BW35: Stifled September

Courtesy Laura Tegan at Bloggity Blog Blog Blog

Welcome to Stifled September celebrating freedom to read and our author flavor of the month -  Marco Polo.

Banned Books Week doesn't officially start until September 27th and runs through October 3rd,  however I figured the cause deserves a whole month.  According to ALA's  Office of Intellectual Freedom the most frequently challenged books for 2014 for a variety of reasons are:


1)  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
2)  Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
3)  And Tango Makes Three, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
4)  The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
5)  It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
6)  Saga, by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
7)  The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
8)  The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
9)  A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard
10)  Drama, by Raina Telgemeier

There have been quite a number of classics that have been challenged over the years including The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, For Whom the Bell Tolls and a few other Ernest Hemingway titles, 1984 (kind of ironic), Gone with the Wind and The Lord of the Rings to name a few.

Check out the links, perused the titles and read one, two or maybe more banned and/or challenged books this month.


Our Author Flavor of the Month is Marco Polo.  I originally planned it to be Michel De Montaigne, however I've talked about him time and time again so decided as an alternative it would be Marco Polo.  Especially since a number of ladies on the Well Trained Mind forum have been yearning to read the book and watch the companion movie In the Footsteps of Marco Polo.
















I watched the movie a couple years back with my son and it was quite fascinating.  There are a number of books to check out via Amazon List and Goodreads.  Find out more information about Polo through The Silkroad Foundation as well as informational videos about him on Bio., The History Channel and National Geographic.

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History of the Medieval World 

Chapter 40 Intersection 302- 306 

Chapter 41 Troubles of Empire 307 - 316

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BW34: National Book Festival

Here is where I'd like to be on September 5th: The 15th anniversary celebration of The Library of Congress National Book Festival.  They will be celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the arrival of Thomas Jefferson's Personal library to the Library of Congress as well as the 15th anniversary of the Veterans History Project.  Have fun exploring their site. 

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History of the Medieval World

Chapter 38 Tang Dominance  282 - 290

Chapter 39 - the Tribe of Faith 291 - 301

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 Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. 

BW33: Bookish Birthdays and Book News!

Happy Sunday, my darlings.  It is time for another installment of bookish birthdays and book news.

Authors celebrating birthdays this week are:



August 16 

Hugo Gernsback- Father of Science Fiction (1884 - 1967) 
Georgette Heyer - Regency Romance (1902 - 1974)


August 17

Charlotte Forten Grimke- African American Poet and essayist ( 1837 - 1914 )
John Hawkes  - American novelist (1925 - 1998)  


August 18 

Elsa Morante - Italian Author  (1912 - 1985)
Alain Robbe-Grillet  - French novelist (1922 - 2008)


August 19  

Minna Canth - Finnish novelist and social activist ( 1844 - 1897) 
James Gould Cozens - American novelist and Pulitzer Prize Winner (1903 - 1978)  


August 20

H.P. Lovecraft - Horror fiction (1890 - 1937) 
Salvatore Quasimodo - Italian poet and Nobel Prize Winner (1901 - 1968)


August 21

Gennady Agyi - Russian Poet (1934 - 2006) 
Lucius Shepard - American Sci fi/Fantasy (1943 - 2014)


August 22

Ray Bradbury - American Science Fiction novelist (1920 - 2012)
Colm Toibin - Irish novelist   (1955 - 60th Birthday)



Bookish News


Micromegas - Voltaire's rare children's book (Brain pickings)

Guardian's 2015 Longlist 

NYT Sunday Book Review - Why do we always proclaim that the Novel is dead?

Get your colored pencils - Fantastic Cities is here

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History of the Medieval World 

Chapter 37 - The Prophet  pp 273 - 281

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 Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. 

BW32: Spell your name Book challenge

I have a challenge for you and the goal is to complete it by the end of the year.  The challenge is to spell your first name using the first letter of the title.  And no, you can't pick a book with your name in the title.  *grin*   We can't count books we have already read since the beginning of the year.   You can pick from your current stacks or pick out something completely new.   I decided to stick with my current stacks and surprisingly found I didn't have any hard bound books to spell  my name. So perused my ebooks.  I'm notorious for downloading stories.  However I take forever to read them and archive many so I have fewer choices pick from. Or archive because I changed my mind and can't fathom why I ever picked the book in the first place.  I had a few 'what was I thinking?' titles which are a complete mystery.  Some I had forgotten and had 'oh my gosh, I really wanted to read that one' moments.    My picks are:

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History of the Medieval World - Chapter  36 Persian Crusade pp 261 - 272 

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 Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. 

BW31 - Analogical August

Courtesy of Pinterest and Beautyreform.com

Welcome to Analogical August and our theme of all things analogous and our author flavor of the month - Isabel Allende.  

Analogies, metaphors, and similes - oh my! 

 “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
― Truman Capote

If people were like rain, I was like drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

 “A house without books is like a room without windows.”
― Horace Mann

Imagine my surprise when I went on line to look up analogical reasoning and got caught up in Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy.  Our theme this month will have us exploring trails that are long and narrow, wide and short or meandering through the backwoods and back roads, getting lost..... or found as the case may be. *grin*   Yes, I'm a fan of rabbit trails.  So whether you go the nonfiction or fiction route, you'll have much to choose from.

When you think of analogies, what authors spring to mind?  Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Tolkein or Bradbury? How about Rowling or our author flavor of the month, Isabel Allende.  

I've had The House of the Spirits on my shelves for quite a while, but as is the case with many of my books, never got around to reading the story. It is the first, her debut novel.  Since then, she has written over 20 novels, which have been translated into 35 languages and for which she has won many awards.  

The astonishing debut of a gifted storyteller, The House of the Spirits is both a symbolic family saga and the story of an unnamed Latin American country's turbulent history. Isabel Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants, including Esteban, the patriarch, a volatile and proud man whose lust for land is legendary and who is haunted by tyrannical passion for the wife he can never completely possess; Clara, the matriarch, elusive and mysterious, who foretells family tragedy and shapes the fortunes of the house and the Truebas; Blanca, their daughter, soft-spoken yet rebellious, whose shocking love for the son of her father’s foreman fuels Esteban’s everlasting contempt, even as it produces the grandchild he adores; and Alba, the fruit of Blanca’s forbidden love, a luminous beauty and a fiery and willful woman.

The Trueba family's passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds.

Check out her website for more information about her and her books, plus watch her TED talks on how to live a passionate life, as well as her foundation supporting women and children.

Join me in reading all things analogical and dive into one (or more) of Isabel Allende's magical stories. 

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History of the Medieval World

Chapter 35 Gregory the Great pp 572 - 604 

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 Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post.