Books

20 Astoundingly Bad Romance Novel Covers

Moaning, groaning, and oiled-hunk-boning with Uncle Walter & Co.

By UNCLE WALTER AND THE WIFE | February 13, 2011

Sure, we all love contemplating glistening Adonises, swashbuckling buccaneers, and loincloth-straining savages — but not as much as Uncle Walter does. Like feverish magpies, Uncle Walter and his co-conspirator, The Wife, gather up the greatest pectoral excesses ever to grace a supermarket paperback and put them on display for all the world to revel in at rottenromance.com.

For our V-Day extravaganza, Uncle Walter has been kind enough to smear a little bit of that magic coconut oil on our humble rag. Behold, some of his favorite romance-novel covers -- click forth for the ultimate in tawdry, dog-eared seduction.

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Review: Per Petterson plumbs The River of Time
Why would Per Petterson — the bestselling Scandinavian writer whose books don't feature an invincible crimefighting heroine — curse the river of time when he is so adept at navigating it?
Fall Books Preview: Getting booked
Two Sedarises, two New Yorker favorites, and a famous neurologist are among the highlights of this fall’s book events.
Fall Books Preview: Reading list
Even if you’re not back in the classroom, autumn inspires a desire to learn, to restore the intellectualism that was fried by too many beers and barbecues and sunburns. Fortunately, Portland is full this fall with opportunities to spark your smarts.
The man in the yellow fur coat
The cultural critic Mark Dery worked as a clerk for Manhattan's Gotham Book Mart in the early '80s. One afternoon, he was taken by surprise.
So you thought you were special
Reading Hannah Holmes's work is enlightening and entertaining — even when it's at its most depressing.
Strange world
Bob Pfeifer's debut novel, University of Strangers (published by Power City Press, the print arm of the punk label Smog Veil Records), is a fictionalized retelling of a sensational, true-life murder case, as related in the voices of real people.
How a Rembrandt wound up on a pig farm
The next time you're bored on a Friday night and considering a caper at the RISD Museum, Anthony Amore wants you to consider this: you're more likely to make a few bucks begging the high school crowd on Thayer Street.
Review: My Afternoons with Margueritte
European cinema doesn't have as many sure-fire formulas as Hollywood, but the one described, I think, by Pauline Kael as the "lonely child, clean old man" scenario has long endured.
Don't read these books!!
The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union will host its annual Banned Books event on September 23 at 6 pm at the Providence Athenaeum.
They, and Gideon Bok, are nothing but subjective
Commonly artists prefer to work away from public scrutiny, shielded from revealing the awkward phases of creation, to emerge with a finished work of art that will last, if not for eternity, at least for quite a while.
Exploring deep within
Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself .
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