In the Botswana of The No, 1 Ladies', a "fat" woman is often called "traditionally built" - so, it is a compliment. She's being told she looks like a lady should look.

Definitely that gay High School friend who's still in self-denial.

Which is weird, because Shandling played him on an episode of The X-Files

She doesn't obviously love him… where do you get that? In which of her behaviors do you see love?

It's funny, because Scarlett doesn't seem so bad to me in comparison to Melanie.

Well, the main character's a woman, and there's a man who loves her, therefore it's a romance right? Is that your reasoning?

The main plot is Scarlett reacting to the world to get what she wants. Is it romance between the 2 leads when she marries other men? Is it romance when she begrudgingly lets him in her life because he can get her the things she wants? Is it romance when she's jealous of her own child? Is it romance when he rapes her?…

She lives in a war-ravaged land in occupied territory where the old social order has been destroyed. She's an anti-hero because she does immoral things to save herself and the people around her when they might have been homeless or starved to death.

If you've only seen the movie, and Olivia de Havilland's soft doe eyes, she seems like a very nice person. But in the book, she's a zealot whose outer reserve barely hides an almost hysterical madness.

And when he repeatedly rapes the woman who he doesn't "love"

Do you mean when he carries her up the stairs to rape her? Do you mean the times when she grudgingly accepts his attentions because he buys her pretty things? There is no romance between Rhett and Scarlett.

Except that I see a lot of passive victims here. They survived by bending and taking the path of least resistance, where Scarlett bent the world to her will

I thought the book made clear that Melanie was a little nuts. Blindly loyal to the Confederacy and family to the point of being unhinged. Sure, she was charitable and worked hard, but also… showed her inbreeding.

Anti-heroes are still heroic figures, that's why she's a feminist archetype.

You mean she goes from one obsession to another. Rhett and Scarlett are awful people. Ashley and Melanie are awful people. The only not-awful people in the book are Mammy and Prissy.

It really bothers me when people call the book or the movie "romance". Is Citizen Kane a romance because he loves and is loved by a woman?

I saw it last night, and I agree. The closest we've had to 1970's Clash of the Titans movie. This is a dumb, fun movie. I smiled almost the whole way through.

I'm not religious either, but "Do You Hear What I Hear" always gets me because "a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold" is just… a poor homeless kid is shivering in a basket of hay and everyone comes running with comfort and gifts - that's how it should be right? I'm sniffling a little right now,

My favorite Christmas album is Sting's 'If on a Winter's Night'. I'm from the US, so the songs were all new to me. I just love the minor key and sweet hopeful / sorrowful longing of it all. Such a change from our savagely cheerful Christmas music.

I always imagined she was arguing with herself, not him. But then, I associate the song with my first experiences with sexual freedom as an 18-20 year old. I had been crushing on this guy for a year, only to find out he felt the same way. Our first late night 'everyone else has left and here we are' encounters were in…