Rolf Potts (who knows a thing or two about travel writing) pretty well sums it up: http://www.worldhum.com/books/item/one_mans_odyssey_into_eat_pray_love_20080211/

Esteemed Salon books editors:

I understand that next week's featured literary genre is going to be Maritime Fantasy. I, for one, am getting really tired of your blatant pandering to pirates. Where, may I ask, am I represented in your pages? It's all pirates, all the time, and don't try to tell me that you focus on a different literary genre of summer reading every week, and it's just that next week's happens to be about pirates, because I'm far too busy to actually pay any attention to such trivialities. I don't see why I should be expected to both comment on an article and read it.

Please, Salon, why can't you see that by running a feature about a literary genre that I'm not particularly interested in, you're clearly putting the wants and needs of pirates above the rest of us, especially me. I urge you to shift to some less pirate-centric content, and instead focus on something that we can all get behind, like the problems I'm having with voles.

Sincerely,

A Persecuted Reader

To the people complaining about the "demographics"... Read the article, please! Opening paragraph:

"Salon's staff is recommending summer books you can really sink your teeth into. Last week we featured killer thrillers. In this second installment, we spotlight four novels that loosely fall under the category of chick lit. " (emphasis added)

It's an ONGOING SERIES. Salon is not "abandoning the male demographic".

I would agree that the books you listed would probably only be read by women but I don't consider them the preferred lit of chicks by any stretch. These are a beachy, 1 hour trash reads. And this particular quote " Like many single women of a certain age, the characters are so wrapped up in their own self-pity -- envying happy couples, sniffling in their beds, bemoaning the fact that their lives did not turn out as they had planned (as though anyone's does!) -- that they have committed themselves indeed. Not to men, but to their own misery. " is just an offense to women "of a certain age" everywhere. I don't married couples. I enjoy married couples and I hardly think I'm unusual in that regard. How sad that single women are still considered sad and bitter for choosing to be single. No thanks Ms. Hepola. I'll stick to my own reading list.

I dunno, I thought the picture on the homepage, where they photoshopped the the laptop into a book, but didn't bother to photoshop a bra into the rather chilly photo studio, seemed pretty targeted at the male demographic...

Just wondering, have you abandoned the male demographic entirely?

It's fine if you did, but a heads up would have been nice...

Dear Salon,

I was, predictably enough, quite interested this morning to see that you'd published an article on "summer reading", and I'd intended to read it until I saw the "chick lit" bidness.

My first thought was "Oh Lord....not another 1001-letters Salon article on what is and isn't 'chick-lit' (and whether 'chick-lit' even exists, blah-blah-blah...."

I think things would become much easier/simpler for everyone if Salon simply anounced that, sometime in its fairly recent history, there's been at least one meeting during which the editor, several main writers, and the advertising/marketing directors (most importantly) have ALREADY decided on the demographic Salon.com intends to "reach out to".

Even I can figure out what that demographic is.

Why don't you just announce it?

For various reasons, reading salon.com during the past year (which is scarcely my frist year of acquaintanceship with the publication) has reminded me of the three or so months (when I was 28 or so) when a number of us here in dirty Durham, NC began to realize that the new owner of the historically gay-bar had decided that it would make better business-sense if the joint turned into a "black singles bar". The assumption was that we would, of course, have nowhere else to go with our pennies and would stay....

Just to be blunt?...my gathering impression is that Salon,.com now quite deliberately markets itself to a certain sort of woman over 45 and a recognizably different sort of woman between 18 & 30.

that's all fine and good, of course....but you might as well just SAY it....

Sincerely,

David Terry

www.davidterryart.com

... ask this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKiWWi8rdJQ

And if he doesn't answer your email inquiries, here's a partial list of his readings from 2006...

http://www.palewire.com/2007/02/08/how-much-does-george-bush-read/

These seem good beach reads for 20-something ladies. Now how about something for us middle-aged gay readers?

What's good this year for us? Is there a "Call Me By Your Name" or a "The Master" out there for us?