The site is back, and now hosted by a brand new company, along with my other sites. I have a HUGE stack of books ready to review for you, including the new Barbara Delinksi and the new Stephen King. Look for more new content coming this weekend.
From Zoot today:
Bold those you’ve read.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish.
Add an asterisk * to those you have read more than once.
Underline those on your To Be Read list.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Crime and Punishment
*Catch-22
*One Hundred Years of Solitude
*Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
*The Name of the Rose
*Don Quixote
Moby Dick
*Ulysses
Madame Bovary
*The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
*Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
*The Time Traveller’s Wife
*The Iliad
Emma
*The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
*Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
*Love in the Time of Cholera
*Brave New World
*The Fountainhead
*Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
*The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
*A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
*The Grapes of Wrath
*The Poisonwood Bible
*1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
*Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
*Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
*The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
*A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
*Beloved
*Slaughterhouse-Five
*The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
*Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
*The Catcher in the Rye
*On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
*Freakonomics
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
*The Three Musketeers
Yes, I am an English Literature and Clinical Psychology person, how could you tell? *wink I’ve read all of the books on the list (and, in fact, they are all on my bookshelf but a few I lent out never to see again).
If you do the meme, put a link to your blog in comments!
How the first amendment helps fight banned books and ensure our freedom to read freely.
Not many bookworms have time to think about what guarantees our freedom to read what we want, when want to read it, wherever we want to do so. There are so many countries around the world where you can’t just read any book that you take a liking to. It boggles the mind to think about.
If you are lucky enough to get your hands on a contraband book in some countries, you certainly don’t have the freedom to sit under a tree on a beautiful day and read it under a clear blue sky. You’d have to read it in secret and keep the book and your newfound knowledge hidden.
So how did America get so lucky? When we ratified the Constitution, we included the First Amendment. You can read the full text of the First Amendment here.
Over the years we have had to fight battle after battle to keep the freedoms inherent in this Amendment. So who and what do we have to thank for keeping our freedom to read intact over the years? Quite a few lawyers and judges, as it turns out.
You can read a synopsis of the struggle over the First Amendment on this page. It includes brief descriptions of the groundbreaking cases and other facts surrounding the First Amendment and its effect on Banned Books.
Out of the Top 100 books of the 20th Century as listed by the Radcliff Publishing Course, 42 are or have been on the banned or challenged book list.
The 42 Banned or Challenged Books from the Radcliff Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century:
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
(challenged due to language and sexual
references)
• Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
(banned and challenged numerous times over the years for being anti white, obscene, language, vulgarity,
content, sexually explicit, violent, blasphemy, moral issues, and more)
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
(banned or challenged for language, vulgarity, taking the lord’s name in vain, sexual references)
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
(banned or challenged for use of the word nigger, for promoting racial segregation, for racial themes, for language)
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker
(banned or challenged for sexual and social explicitness, rough language, violence, racial and reglious issues)
• Ulysses, James Joyce
(Burned in US and other countries)
• Beloved, Toni Morrison
(Banned and challenged for violence and sexual material)
• The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
(Banned or challenged due to violence, sexual content, racism and demoralizing humans)
• 1984, George Orwell
(banned or challenged for being procommunist and sexually explicit)
• Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
(banned or challenged for obscenity)
• Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
(banned or challenged for profanity, lack of patriotism on the part of the author, blasphemy, indecency)
• Catch-22, Joseph Heller
(banned or challenged for sexual reference)
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
(banned or challenged for a variety of variation son the theme of lacking in moral content and promoting
promiscuity)
• The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
(burned in Nazi bonfires, banned in several US cities)
• As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
(banned or challenged for obscenity, abortion references and sexual content)
• A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
(banned in several US cities)
• Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
(banned in several US cities)
• Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
(banned or challenged for sexual explicitness and language)
• Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
(banned or challenged for violence and vulgarity)
• Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
(banned or challenged for racial issues and obscenity)
• Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
(banned or challenged for issues of race)
• Native Son, Richard Wright
(banned or challenged for language, violance, sex, profanity)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
(banned or challenged for encouraging criminal behavior, corrupting youth and containing passages of bestiality,
violence, torture, dismemberment, death, and depraved acts)
• Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
(this book has been banned or challenged in numorous places, but is noteworthy for being burned in North Dakota
as late as 1973)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
(banned overseas)
• The Call of the Wild, Jack London
(banned overseas, burned in Nazi bonfires in 1933)
• Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
(banned or challenged for depicting rape, violence and hatred of women)
• All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
(challenged in several US cities)
• The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
(banned overseas, burned in Nazi bonfires 1933)
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover, DH Lawrence
(banned or challenged for sexual themes and moral issues)
• A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
(banned or challenged for language and profanity)
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
(banned or challenged for sex, violence and profanity)
• Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
(banned overseas, author et al sentenced to death by the Ayatolla Khommeni if he ever sets foot in his home
country again, book banned in many US cities)
• Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
(challenged, never banned)
• Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
(challenged in several US cities)
• A Separate Peace, John Knowles
(banned or challenged for language and sexual content)
• Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
(banned for obscenity)
• Women in Love, DH Lawrence
(banned or challenged for obscenity)
• The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
(banned in Canada and Australia)
• Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
(banned as obscene)
• An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
(banned in Boston and burned in Nazi bonfires 1933)
• Rabbit, Run, John Updike
(banned or challenged for obscenity, indecency and sexuality)
(you can view the complete list of 100 greatest novels here)
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in Missouri, 1928. She lived a tough life, which she later chronicled in her memoirs such as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings†and “All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoesâ€. When her parents got a divorce, she was sent to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas because her mother could not care for her.
