Skip navigation

Category Archives: Books

Banned Books Week

This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, a week-long celebration of the right to read.

Throughout history, books have faced challenges and bans from people around the world. These challenges come from groups and individuals who have taken it upon themselves to determine what is “appropriate” for others to be reading based on tired dogma and personal opinion. In the words of Granville Hicks, “[a] censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.”

Some of the greatest pieces of literature ever written have been banned or challenged in schools, churches, and public libraries for various reasons. The Great Gatsby, for example (one of my favorite books), was challenged in 1987 by Charleston, South Carolina’s Baptist College because of “language and sexual references in the book.” Now I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that this particular phrase could have been used to challenge the presence of the Holy Bible, considering the Old Testament features several chapters which single-handedly contain more explicit sexual references than anything written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. J.D. Salinger’s classic tale of teen rebellion, Catcher in the Rye, was banned for being “a filthy, filthy book.” That’s a bit of a vague excuse if you ask me, and makes me wonder if the people behind that challenge had actually read the entire book, as, in an amusing twist, the narrator believes a “catcher in the rye” to be one who safeguards the innocence of children. As recently as 2009 To Kill a Mockingbird has been challenged for use of the word “nigger” among other language that was dubbed as inappropriate. The list goes on and on, and increases in absurdity. The works of Tolkien, a staunch Catholic, burned in New Mexico in 2001 as “satanic.” Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying “[b]anned at Central High School in Louisville, KY (1994) temporarily because the book uses profanity and questions the existence of God.”

More recent works are facing challenges and bans as well. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Captain Underpants have all been threatened with removal from library shelves. I’ve personally encountered people willing to ban materials on nothing more than hearsay. My mother, herself a Catholic, has encountered this at the bookstore she owns and operates.
Customer sees Harry Potter on the shelf: “I can’t believe you have that book in your store! It’s about devil worship and magic and terrible things!”
Mum: “Have you actually read the books?”
Customer: “Well, no, but I heard that they were bad.”
Mum: “Well, if you actually took the time to read the book, you’d learn that they’re about a little boy who overcomes terrible adversity and still manages to become a good person despite facing an evil enemy bent on the destruction of the world, and that there’s nothing harmful about the books.”
Customer: “Oh.”
It’s enough to drive a person insane. “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” -attributed to Stephen Hawking

My favorite response to any of these challenges is taken from Oscar Wilde, a man who knew quite a bit about dealing with people who were upset by things that he wrote and did. “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” Humans have an unfortunate history of trying to hide our mistakes and our failures, from the child who attempts to disguise the fact that he wet the bed to avoid the anger of a parent to the government that covers up evidence that it had authorized criminal acts against its own people. It’s human nature, I suppose, but it shouldn’t stop us from learning from our own mistakes. If we hide away all of the bad things that people have done in the past, we can’t do that. You know what they say about learning from the past, and those who are unable to do so.

We need to get over this. If I may be rather earnest, it’s bullshit. Books are here, and they’re being read. If you stop someone from getting a copy at their local library, that might slow them down for a while, but the information, the ideas, are still out in the world. We can’t stop people from experiencing life. Sex and profanity and hate and love and violence are going to be there, whether someone read about it in a book or not. We’ve screwed things up before. Let’s not do that again. 

It’s Banned Books Week. I’m celebrating by reading as many banned or challenged titles as I can. I work in a public library and a bookstore, and I’m providing the people with free ideas and ideas of freedom. “[a]nd ideas are bulletproof.” -V (This V, not that V) 

The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling‘s first post-Harry Potter novel is coming soon. The Casual Vacancy is the writing superstar’s newest work of fiction, and is apparently a standalone work rather than the start of a new series. The literary world is buzzing with rumors about the book and how it might stack up against Rowling’s previous work. I can’t wait, though I find it hard to knowingly invite comparisons between what quickly became one of the best-selling (and most frequently challenged) books of all time and something that would seem to be in a completely different genre. I’m doing my very best to avoid any spoilers, because I want to take on The Casual Vacancy with as open an outlook as possible.

People are complaining that it’s too simple, too 70s, too garish. I like it.

