Banned Books Week and BAND: Two Lists

Banned Books Week

It’s Banned Books Week, the yearly event always sneaks up on me! This year, I failed to intentionally choose a specific banned book with which to celebrate the week in time. Instead, I decided to revisit the lists the ALA has on their website of banned and challenged books and take another tally of how many I’d read. No matter how many times I look at the list, I’m sure to discover more titles on there that leave me stunned. Some of those books have been amongst my favorites of all time, and I cannot imagine being told I can’t read them.

So, I decided to put together my top five favorite banned books (so far)! I still have many more to read, but I’ve already discovered some wonderful gems.

  1. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: This one is a beautiful coming of age story with which I absolutely fell in love. I’ve read it twice to date (that’s a lot for me!) and plan to read it many more times.
  2. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden: I listened to Rebecca Lowman read this book about two teenage girls who fall in love at a time when such things were rarely done and was swept away in the story.
  3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: I love this series for its creativity, its characters, its magical world, and its lessons. I also think it’s brought people to reading who may not otherwise have picked up a book.
  4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: I recently revisited this classic novel on audio, as read by Sissy Spacek. I’ve been lending my copy to the members of my book group, and everyone has raved about it. If you’ve yet to experience this book, do yourself a favor and find a copy!
  5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: Yes, the premise of this one is creepy, but the novel is so spectacularly executed that it deserves the place among great literature it’s attained. Next time I pick this one up, it will be on audio!

What’s your favorite banned book?

BAND: Non-fiction Audiobooks

Switching gears a bit, I decided to participate in BAND’s monthly discussion for the first time! What is BAND, you might ask? Why, it’s the Bloggers’ Alliance of Non-Fiction Devotees, a joint effort between some fantastic bloggers whose goal is to “advocate non-fiction as a non-chore.”

Now, I’m not very good at non-fiction. I wouldn’t say reading it feels like a chore, but I also don’t gravitate toward it when it’s time to choose my next book. I’m hoping participating in BAND will inspire me to do a better job balancing my reading.

This month’s topic, hosted by Cass, is about non-fiction audiobooks. Cass asks:

“If you’ve listened to non-fiction audio books before: What did you enjoy most about the experience? What’s your favorite non-fiction audio book?”

I like this topic, because audiobooks make me happy. I have listened to some non-fiction audiobooks and, overall, enjoyed them. Actually, in looking back at my recent reading, most of my non-fiction has been in audio format.

I think there are two reasons I tend to shy away from non-fiction:

  1. Let’s be honest…some (not all!) of it can be dry. When there’s an enticing novel waiting just a few shelves away, I’m loath to pick up the less exciting option.
  2. It often takes me longer to read non-fiction, which means I really have to want to read such a book to be willing to devote extra time to it.

What’s so neat about audiobooks is that they can (though don’t always) solve both problems. The right narrator can enliven even drier non-fiction, making it more exciting to experience. And with someone else reading, I don’t have to settle for my slow pace yet never find myself struggling to keep up. So, to answer Cass’s question, my favorite part of listening to non-fiction on audio is how the format allows me to overcome the usual hurdles that stand between me and all those non-fiction books!

As for a favorite non-fiction audiobook, most of the ones I’ve listened to have been excellent. I think I’ll have to choose The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (read by Cassandra Campbell) as my top favorite, but The Professor and the Madman by (and read by) Simon Winchester was really good as well.

What about you? Do you listen to non-fiction audiobooks? If so, do you have a favorite? If not, do you think you’d ever give them a try?

Thoughts on “Death Wishing” by Laura Ellen Scott, and a GIVEAWAY!

When Laura Ellen Scott emailed me about Death Wishing, she mentioned she’d gotten my name from Steve Himmer, author of The Bee Loud Glade, which, as many of you know, I adored. How could I resist that connection?

About the Book:

Death Wishing by Laura Ellen ScottThere’s no denying the world is getting strange. An odd phenomenon has sprung up: if people voice a wish just before they die, that wish might come true. So far, this “death wishing” has eliminated cancer and done away with housecats, among other things. Some people are terrified, some see in it a sign, and others are busy concocting schemes to gain from the situation — some harmless, but others not.

In the middle of all this, Victor Swaim is trying to just exist. He moved to New Orleans to recover from his divorce and is happy enough staffing his son’s vintage clothing shop, dabbling in cape and corset design, and trying half-heartedly to win over his young and lovely neighbor, Pebbles. But Victor cannot avoid becoming tangled up in the strangeness, especially when its darker side gets a little too close to home.

(A note on the cover: Each element becomes explained as you read the novel, which I loved!)

My Thoughts:

This premise of certain people being able to change the world with a death-bed wish strikes me as something Jose Saramago would undertake: a bizarre situation, just a twist on our own reality (a plague of blindness, perhaps, or the sudden cessation of death), the effect of which the novel then explores. I love those sorts of books and so was thrilled to discover Death Wishing was one such story. Of course, Saramago and Scott go about the fleshing out of their tales very differently!