Stamps, Arkansas was an important part of her life and featured prominently in her books, memoirs and poetry. Her grandmother and close childhood friend name to Mrs. Flowers helped her get through be shuffled from place to place by her mother, and being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. The pain she suffered in her youth is part of what gives her poetry and other writings such poignancy.
Maya Angelou is a shining example of someone who has overcome adversity. She also has been instrumental in the modern civil rights movement. Her writing brings hope to people who live in poverty, who have suffered abuse and who have any kind of daily struggle to overcome. Her writing especially speaks to women and African-Americans and the issues and struggles that they face.
She has been given several awards and accolades over the years, not the least of which was being asked to read a poem at a presidential inauguration – that of President Bill Clinton. She is only the second poet in history to read for President. The only other poet to receive that honor was Robert frost during President Kennedy’s inauguration. She was nominated for Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for her poetry in the volume “Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Dieâ€.
Maya Angelou is completely self educated, and in spite of having no college degree has received honorary degrees and teaching positions from several colleges. In fact she has a lifetime chair at Wake Forest University. She has also taught at the University of Ghana and the University of Kansas. She speaks several languages including French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian and Ghanian Fante.
She has recorded spoken word and music albums; has danced, sung and acted on stages around the world and in films; and has written poetry, novels and memoirs. She’s even been nominated for a Tony Award. Her son, Guy Johnson, is a poet as well – following in his mother’s footsteps.
I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, 1970.
GATHER TOGETHER IN MY NAME, 1974.
SINGIN’ AND SWINGIN’ AND GETTIN’ MERRY LIKE CHRISTMAS, 1976.
THE HEART OF A WOMAN, 1981.
ALL GOD’S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES, 1986.
A SONG FLUNG UP TO HEAVEN, 2002.
THE COMPLETE COLLECTED AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF MAYA ANGELOU, 2004
WOULDN’T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW, 1993.
EVEN THE STARS LOOK LONESOME, 1997.
HALLELUJAH! THE WELCOME TABLE: A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES WITH RECIPES, 2004.
LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME, 1993.
MAYA’S WORLD: Izak of Lapland, 2004
MAYA’S WORLD: Angelia of Italy, 2004
MAYA’S WORLD: Renée Marie of France, 2004
MAYA’S WORLD: Mikale of Hawaii, 2004
JUST GIVE ME A COOL DRINK OF WATER ‘FORE I DIIIE, 1971
OH PRAY MY WINGS ARE GONNA FIT ME WELL, 1975.
AND STILL I RISE, 1978.
SHAKER, WHY DON’T YOU SING, 1983.
NOW SHEBA SINGS THE SONG, 1987.
I SHALL NOT BE MOVED, 1990.
“ON THE PULSE OF MORNING,” 1993.
THE COMPLETE COLLECTED POEMS OF MAYA ANGELOU, 1994.
PHENOMENAL WOMAN: FOUR POEMS FOR WOMEN, 1995.
“A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH,” 1995.
“FROM A BLACK WOMAN TO A BLACK MAN,” 1995.
“MOTHER, A CRADLE TO HOLD ME,” 2006.
“CELEBRATIONS, RITUALS OF PEACE & PRAYER,” 2006.
CABARET FOR FREEDOM, 1960
THE LEAST OF THESE, 1966.
GETTIN’ UP STAYED ON MY MIND, 1967.
AJAX, 1974.
AND STILL I RISE, 1976.
MOON ON A RAINBOW SHAWL, 1988.
GEORGIA, GEORGIA, 1972.
ALL DAY LONG, 1974.
Find out more about Maya Angelou:
In a nod to changing technology, Harper Collins will offer content for the iPhone. Nice!
HarperCollins announced Wednesday that it had set up a special link, http://mobile.harpercollins.com, that will allow browsers to view excerpts from more than a dozen new releases, including Michael C. White’s “Soul Catcher” and Michael Korda’s “Ike,” a biography of President Eisenhower.
Madeleine L’Engle passed away on Thursday at age 88 of natural causes. Cyndy wrote a fitting tribute on Shakespere I Ain’t, and the NY Times has the obituary write up.
Are you a Harry Potter fan missing your Potter fix and wanting more Rowling scribbles? You could get your wish. JustJared celeb blog reports sightings in Scotland of Rowling working on a new series: a detective series. Speculation is rampant about the series, but so far all that seems certain is that it will most likely be set in Scotland. If it is half as good as Harry Potter, I don’t mind being clueless until the first book comes out.
