BW39: Banned Books Week

The theme for Banned Books Week this year is "Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us." Banned Books Week was created in 1982 by the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom, in response to challenges and requests to ban books from libraries and bookstores due to their content. Poems and poetry collections, and poets have also been censored throughout history including Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I have the book on my shelves, so will have to dive in to see what the fuss is all about.

According to the American Library Association the top ten most challenged books and the reasons why for the past year are:

1. "George by Alex Gino: Reasons: Challenged, banned, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, conflicting with a religious viewpoint, and not reflecting “the values of our community”
2. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds: Reasons: Banned and challenged because of author’s public statements, and because of claims that the book contains “selective storytelling incidents” and does not encompass racism against all people
3. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely: Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, drug use, and alcoholism, and because it was thought to promote anti-police views, contain divisive topics, and be “too much of a sensitive matter right now”
4. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted because it was thought to contain a political viewpoint and it was claimed to be biased against male students, and for the novel’s inclusion of rape and profanity
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie: Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references, and allegations of sexual misconduct by the author
6. Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin: Reasons: Challenged for “divisive language” and because it was thought to promote anti-police views
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and their negative effect on students, featuring a “white savior” character, and its perception of the Black experience
8. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and their negative effect on students
9. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and depicts child sexual abuse
10. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: Reasons: Challenged for profanity, and it was thought to promote an anti-police message."

Celebrate your freedom to read a banned or challenged book this week!

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 91. Mother and Son
Chapter 92. The Suicide
Chapter 93. Valentine 

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Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW38: September Equinox

 

Climb aboard our good ship Pumdeg Dau o Lyfrau and let us sail over the trees and seas and look upon the leaves for the September Equinox is upon us with Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere.  Let's follow the breeze and celebrate the changing of the season and fall into reading with a book about the seasons, the changing of the guard, the passing of time. Maybe even get an early start on something spooky as October is coming up fast.  

The sights and sounds of autumn are my favorite time of year with the wind  rustling through the branches, and the crunch and crackle of fallen leaves. All the shades of yellow and orange and purple and red form a colorful palette on which to play.  

"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize.  The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot, letter to Miss Lewis, 1st October 1841"

What is your favorite part of the season?

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 88. The Insult
Chapter 89. The Night
Chapter 90. The Meeting

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Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW37: Book Lust by Nancy Pearl

 

To me, reading is as necessary as breathing. Without my books, I get very cranky.  I love the stories that make you sigh as well as the ones that make you hold your breath and forget to let it out.  The ones that grab you and pull you into the world of the characters, the ones that make you want to dive into the world of the book and not let go. The ones that make you think, and the ones that make you laugh out loud or cry. The ones that make you wish you had the imagination to write,  along with the ones that make you want to throw them across the room for various reasons. The ones that stay with you long after you've finished the book.  And the ones that make you want to revisit them over and over again.

If you can't tell by now, I have a case of book lust which brings me to Nancy Pearl, the author of Book Lust and so much more. 

It was just announced that The National Book Foundation will be presenting to Nancy Pearl the 2021 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community on Nov 17, 2021. 

Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Lust to Go are so much fun to peruse, but I have to admit to getting lost in rabbit trails while looking up books which of course had lead to a startling long wishlist and an ever growing TBR stack.  Pearl even has a Book Lust Journal in which to record your thoughts on stories. Check out Pearl's Podcasts, her interview on How Reading Informs the Person That You Are, and the Millions interview about her first fictional novel George and Lizzie and Getting Out of Her Own Skin.

Share which book or books have you added to your stacks lately? 

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 85. The Journey
Chapter 86. The Trial
Chapter 87. The Challenge

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Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW36: 52 Books bingo - Number in the Title

 

Happy Sunday! If you are a procrastinator, then today is your day as it is Be Late for Something Day. Your excuse. You got caught up in a book as you wanted to get a head start on Read a Book Day on Labor Day. 

Which brings us to our next 52 Books Bingo category which is read a book with a Number in the Title.  You can interpret it any way you like by reading a book with an actual number in the title or the word number in the title or with numbers on the cover or a book about numbers. 

Out of curiosity, I would like to know: What is your favorite number and why?

I fell in like with this poem the instant I read it. 

NUMBERS BY MARY CORNISH

I like the generosity of numbers.

The way, for example,

they are willing to count

anything or anyone:

two pickles, one door to the room,

eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition—

add two cups of milk and stir—

the sense of plenty: six plums

on the ground, three more

falling from the tree.

And multiplication’s school

of fish times fish,

whose silver bodies breed

beneath the shadow

of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,

just addition somewhere else:

five sparrows take away two,

the two in someone else’s

garden now.

There’s an amplitude to long division,

as it opens Chinese take-out

box by paper box,

inside every folded cookie

a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised

by the gift of an odd remainder,

footloose at the end:

forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,

with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mother’s call,

two Italians off to the sea,

one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

Have fun following rabbit trails of numbers

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Count of Monte Cristo 

Chapter 82. The Burglary

Chapter 83. The Hand of God

Chapter 84. Beauchamp

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Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.