To add to the excitement (at least for me), the book is releasing days before the start of Banned Books Week 2012. Considering the fuss that Rowling’s earlier works caused in the community of morons who decide that they have to determine what other people read, I can’t wait to see the reactions to this new novel. To sum up, I’m thrilled for next week, even though I’m probably going to have to wait for a library copy to arrive (it’s on hold for me). A fan on goodreads said it best, and so I’ll paraphrase. The topic of the book makes no difference. Rowling’s words are always magical.

Triumph

Sometimes it’s the little victories that bring us the most joy. For me, one of the biggest such triumphs is knocking out a title from my “to-read” list. I’ve finally gotten it under control recently, though one of my coworkers at the library has described making progress on a reading list as a feat akin to slaying a hydra…

No, not the kind from “Captain America”

In my line of work, I’m generally adding a new book to my to-read list every other day. After a staff meeting a few weeks ago where one of my coworkers introduced us to the concept of the reading map via this example she created, I knew that I had to add yet another. You see, this reading map introduced me to Erin Morgenstern and her debut novel, The Night Circus. I was absolutely blown away by the book, which is a strange and fantastic combination of the magic competition presented in The Prestige and the environment presented in Something Wicked This Way Comes. Morgenstern weaves a tale of intrigue and romance as two young illusionists compete in a game with a mysterious circus serving as the venue. Celia and Marco are bound to the game by their masters, neither of them fully aware of the rules, including the fact that only one of them can survive. The Night Circus is a series of complex rings, much like the black and white striped tents that make up the titular location. I couldn’t put it down. Finishing it is one of those little victories. I can’t recommend it enough.

Next up on the reading list is another debut novel, A Once Crowded Sky. See you soon.

Point of Reference

In my new position at the public library, I’ve been learning my way around the print reference collection. Let me say this. If a library is a magical place, the reference collection is the source of the power. In my ignorance, I had never ventured behind the reference desk during my initial year at my branch. After spending a mere half hour wandering through the shelves, I realized the error of my ways.

I have been spending my initial training days studying the print reference collection because it is an integral part of our library. Even if most of the searching and problem solving that reference librarians and information services specialists do now is done online, knowing our way around the physical reference section is critical.

Even if it’s only a matter of being able to search for information in the event that the power goes out or the internet is down, I know where I can go to find necessary info for my patrons or for myself. There’s something incredibly satisfying about being able to go to a shelf, pull a book, and open it to the page you need for the data you are trying to find.

A part of me really misses the old card catalogs of my youth. That’s right, folks, I grew up learning the Dewey Decimal system so that I could find a 3×5 card with a book’s call number on it, match the number on the card to a book on the shelf, and take that book to the librarian to check out. Now I understand and fully accept that technological advancements have made it so that a card catalog is now found in a museum rather than a library, but I am still proud that I know how to use it. (I file that accomplishment along with my knowledge of 8-track tapes, rotary phones, and manual transmissions.)

I’ve found all manner of wonderful tools to put to use, both for myself and for others. Here’s a few of them.

 

I am very pleased to have found copies of books like these on the shelves. I foresee a great deal of free time being spent browsing through the reference collection now, and I am happy to say that research for future projects is going to be a lot more fun than I ever would have guessed.

Freshly Pressed Versus Oppressed

For those of you who don’t know, I work in a public library. Those of you who do know me should be aware that I have taken a strong stance against censorship in all forms, especially in the last few years, but it started long ago, back when I first discovered Banned Books Week. Even as a young child, I was a voracious reader, having completed my own trips through The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings by the time I started second grade. I wanted to read everything that I could get my hands on, and I couldn’t understand why it was that some people would try to keep other people from reading anything.

The process of banning books is a lengthy one. Books are challenged all the time, by parents and religious groups and teachers. Librarians don’t sift through the books they’re acquiring to determine whether or not they should go on the shelves. Librarians (and libraries) promote the ability of the patron to access any information the patron may seek, regardless of personal opinion. Personal opinion should never EVER come into play when determining what works should be available to the public. “When filling their shelves, librarians do not judge the content of books on whether it would be suitable for all audiences. As public institutions, libraries may not discriminate on disseminating information on the basis of age, sex or race, which means that people can check out whatever materials they choose. That said, libraries request that parents and guardians of minors monitor their selections.” -Cristen Conger, How Stuff Works

People come up with all manner of excuses for why they want to ban certain books. This one has violence in it. That one has sex in it. There’s offensive language here. There’s racial insensitivity there. In many cases from my personal experience, however, the people who are attempting to ban a book have not read it for themselves. They have merely taken negative hype surrounding a book and made their opinion solely based on the opinions of others. Yay, sheeple!