Victor is an extremely distinctive and enjoyable narrator with a great, unique voice. He comes alive through Scott’s writing, a complex mixture of goodness and hopelessness and humor that makes him the sort of person you could imagine having a beer with. The book’s other characters come to life through Victor’s eyes, populating the novel with very diverse and realistic people. Scott is masterful in her treatment of interpersonal relationships, deftly capturing tensions, emotions, and dynamics with words.

Scott has a delightful way with language. Victor’s narration is snappy and precise, the dialogue smart but totally believable. There were moments I found myself grinning over a particular phrase, and more than once I backtracked just to reread a sentence I’d especially enjoyed. The book’s subject is rather serious, yet without lightening her subject matter, Scott infuses the novel with bits of humor, woven into Victor’s own personal way of seeing the world. I enjoyed her writing immensely.

Scott did a fantastic job of evoking a weird, almost unreal atmosphere in her New Orleans, which served well as a backdrop for a story both inventive and intriguing. I have never been to New Orleans, but Scott made it come alive for me, a skill I appreciate. Some books create a very distinct mental picture for me, and Death Wishing did that well. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this one!

Those are my thoughts. Check out Death Wishing by Laura Ellen Scott on Goodreads or LibraryThing! If I’ve missed your review, please let me know and I’ll add a link.

Has this review piqued your interest? Lucky you — you have a chance to win a copy of your own!

Giveaway: Win a copy of Death Wishing by Laura Ellen Scott!

The giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered, and congratulations to the winners!

Sunday Salon: Cheerleader Sign-Ups, New Acquisitions, and #wordverify!

The Sunday Salon.comToday is an exciting day! I have three fabulous things to share with you. I’ll jump right in.

Read-A-Thon Cheerleader Sign-Ups

That’s right, today sign-ups begin for cheerleaders for the October 22nd Read-A-Thon! After cheering for several past Read-A-Thons, this year I’m co-chairing the cheerleading committee with the fabulous Trish. We’re so excited!

The main Read-A-Thon website has all the info you need to sign up, so if you’re already convinced, head over there and add your name to the list of awesome people willing to cheer their fellow readers on. If you need more convincing, here are some reasons I love being a Read-A-Thon cheerleader:

  1. October 2011 Read-A-Thon Cheerleader BadgeCheering gives you a break from reading! If you have ever tried to read for 24 hours straight, and you do not have superhuman powers of wakefulness, you know it gets to be a lot. What better way to reinvigorate yourself than by visiting some of your fellow readers with encouraging words?
  2. Cheering gives the readers you cheer for a boost of energy! We all love getting comments, tweets, etc, right? During the Read-A-Thon, providing that moral support falls mostly to the cheerleaders. In short, we provide a gigantic dose of enthusiasm to help keep participants going.
  3. Cheering turns the solitary activity of reading into a social event! You get a chance to visit some great, possibly new-to-you blogs and readers throughout the day.
  4. If you can’t participate for the whole event, cheering makes the most of the time you can! Whatever time you have for the Read-A-Thon, cheering is a great way to spend some of it. A few hours of cheering let you get involved in the community aspect of the Read-A-Thon.

Are you convinced?? I hope so! Go sign up! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask away.

New poster and booksNew Acquisitions

I haven’t posted about my new acquisitions lately, mostly because I’ve intentionally been acquiring fewer books. This week, though, I got some new bookish things from a few different sources, so I wanted to share.

On the bottom is The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen, which came to me via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. I’ve heard some interesting things about it and am looking forward to reading it soon. (If you’ve read this one, do you think it would make a good Read-A-Thon book?)

Next are two books I picked up at a library used book sale: a collection of three novels by E.M. Forster (Howards End, A Room with a View, and Where Angels Fear to Tread), three of whose books I’ve already enjoyed, and The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly.

The top book in the stack is By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham, which I won from Wendy of Caribousmom during Book Blogger Appreciation Week and can’t wait to read. It’s been on my TBR list since it came out!

And finally, on top of it all (literally), is a gorgeous Little House on the Prairie print I won from Melanie at lit*chick! She has an Etsy store called the Paper Pear where she sells these literary prints, and they are lovely. This one is going over my desk, right next to my fiction shelves.

That’s it for me for this week. Have you acquired anything new and exciting?

#wordverify

This final piece of Sunday business has a bit of a story to it. During Book Blogger Appreciation Week, in the middle of a marathon commenting session, I tweeted wondering if anyone would care to join me in creating a new language based on CAPTCHA strings. Sheila from Book Journey replied that at one time she’d run a weekly meme called Word Verification Balderdash treating word verification strings like words in the board game Balderdash — in other words, picking out your favorite nonsense strings and making up definitions to go along with them! For example (from Sheila’s blog):

“Revent: When one becomes so upset about something they have to just get it out so they vent about it. Then…. hours later, something triggers this anger again and causes one to revent.”

The meme was passed to Ryan at Wordsmithonia and eventually stopped. I was excited to hear about Sheila’s meme and sorry I’d missed out. I LOVE Balderdash! Sheila gave me her blessing to reincarnate her idea, which I’m hoping to do as a Twitter hashtag: #wordverify. (I nixed #wordverification because it takes up so many precious characters!)

