Romance Bookstore Table

[Lykren]

I work at a bookstore and for February we're setting up a table with love-themed books. Any suggestions for titles? To give you an idea of what we're looking for, here are a few that we've thought of:

Pride and Prejudice
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
If Not, Winter
The Notebook
Winners, by Danielle Steel
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Gone With the Wind

[Lykren]

Actually we probably have enough now; but still, if anyone can think of something obvious that we've left out, let me know. Here's the whole list:

Pride and Prejudice
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
If Not, Winter
The Notebook
Winners, by Danielle Steel
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Gone With the Wind
Jane Eyre
Anna Karenina
Wuthering Heights
Pygmalion
Keats
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Rumi: The Book of Love
and a couple art books and romance-related trinkets.

[mal4mac]

Women in Love - D. H. Lawrence

[Lokasenna]

Lolita..? :P

[mona amon]

Twilight. :)

[Lykren]

Thanks, guys. Yes, I did think of Lolita, but my co-worker nixed it as 'too creepy'. Twilight, yes of course! And Women in Love, that works well too.

[Calidore]

I've only read the first three of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, but those three were excellent.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned anything Arthurian yet. That's a romance that has survived in pop culture for, what, 1200 years? It has pretty much everything. You could put Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in with the classics and something like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon for the people who prefer more modern works.

[qimissung]

The Love Letter by Cathleen Schine

[qimissung]

The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard by Constant J. Mews and Neville Chiavaroli-and what about The Great Gatsby? He did do it all for the love of Daisy, after all. Oh, and Daisy Miller. Also Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman.

[Lykren]

I've only read the first three of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, but those three were excellent.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned anything Arthurian yet. That's a romance that has survived in pop culture for, what, 1200 years? It has pretty much everything. You could put Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in with the classics and something like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon for the people who prefer more modern works.

Thing is, we're looking for books whose focus is specifically romantic love, not just books that include a love story.

Qimi - Heloise and Abelard! Yes, good thinking, I will see if we have anything on them. Great Gatsby is also a good one, though (and I've been accused of being too picky about this) I'd say its not so much a love story, or even a fable of the consequences of excess, as it is an exercise in lyrical prose. Daisy Miller I haven't read, but have heard of. The other two you mentioned I have not heard of, but I will definitely look them up.

[JBI]

I don't know - the literary public and the reading public are two different groups. With the exception of a cross over canon - such as Jane Austen, and various victorian authors - the vast majority of the reading public would rather spend their dime on a harlequin romance. Stocking the shelves with love poetry is going to hurt sales, as even big readers of literary fiction do not read poetry, unless of course this is some specialty literary kind of bookstore.

Either way, Brokeback Mountain comes to mind, but I haven't read the whole collection it is republished in.

[AuntShecky]

Love in the Time of Cholera

Portrait of a Lady

Wuthering Heights already mentioned. Tess of the D'Ubervilles


In Love and Trouble short stories by Alice Walker

Waiting to Exhale Terry McMillan

The Unbearable Lightness of Being milan Kundera

Ada, or Ardor Nabokov

Couples by John Updike

[Calidore]

Thing is, we're looking for books whose focus is specifically romantic love, not just books that include a love story.

h well, so much for Arthur. My recommendation for Outlander can still stand, though.

[qimissung]

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bedier

[Lykren]

Hey, thanks so much for helping out guys. The table's pretty much set up now. I did add Love in the Time of Cholera, but not Tess of the D'urbervilles, which we don't carry (terrible, I know - we could've ordered it, but I thought it didn't have that optimistic feel that, you know, Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights have... I think I'll order it anyways, actually).

I did not know that Unbearable Lightness of Being was a love story, Aunty! I may try to make room for it.

JBI, really, you're right. But it's my project, and I'm enjoying exercising power, mere peon though I might be. We're not a specialty bookstore, just a general interest store in the middle of downtown Santa Barbara, California. We seem to sell across the spectrum, though. I sold One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as several mass-market thrillers today, though you are correct that poetry really does not sell. I've worked at the store for about two and a half months and can't recall ringing up a single book of poetry, at least not off the top of my head. But again, that's fine with me. It's my table and I get to stock it (mostly) with books I've read and think will fit the theme.

I am holding off on putting the Tale of Genji up there, at least - it's a personal favorite and is all about romance, but I'm sure no one would pay attention to it - it's been my staff pick for a month and has barely been looked at :(

[qimissung]

It rarely works to play to the lowest common denominator anyway, TV notwithstanding.

[mal4mac]

I am holding off on putting the Tale of Genji up there, at least - it's a personal favorite and is all about romance, but I'm sure no one would pay attention to it - it's been my staff pick for a month and has barely been looked at :

As I've read most of the others, I'd probably pick this one out to look at. And it's your favourite, so why wouldn't you include it? Are you just a pawn of popular opinion and financial forces? Who cares if it's hardly been looked at?

[Lykren]

As I've read most of the others, I'd probably pick this one out to look at. And it's your favourite, so why wouldn't you include it? Are you just a pawn of popular opinion and financial forces? Who cares if it's hardly been looked at?

I guess you're right. Up it goes.