Earlier this week, I was at work when a library patron came in, returning a book on playaway that he claimed was “pornography” and demanding that we start the ball rolling to get the book banned from our library. The title in question? Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Ever read anything by Warren Ellis? This is the guy who created Transmetropolitan, the story of journalist Spider Jersualem, whose character is heavily inspired by the real life of Hunter S. Thompson and who uses a bowel disruptor gun as his weapon of choice. Crooked Little Vein is unabashedly intense. Reading the blurb on the case could have told him that. Thirty seconds on the internet could have told this patron that.

From wikipedia: “Michael McGill, a burned-out private eye is hired by a corrupt White House Chief of Staff to find a second “secret” United States Constitution, which had been lost in a whorehouse by Richard Nixon. What follows is a scavenger hunt across America, exposing its seedier side along the way. McGill is joined by surreal college student side-kick, Trix, who is writing a thesis on sexual fetishes. McGill has to deal with strange events sometimes unrelated to his adventures – he describes himself as a ‘shit-magnet’, with weird phenomena following him wherever he goes…About.com reviewer Jonathan Lasser called Crooked Little Vein “an ace put-up job” and that it was “evidence that freedom is more valuable than repression”. Whitney Pastorek, reviewing for Entertainment Weekly takes pains to note that the work “is not for the faint of heart”, and that Ellis has “got a bright future outside of the picture books”. 

I don’t even know that this patron finished the book. My honest guess? He got too upset because something in the book disagreed with his narrow world view and shut it off. Ignorance is not bliss, people. Ignorance is ignorance, plain and simple. We have to move to the point of object permanence. Hell, two-year-olds understand that covering her eyes doesn’t make mommy disappear. We’ve got way too many heads and not enough sand for this crap to work. Acknowledge that there might be something out there that you don’t agree with, and that it’s not going to go away.

I’m tired of people blaming writers for things that they don’t like. I’m tired of people taking offense at libraries for providing freedom of access to material. Book banning and challenging is a form of oppression of the people. We need to open our eyes, and face the future with courage. Stop book banning. Stop ignorance. Embrace knowledge. Visit your local library and tell them how much you appreciate what they do for you. I’m going to go read Warren Ellis.

On Books

This is one of the best articles on books that I’ve read in a long time, and I’ve gone back to it several times over the last month because I’ve been trying to decide when it was appropriate to share it with you, dear readers. The writer of the article, Tom Nissley, writes that e-Books may indeed have their place in the future, and that he hopes that the influence of paper books not be forgotten. “I don’t mean to make a fetish out of printed books, and I’m not asking to burn (or delete) ebooks, or their devices. Maybe all I ask is that digital books be designed in ways that give them character, that help them live and survive individually in your mind, rather than being translated into a common, anonymous display that passes through your memory as quickly as you scroll.” He concludes with a wonderful statement on the printed book. “And as for physical books: I’d just like them to survive, or at least be remembered, and not just as the playthings of a child.”

In the continued spirit of sharing, here’s another article for you. This one concerns the ability of a character in a book being able to modify your life. How often have you read a book and found one of the characters so intriguing, so influential, that you wanted to be more like him or her? Which characters have proven to have the most impact on you? Why do you think that is?

The last share of the day is this. How many of you have ever had the chance to watch a book being printed? Now you have. Sit back, watch the movie. It’s under two minutes, but it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of film that I’ve ever seen.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to try to write a horror story or two.

Stephen King’s “N.”

Three and a half years ago, Stephen King released a short story collection entitled Just After Sunset. Twelve of the stories in the book had been previously published, leaving one new title to bring the total up to that wonderful number of thirteen. That story was N.

N. was one of the most terrifying stories that I’d read at the time I first encountered the book, and it still chills. King crafted a phenomenal series of layers of narrative. N. is the story of a psychiatrist named John and a patient referred to in his records only by his first initial, the titular N. N. is suffering from insomnia and severe obsessive compulsive disorder that he claims stem from a visit to a field near John’s home town. When N. eventually commits suicide, John is driven to investigate more, to see if there was something that he could have done to save his patient.