Quite honestly, I have no idea how to start a Twitter hashtag. I’m hoping others will like this idea and it will just catch on! I realize for some blogs word verification is necessary, but I’m also pretty sure we all get tired of typing in nonsense strings over and over. So, hopefully #wordverify will make those pesky codes a little more fun. (Also, this totally counts toward my post BBAW goal of learning about Twitter. I’m trying to start a hashtag, for goodness sake!)

Whew! That’s all for me today. I’m off to watch some football! How is your Sunday shaping up?

Reading Buddies: October Reminders

Can you believe it’s almost October? That means it’s almost time for Reading Buddies to start Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides!

Reading Buddies badge and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (cover)

If’ you’re unfamiliar with how these informal, laid back readalongs work, please check out the Reading Buddies page. I’ll be posting about Middlesex twice:

Discussion post: Friday, October 14, 2011
Wrap-up post: Friday, October 28, 2011

You’re welcome to post as often as you like or not at all, but I do hope you’ll stop by and join the discussion as you read. You can also join the Reading Buddies Goodreads group or sign up for monthly email reminders if you’d like.

I’m trying something a bit new this month. If you’re thinking of joining in, please leave a comment on this post saying so! You’re by no means obligated if it turns out you can’t participate this time around, but having some idea who’s most likely participating will help me keep track of everyone. Thanks!

Finally, don’t forget to vote in the poll for November’s book, over in the sidebar. The chosen book will be announced on October 7, along with any informal reads that might be starting up.

Thoughts on “The Borrower” by Rebecca Makkai (Audiobook)

I received a copy of The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai on audio for review from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

About the Book:

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai (audiobook cover)Lucy Hull is a 20-something children’s librarian in Hannibal, Missouri. Her favorite patron is a ten-year-old boy named Ian, and Lucy happily helps Ian smuggle books deemed inappropriate by his conservative evangelist mother past her watchful eyes.

Then Ian starts to change, seeming moodier and less interested in books each time Lucy sees him, until one morning, Lucy arrives at work early to find Ian had stowed himself away in the library the night before and slept among the books. She means to simply drive Ian home, to parents with whom she may disagree but who must certainly be worried sick, but instead finds herself setting off on an illicit road trip that quickly snowballs out of Lucy’s control.

My Thoughts:

When I requested The Borrower through LibraryThing, it looked to me to have potential. The plot was original and rather intriguing, and I found myself curious to see how the author would develop it. And the cover — kind of cool, right? I’m sorry to say I was disappointed on all fronts. (Well, with the exception of the cover…that’s still pretty neat. That, and the book is sprinkled with lots of bookish allusions, which is always fun.)

My biggest problem was Lucy, the narrator and main character. She and I did not get along from the start. I started off confused, having trouble getting a sense of her character. She often mentioned her discomfort with the standard mild-mannered librarian stereotype, yet in no way did this admission seem relevant to the plot. As the story moved forward, I discovered that Lucy was incapable of taking responsibility for anything that happened to her — even when she herself had instigated it. She spent numerous pages pondering the circumstances of her life and her Russian heritage as though they might provide her with answers, yet though she had plenty of room to grow as a character she never seemed to learn anything. I had no sympathy for her at all and, on the contrary, spent most of the novel feeling annoyed and fed up with her.

Throughout the novel there were also odd passages written to imitate well-known children’s picture books, like Goodnight Moon, but focusing on Lucy and Ian’s story. I found them disruptive and a bit random, not to mention confusingly age inappropriate, seeing as Ian was repeatedly described as reading chapter books and there was no younger child in the novel. Emily Bauer read these passages in a very exaggerated way, making them even more jarring.

Finally, the ending annoyed me enormously. I spent the entire novel suspecting that it would, and it did.

SPOILER ALERT!

I wanted Lucy to answer for what she had done, no matter now unintentional her “kidnapping” had been. I didn’t like her enough to accept that she slipped away from Hannibal protected by Ian’s invented cover story, free to start her new life somewhere else. I was left feeling the entire novel had been pointless, that both characters ended up where they’d started despite their ill-advised sojourn together.

As for the audio production, I may have been a bit biased from the start. Emily Bauer is one of those readers I tend to avoid, as her style of reading grates on me. The characters she portrays always come across whiny — which, though it may have worked for Lucy, certainly did nothing to endear Makkai’s main character to me. Bauer’s voice is high to begin with, which is fine, but when she modulates it even higher to do Ian’s 10-year-old voice, the effect is almost cartoonish. I don’t think Bauer’s narration was the sole reason I disliked The Borrower, but was one of them.

Instead of continuing with my own comments, I will direct you over to Bonjour, Cass! where the lovely Cass has written a review with a different focus but with which I heartily agree.

Those are my thoughts. Check out The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai on Goodreads or LibraryThing, listen to an Audible sample, or read other bloggers’ reviews:

If I missed your review, please let me know and I’ll add a link!