For Harry Potter fans, this book was the much anticipated end. For me, the book as a whole was enjoyable, but the ending was a great disappointment. Rowling has been many things over the course of her infamous young adult series, but until this moment, trite was never one of them. Unfortunately, she chose to give an ending designed to make those fans that need rainbows and sunshine blown up their asses happy, instead of the right ending for the book. I appreciate that the right ending would have been the hard ending, and the most difficult choice(s), but it was needed. A friend and colleague mentions Rowling’s desperate need for an editor in her review of the book, and I think she is spot on – a good editor would have challenged this ending for the pablum that it was.
Now that you have my synopsis, this is fair warning of spoilers ahead for those who haven’t read the book. If you don’t like to know how things turn out before you read them yourself, or if you are still way back on one of the earlier books, stop reading.
As with any series, there have been other times when a choice made by Rowling sent the storyline in a direction I was not happy following, because it didn’t seem to fit. The other diversions (Using Cho and then Ginny as a love interest is one example that comes to mind) never took the story too far off course, however; and I always thought of them as Rowling’s way of giving a nod to that portion of her fans that thought Harry needed that kind of story arc to “make him more believable”. I much prefer a story that makes the harder choice, on the whole, but I am fully aware that not everyone is like that.
This book followed the path Rowling took with books five and six. That is to say it ran long overall, and had a few glaringly weak plot points that made the story stumble in places. In spite of these brief hitches in flow, I was going along swimmingly, as usual unable to put the book down. One thing Rowling has mastered is the art of making us want to know how each book ends, in spite of anything else. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you know what I mean. It is much more rare for a Harry Potter reader to draw out the reading over several days than it is to finish the book in as close to one sitting as possible. For the most part, Rowling’s words are like potato chips – you can’t have just one, you want them all. Have I tortured the metaphor enough yet in trying to make my point?
One of my favorite parts of the book happened within the first few pages of chapter three: the Dursleys were finally out of the picture. To say they outlived their usefulness to the plot several books ago would be too kind. I let out an actual whoop once it sunk in I wouldn’t have to read about them any more once I flipped to the next chapter. The first clue that I wouldn’t like the ending also happened in that chapter, when the hideous Dudley was given a pat chance to “redeem’ himself with a stumbled, red-faced pseudo “apology”. Little alarms began to ring in my head. Surely Rowling would have the courage it took to give the story a fitting end?
When we began to see what was happening with all of the major characters, I was distracted from my trepidation about the way the story would end. By the time we were at Fleur and Bill’s wedding I had quite forgotten it might be an issue. By the time Ron chickened out of the mission like a little brat, hurting Hermoine and possibly damaging his friendship with Harry, I had even forgotten this was to be the last book – I was quite immersed in the story unfolding. In fact, I was so engrossed I almost didn’t notice the odd constructs of time that went on while Harry and Hermoine were supposed to be spending weeks or months in hiding. I still couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with the overall story arc’s timing there, to be honest. It just had an underlying weirdness of time to it that didn’t match the events in the story quite right. Luckily, by that time the fact that I was hooked kept me from dwelling on it too much.
Once Harry, Hermoine and Ron were captured and taken to Bellatrix and the Malfoys, I kept my fingers crossed that Draco, at least, would not be “mysteriously contrite”. Thankfully, he was the same sniveling coward he’s always been in the stories right up until the very end. I was worried, after the Dudley incident, that Rowling was going to try and redeem all of the “bad” major players, which would have been a crushing blow to the stories. Happily that was not to be the case.
One of her character decisions that made me sad was the short shrift she gave to certain characters, like McGonagall and Hagrid. Sure, they were in the story, but not as much as I felt they should be considering the major role they had played until now. Not only that, McGonagall, especially was written in a very different way this time – as if she was more coward than not. Since I’d never seen her as one to run and hide, or even to squeal at spiders, for example, the way she was portrayed truly surprised me.
Some people have complained that Rowling lied about how many people died in this book. Not really. It depends on our definition of death in relation to Harry Potter’s world. I believe she split hairs, especially on Harry. He technically “died”, she just didn’t leave him dead for whatever reason. If you take into account the hair splitting and the sudden compulsion for a happy ending that defied both logic and story line, then she killed off exactly how many characters she promised.
That brings me to the ending. What the heck was that all about? The strong way to end the story would have been having Harry die, then having Ron, Hermoine and Neville realize what was happening and complete the task after his death opened the door for them to do so. The end. None of the useless tripe about getting married, having kids and all that crap. Ron and Hermoine you already assumed would have a happily ever after, complete with traditional Weasley brood. We didn’t need that part spelled out. Harry should have never had a love interest in the first place – he was never that kind of hero. The clean ending would have lopped off the last chapter altogether and include a true hero’s death for Harry and hero’s actions for his cohorts, not the sniveling, puling, blowing-sunshine-and-rainbows-up-my-ass “Dallas” style “dream sequence” “not death”. Shame on you Rowling, for being chicken when it mattered most.
•••
If you are late to the game and want to see what all the fuss has been about, get your books here.
Tags: harry potter, jk rowling
Technorati Tags: harry potter, jk rowling
The full article is here. Featured: GoodReads, LibraryThing, and more. They forgot BookCrossing, though.
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