The outer layers of the story focus on John’s investigation and the impact that his own visit to the field has on his family and friends. It’s eventually revealed that part of the madness that comes upon the people who visit Ackerman’s Field derives from a series of standing stones in the middle of the field. There are seven stones (a bad number) there when the field is viewed by the naked eye. Gazing through a filter of some sort such as a camera, however, reveals an eighth stone. Is it there? Touching each of the stones in turn seems to prove that there are eight, but the other stone isn’t always there. N. believed that something, some Lovecraftian horror, lurked in the center of the stones, and as long as there were eight (a good number), it would be contained. “Eight stones would keep them captive, but if there were only seven…they’d come flooding from the darkness on the other side and overwhelm the world,” he said. Was he right, or is it only a delusion?

I recently returned to the world of N. Marc Guggenheim and Alex Maleev collaborated with Stephen King to transform his novella into a skillfully paced graphic novel.  If you’re a fan of well-written horror, I would highly recommend giving N. a read, in either format. The graphic novel maintains the delightful and terrifying prose that King is known for, and shows just how unsettling uncertainty can be.

King himself has said that, despite the Lovecraftian atmosphere of the story, it’s actually inspired by Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan, of which Lovecraft himself said “No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds.” Time to add that to the list of stuff to read tonight.

In the Queue

“Leave this to me. I’m British. I know how to queue.” 

One of the best things about my library is the fact that I can put things on hold, and they’ll be delivered promptly for pickup whenever they become available. It’s like Netflix for books. Even new releases can be placed on hold before they physically arrive in the library system. This means that I can track the upcoming books, order them, and get in a queue for things before they’re in stores. Now, granted, everyone in the library system has this ability, but few people utilize it to the fullest. I like to use it to keep up with some of my favorite new manga series. I’m also around fifth in line for a DVD copy of Game of Thrones, and I am thrilled. I didn’t watch any of the episodes when they aired, for two reasons. One, I’m too cheap to pay for HBO, and two, I wanted to finish reading all of the available books before I started the show. Now I can sit down and watch the whole thing.

Speaking of television, has anyone seen the BBC series Sherlock yet? It’s in my instant queue, and as soon as I can dedicate a few hours to it, I’m going to power through. It’s three episodes, each about an hour and a half long, and from all of the reviews I’ve heard/read, it’s absolutely genius. I’ll let you know my verdict, but I can only imagine the power of a show about a modern version of Sherlock Holmes starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. I absolutely love Sherlock Holmes anyway, and I’m quite happy to see that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work is getting so much attention right now.

Since getting back from my trip, I have started a new schedule at work. This has several benefits, most notably the fact that I am now earning partial benefits. I have more hours each week, a slight pay raise, and the same awesome people to work with. Yet another advantage: I’ve got the same schedule every week, instead of my old alternating schedule. My girlfriend and I can carpool three out of my five work days, saving both of us a lot of wear and tear on cars, and money on gas. All in all, it’s a very good thing. Things are looking up. I’m still hunting for a second part-time job, but I’m also starting to be brave and send out emails to the big publishers and submitting short stories to various publications. Needless to say, there’s a lot to do in the near future. Good thing I have plenty of new TV and books to read, and things to write. Look forward to a new writing challenge entry, coming soon to a blog near you.

The Sun Also Rises

I’m rereading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises today, and I blame Woody Allen. Actually, I blame Corey Stoll and his incredible performance as Ernest Hemingway in Allen’s latest film, which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Stoll’s performance was only one of the many constant bright points in the film, but it was this moment that really won me over. I knew then that I was going to have to return to one of my favorite books of all time. It’s quite the change of pace from the other story that I’ve been reading lately, and it’s always good to return to familiar territory.

When I was in college, I read Hemingway for the first time. I had read his work before, when I was in high school, but that was before I truly read Hemingway. Now I feel as though I am reading some of my favorite works for the first time, and so it is that The Sun Also Rises has made its way back into my hands. It feels right to be reading classic literature. I’m not trying to be a book snob or anything, because I’ll read pretty much anything and give any author a chance at least once, but it’s good to come back to perennial favorites. There is something almost indescribable about Hemingway’s storytelling that pulls you in. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend you do so. He’s really not that intimidating of an author. Personally, I feel that he’s the easiest of the Lost Generation to really understand.

