong financial plan. It's available
on Amazon and bookstores and of course from Anne at
(36:07):
her library. And she includes a PS that I enjoy
because I get really angry when strange men on the
street or on the train or really anywhere tell me
to smile, because get out of my face. What is
your problem? I just wrote a blog post about that recently,
(36:28):
which people good bond and O how stuff works blog well,
she says. PS. I also have a topic suggestion which
we welcome all of your topic suggestions, she says. Street harassment.
There's been a lot of buzz lately about artists Tatiana
faz Laaliza Day and her stop telling women to smile
Gorilla campaign. I think it would be interesting to explore
(36:48):
why men harass women on the street, Gender differences in
street harassment, in the debate between it being harmless or threatening,
and degrading. Well, I've got good news. There's a podcast
of about it and the title is why do Men
cat Call? I Believe? And we talk about Hollowback, which
is a great organization that has really taken on street
(37:10):
harassment and empowered women to stop street harassment and its
tracks safely. So maybe I'll post a link to that episode.
Um and yeah, thanks to everyone who's written in. We
love your suggestions. Keep them coming. Mom Stuff at discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Like us
(37:32):
on Facebook, leave us a message there. You can follow
us on Tumbler as well. It's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot tumbler dot com. And finally you can watch
us as well. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We come
up with new stuff or times a week. We are
at YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never Told You
and don't forget you. Subscribe for moralness than thousands of
(37:56):
other topics, does it housetof works dot com tw
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