A number of independents have closed or gone out of business in the last ten years, but we do have a few that are both awesome and long-standing. There's a market for them that probably doesn't exist everywhere else. That said, I'm not above sneaking a peek at the paperbacks and checking ig my library has it, if it's…

The only time I object to reading a female author is if she's taking a ham-fisted approach to squeezing in a gay character "just because". I'd much rather read Jane Austen or Margaret Atwood or Curtis Sittenfeld and skip some of the silliness. But I'd say probably 50-70% of the fiction I read a year is by women.

NY Times book list oh and sneaking a peek at one's locally owned book seller.

If it's a movie that will star some B-list current teen heartthrob and the young woman who loves him despite all his "flaws" (too tall, too short, only 6 pack abs etc), that's what I think of Sparks.

It's like when I borrow or even buy Michael Thomas Ford: I know what I'm getting. Beach book, with some furry man sex on the side.

I have occasionally enjoyed chick lit, but rarely, and only in the right frame of mind. It's gilded turd, but sometimes you want a gilded turd.

She's probably a step up from the beach book set, which is where I think Sparks lands, but she's not exactly Toni Morrison either.

Picoult is an extremely prolific author, at a bout a book a year, sometimes more. She's a really bad example of this and, to be completely frank, her books really are formulaic enough to fall into the Nicholas Sparks box, although she's not as terrible as he is. Atwood's opinion on this subject is and has been, much…

Sessist! /s

Well Picoult puts out a book at a rate of at least one a year, so she's really a terrible representative for the point of view that women can't get published.

^This. The plot summaries on her books are terrible and if I have to commit dollars to a book, I'm not going to waste money on formulaic crap.

Just nuke it and call it a day.

They will never get it. They probably don't even know any history before 1990. It's not as if back in 68 everyone was on board with burning down these vast streets, nor that white people were the only people to leave the cities: everyone who could left, including the black upper and middle class. They can't even…

The looting makes perfect sense to me.

Like happened back during the riots of the late 60s that ended up doing more to destroy the urban ghettos than it affected anybody else?

Lesbians are the best comedians. There, I said it.

People watch Jimmy Kimmel? When I can just watch Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime/go to sleep because old?