On the other side of the reading coin, there is the Lovecraft collection that I’ve been borrowing from a friend. Now, I own a copy of the Necronomicon, quite possibly the most thorough (and best titled) collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s work ever published, but it’s sadly hidden away in a storage unit for now. Despite the presence of perhaps only a third of the more well-known titles that exist within the pages of the Necronomicon, this collection does a phenomenal job of presenting some of the best work (albeit the shorter pieces) that he ever wrote, including “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” within its pages. I read the former story while on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean, and I think that the only better way to experience it would be to read it on a ship in the Atlantic. You can’t beat reading a story where it takes place. This reminds me, I’m working on a piece at the moment that is set in a building not unlike my hometown library, with a few creative twists. I’ve never been in a building that is more suited for a horror story. I’m drawing on influences of Poe, Lovecraft, and King, masters of the genre, and injecting just a little bit of truth. We’ll see how it turns out.

 

Repetition

Do you ever fear that, as a blogger or a writer, you’re repeating what you, or worse, what others have said? I do, and unlike other things, I consider this to be a perfectly rational fear. Do you ever fear that, as a blogger or a writer, you’re repeating what you, or worse, what others have said? I do, and unlike other things, I consider this to be a perfectly rational fear. Wait… Anyway, the point is that mindless repetition can be a terrible thing. According to Stephen King’s Storm of the Century, hell is repetition. Imagine the worst thing that you can fear happening to you, and it happens to you over and over again, for eternity. That’s hell. That’s part of why we mix things up at my job, switching everyone from one duty-station to another every hour. For one thing, it means that everyone has to be pretty good at everything. For another, it means that we don’t get bored to death and decide that we have to go medieval on the next patron who asks for the location of the very clearly labeled return desk.

We take your questions very, VERY seriously.

When I’m not considering acting out D&D-based fantasies, I just worry that I’m going to run out of things to say on this blog, and my few readers will leave me, and I’ll be left talking to myself. After all, there’s not really a whole lot of structure to what I write about, other than that it’s sometimes writing and other times stories of library work. Honestly, though, I can’t really expect my blog to maintain any sort of rhyme or reason to topics when I can’t keep focused myself. Other times, I think that maybe going crazy would be the best thing that could happen to me. Repetition could be a form of writer’s block, I suppose. Maybe you can’t come up with any new ideas, and so you end up rehashing something that you wrote months  or years ago.

Don't worry, Stephen. I still love you.

I guess my biggest fear as far as repetition goes is that I want to write novels, and as my good friends at a favorite weekly webcomic like to say, “Sooner or later we’re going to have to stop calling them ‘novels.'” Are all the good ideas taken? Yes. No, seriously. They are. Every story is a retelling of an ancient story, when you get right down to it. The difficult task of crafting originality is based in the presentation. It’s the same with food, really. I mean, you can have ramen noodles every meal for a month, to the point where seeing them would make you physically ill (and likely violently so), but if someone hands you a silver platter with an ornate ceramic bowl filled with ramen that’s been topped with a slice or two of pork, some green onions, and whatnot, and you’re probably going to say “Hey, that looks delicious!” Moreso if you’re hungry. The point is, we’re stuck with repetition, whether we like it or not. The question is how we’re going to handle it.

Think back, oh writing ones. Think about your favorite influences, and what they wrote, and who or what inspired them. It’s a vicious circle, but that’s not really a bad thing. Popular stories resurface regularly. Sure, if you don’t want to work too hard, you can just jump on the bandwagon for whatever’s trendy right now. However, if you want to create at least some semblance of actual writing, you’re going to be better off to come up with something that hasn’t been done to death (hahaha, vampires) in the last ten years. Tell your own story. It might be incredibly similar to something someone else has done. Think of the poor bullfighters who tried to right autobiographies after The Sun Also Rises debuted. I’m not saying that writing The Sun Also Rises will get you anywhere now. Repetition, or at least perceived repetition, isn’t always the best thing you can have going for you. Now a modern story of a man wandering a European city and searching for meaning in his life, well, that could be something special.

Good luck, fellow writers. Off to the grand adventure that is life!