Do You Read Banned Books?

Ok, folks.  Time for me to be a librarian. 

Here we are, right smack in the middle of Banned Books Week.

 Reprinted by permission of the American Library Association

Naturally, as a librarian, this is something that is near and dear to my heart.  So in the spirit of Banned Books Week, I decided to take a look at the ALA's list of banned and challenged classics to see how many I'd read.  The list consists of the 46 of Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century that have been banned or challenged.

I'm a bit disappointed to report that I've only read 15:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

The numbers on this list skip because they correspond to their number on the Radcliffe's list, just in case that threw you off. ;-)

I'm still trying to figure out how I made it through nearly 30 years without reading some of the books on this list, yet have managed to read all the D.H. Lawrence novels up there.  Guess I'd better get reading!!!

How many of these classics have you read?

Weekend Reading List

Glen has two shows in Nebraska and will be there until Sunday, so I'm a bachelorette for the weekend!

I'm planning on getting some yard work done today while it's nice out. It's supposed to rain Saturday and Sunday, so that means I'll be doing an awful lot of reading:

The plan is to finish reading Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson first, since I'm almost done with that.  I really enjoy his books, they strike a great balance between being informative and entertaining. 

Up next is The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) by Caroll Spinney.  This one's an interlibrary loan (no renewals!), so I want to make sure I get through it first, but it looks like it should be a quick read.  And as was the case with Kevin Clash's My Life as a Furry Red Monster, this one will probably make me cry.

Finally, I'm going to read the latest novel by Sophie Kinsella, I've Got Your Number.  As someone with a bachelor's degree in literature, Sophie Kinsella novels probably fall under the "guilty pleasure" category.  I don't read a ton of chick lit, but I can't resist anything by her or by Marian Keyes.   Even when I'm convinced that the premise of one of her books sounds ridiculous (see: Twenties Girl) I get completely sucked in and I can't put it down!

As you can see, when it comes to books, I don't like to pigeonhole myself.  ;-)

What's on your reading list?

I Think I Found My Happy Place

Have you seen this post from Apartment Therapy?

This place is El Ateneo Grand Splendid, in Buenos Aires.  It's a huge bookstore housed in an old theater.  So basically, two of my very favorite things in the entire world, together in one place.

Of course, I'm fairly certain that if I ever visited this bookstore, I would decide I want to live there for the rest of my life and refuse to leave!

Happy (Belated) New Year!

Yup, I'm still alive.  My original intent was to just take the week between Christmas and New Years off from blogging, but I accidentally added an extra 5 days. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I did spend plenty of time relaxing and reading.  Last week I read Fathers and Sons, Sleeping Arrangements, and My Life as a Furry, Red Monster.  Yes, that's Turgenev, chick lit, and an autobiography by a Muppeteer.  I'm very well-rounded. ;-)

Anyway, here's a quick recap of my break:

Our fireplace was pretty great even when it was broken...

But it was even better after we got it fixed!!!

I got to spend lots of time with these handsome guys.

Unfortunately, this little guy (Sery) passed away a couple of days after Christmas. He was getting up there in age (most rats only live 2-3 years, he was 2 years and 8 months) so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but I will still miss him very much.

As usual, we spent New Years Eve in Wildwood with some friends from college.  This was the view from our balcony.

So pretty. :-)

Oh, and Glen was interviewed about our dog Elvis on Coffee with a Canine, check it out!

I hope 2012 is treating everyone well so far!  How did you ring in the new year??

How I'll Spend My Christmas Vacation

I saved up enough vacation time this year to take off the entire week between Christmas and New Year's.  I have a half day today, and don't return to work until January 3.  AMAZING. :-)

This is pretty much how I plan to spend my time:

Wine, books and music, curled up on a comfy recliner in my den... To be interrupted only by our traditional New Year's Eve trip to Wildwood with some friends from college for some late-night water sliding.

What are your plans for the holidays?

Lost in a Good Book

I have not been reading nearly enough lately.

Because of my ridiculously busy summer, it took me nearly 2 months to finish The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat.

I picked this book because I read The Farming of Bones by the same author for a class in college and really enjoyed it. I think I'd have enjoyed this one a bit more if I'd been able to sit down and read it for more than 20 minutes at a time. The narrator keeps changing, and it's really hard to keep track of who's speaking it's been a week since I last picked up the book. But even in spite of that fact, I found the ending of the book completely heartwrenching. I finished it while I was in a bowling alley bar waiting for a comedy open mic to start, and I nearly started crying.
Now I'm re-reading Ragtime.

It's one of my favorite E. L. Doctorow books, as well as one of my favorite Broadway musicals. I was listening to the original cast recording last week, and suddenly found myself overwhelmed with the desire to read the book again. I actually own two copies of it: a signed 1st edition, given to me as a wedding gift by my WONDERFUL bridesmaids nearly 4 1/2 years ago, and a regular hardcover edition for actually reading. I'm going to have off from work this Wednesday through Monday, so I plan on using part of that time to allow myself to get thoroughly lost in this book.

Have you read any good books lately??

P.S. This past weekend I got those jewelry supplies I was talking about in my last post, I'll be working on a piece for my autumn giveaway this week! :-)

Stargazing

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by the night sky.

Whether it was staring up at at stars and point out constellations during camping trips with my Dad at Worthington State Forest, looking at the amazing photographs in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, or insisting that my husband accompany me when Neil deGrasse Tyson gave a lecture at a nearby college, I've always been drawn to all things astonomy.

The "sexiest astrophysicist alive" signed my copy of The Pluto Files!

This week marks one of my favorite times of the year - the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

Photo by Wally Pacholka, via NASA

Thursday evening into Friday morning, the Perseids are supposed to peak, at least 80 meteors per hour.

Just how much do I love the Perseids?

I'm taking a vacation day on Friday so I can stay up late Thursday night and hang out in my back yard on a beach towel.

Will you be watching the sky tomorrow night?

Feeling Warm & Fuzzy

Just finished doing a storytime at the library, which is a rare treat for me. As the resident jack-of-all-trades and filler-in-of-absences, I only get to do storytime when the regular storytime person can't be there. (And, on occasion, I've been known to do an impromptu storytime when people who didn't know it was cancelled show up anyway and I feel bad for them.)

Doing storytime always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I usually end up doing the 3-5 year-old storytimes, and they're always so excited to be here! In addition to reading stories, there was an Easter egg hunt and we did an Easter-themed version of the Hokey-Pokey (The Bunny Pokey!). Watching the kids putting their "bunny noses" in and "hopping all about" was the freaking cutest thing!

It's been awhile since I've actually gotten to plan my own storytime, but I think my dream storytime would involve reading "Hooway for Wodney Wat" and bringing in one of my pet rats to meet the kids.

How adorable would that be? Except of course I'd be worried that parents might freak out that I was bringing in "vermin" for their kids to play with. *sigh* Rats are so misunderstood.

I've kind of been slacking on jewelry stuff lately... I have a pretty decent inventory of finished products built up, and I have a craft show on April 9 (Hanover Shopping Night at Hanover Elementary School, 5:00-8:00pm!). I've heard it's a pretty good one, so I'm looking forward to it. I'll also be at the Warren County Bazaar and Food Fest in Washington, NJ on April 24. That'll be my first outdoor show, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather!