Banned Books Week: “Great Literature is help for humans.”

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Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Putnam County, Georgia.  She was the youngest of eight children born to Willie Lee Walker, a sharecropper whom Alice described as “wonderful at math but a terrible farmer,” and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant, who supplemented the family’s income by working as a maid.  Alice grew up during a time when Jim Crow laws–laws that enforced segregation and privileged white people living within their jurisdiction–were in effect, and Alice and her siblings were all expected to work as sharecroppers, helping their father.  Her mother defied convention, however, insisting that her children learn how to read and write.  As a result, Alice began writing her first stories at the age of eight.

Around this same time, Alice was wounded in her right eye by a BB pellet fired by her brother.  Because her family didn’t own a car and couldn’t easily travel, it was a week before Alice could get to a doctor and, as a result, lost the sight in her eye.  For years, scar tissue built up around the wound, making Alice extremely embarrassed and shy.  The scar tissues was removed six years later, however, and by the time she graduated high school, however, she was valedictorian and was voted most-popular girl, as well as queen of her senior class.  However, Alice noted that the physical and emotion trauma of that event had  given her the opportunity “really to see people and things, really to notice relationships and to learn to be patient enough to care about how they turned out”.

After high school, Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship, and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College, graduating in 1965.  During this time, she began to publish her poetry, and devoted herself to the Civil Rights Movement, even taking part in the 1963 March on Washington, D.C.   She also joined Msmagazine as an editor in 1971, before moving to California and writing the novel that would forever after be associated with her name.

1368226The Color Purple was released in 1982.  The novel follows a young troubled black woman fighting her way through racist white culture, as well as patriarchal black culture as well, highlighting in a devastating, insightful, and deeply emotional way how oppressions work together to keep people from achieving their dreams.  The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaimed 1985 movie, as well as a 2005 Broadway musical, which was revived just this past year.   Alice Walker also received the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for her work–and became one of the most censored authors in contemporary American history.

In 2012, Alice Walker gave an interview to Guernica magazine in which she discussed her book, and the many reactions readers have had to it, as well as her own thoughts on censorship and the need to read ‘dangerous books’.  In honor of Banned Book Week, here are some highlights from the interview (you can read the whole thing here by clicking on this link).

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From: http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/alice-walker-writing-whats-right/

Alice Walker: Writing What’s Right

October 1, 2012

Guernica: In the introduction to Alice Walker Banned, Patricia Holt writes, “Along with her Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award, Alice Walker has the honor of being one of the most censored writers in American literature.” Did you ever feel that the censorship of your work created duties for you—moral, ethical, or otherwise—that you didn’t ask for?

Alice Walker: Not at all.  I considered it part of what can happen to anyone on the journey of one’s life.  In Southern Black culture we are sustained more than most people might imagine by our ancestral songs; these songs, called “sorrow songs” (from the days of enslavement) and later “spirituals,” later morphed into gospel, jazz and blues.  In this canon we find songs that, even under the most brutal conditions, consider Life itself to simply be a race with one’s self.  The object is to reach the end intact as you.  So one of the songs goes:  “Guide my feet, while I run this race; Guide my feet, while I run this race.  Guide my feet, while I run this race.  ’Cause I don’t want to run this race in vain.”  This plea is addressed to The Creator, who is also the deep Self. The truest work is not to run the race of life in vain; ending up completely severed from your true self.  I am so thankful for songs like this!  When I speak and write about being under the protection of ancestors, it is because of messages and wisdom like this that I know sustain me.

Also, I think it is anyone’s right to do what they feel they have to do.  They have a job. I have a job. I will write what I think is right for me to write.  They will oppose it.  In a way that makes us equal.  Though when one’s work is completely suppressed this is a bitter acceptance.  However, my work has always been championed.  Stood up for. Thousands of people in California and beyond spoke up for The Color Purple and for my short stores.  There was a great outpouring of support.  From everywhere! And actually I left the struggle up to others.  I had delivered my gift.  It was given in complete love to everyone.  If they wanted to keep it, it would have to be their work to fight for it. They did.

Guernica: As a censored writer, you’re keeping hallowed company: Dorothy Allison, Harper Lee. Toni Morrison, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut and Howard Zinn have all been challenged, and that’s just the tip of the censorious black marker. What are some of the banned books you most admire?

Alice Walker: I have so loved the work of Kurt Vonnegut and Howard Zinn, especially while a student, both of them dedicated to the exposure of the insanity of war.  I also love Mark Twain for his clear denunciation of American imperialism and for his wise and humorous, often quite sly, sendup of organized religion.

Guernica: What’s most at stake when a book like The Color Purple is banned?  What’s at stake for women, and women of color, when a story like this is silenced?

Alice Walker: Great Literature is help for humans.  It is medicine of the highest order.  In a more aware culture, writers would be considered priests.  And, in fact, I have approached writing in a distinctly priestess frame of mind.  I know what The Color Purple can mean to people, women and men, who have no voice. Who believe they have few choices in life.  It can open to them, to their view, the full abundance of this amazing journey we are all on.  It can lift them into a new realization of their own power, beauty, love, courage.  It is a book that unites the present with the past, therefore giving people a sense of history and of timelessness they might never achieve otherwise.  And even were it not “great” literature, it has the best interests of all of us humans at heart.  That we grow, change, challenge, encourage, love fiercely in the awareness that real love can never be incorrect.

Banned Books Week: ‘Dangerous Books’ around the World

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If it hasn’t yet become apparent, we here at the Free For All have many opinions about books, banned books, and the attempt to ban books, many of which have been aired, and many of which are still in the cupboard.  But this is the first year that Banned Books Week has officially become international.  This year in the UK, the British Library, the Free Word Centre and Islington council in London are joining forces to promote banned books, sponsoring discussions, and publishing a reading list of some 40 books that have been subjected to calls for censorship, ranging from the Harry Potter series to Toni Morrison’s Beloved.  To go along with this, The Guardian has posted a whole plethora of articles on their website regarding books, how dangerous they are, and what a good thing that can be.  One of my favorite quotes in this regard comes from Melvin Burgess, who is a keynote speaker in the British Library’s programming, and also the author of Junk (published in the US as Smack), which has been challenged numerous times, and was banned in 2002 in Texas.  According to him:

2583621It’s always flattering that people think your book might be dangerous, because it creates an air of glamour around it. Of course, it isn’t dangerous at all. The usual criticism is that young people might read it and turn to drugs themselves, but in fact, all the evidence shows that it has helped people navigate their way through that world, not tempted them into it. Like most “dangerous” books, it is in fact only a threat to people who are themselves dangerous – people who want to control others. If you want to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, to be obeyed, then any book that assumes people can make up their own minds is dangerous – but only to yourself and your little clique.

The point about novels – good novels, anyway – is that help you understand other people, with all their faults and shortcomings. The people who are scared of understanding are the dangerous ones.

Meanwhile, as the Telegraph reports from Hong Kong,  a pro-democracy group began selling books that have been banned in mainland China for being ‘politically sensitive’ at last winter’s outdoor lunar new year market, with the hopes of highlighting the plight of five local booksellers currently held by Chinese police.  Though not part of Banned Books Week officially, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China is still taking a stand in support of free access to information, and for the physical freedom of the writers who produce that information.

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Courtesy of qz.com

Finally, much closer to home, our friends in Canada actually have their own version of Banned Books Week, which is called “Freedom to Read Week“, and is held the last week in February (in 2017, it will be February 26-March 7).  Like in the US, this week is organized by y the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council, and invites Canadians “to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”  This past year, a number of Canadian “Booktubers” were brought together to talk about what Freedom to Read means to them–take a look!

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You can also check out the list of “12 Canadian Books That Have Been Challenged“, which includes Margaret Atwood’s classic The Handmaid’s Taleand Alice Munro’s The Lives of Girls and Women.

What does all this mean?
Well, to indulge in a wee bit of pessimism, it shows that book challenging, and banning, is not a strictly American tradition–just a few months ago, Irish Central reported that there are currently 274 books and 266 magazines still banned in Ireland.  But it also shows us that, all around the world, there are people who are willing to stand up to censure and censorship and fear, and to celebrate ‘dangerous books’, and the people who write them–and the people who read them, too!  And we are proud to be among that number here.  Feel free to join us.  The world could use more dangerous people of this sort.

Banned Books Week: “Real readers finish books, and then judge them”

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John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942.  After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, he published his first book, Setting Free the Bears in 1968.  He studied with Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, but, as his books continued to meet with great critical reception–and very little money, he decided to accept a position as an assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke College.  His first real, categorical success came with the publication of The World According to Garpwhich launched Irving, almost overnight, into international literary stardom.

11768His fifth book was Hotel New Hampshire, which follows the Berry family of New Hampshire–consisting of Win and Mary, and their five children.  Win and Mary met as teenagers when they were both working as hotel staff for a summer, and, always bearing in mind the magic of that long-ago summer, Win comes up with the idea of turning an abandoned girls’ school into a hotel of his own, called The Hotel New Hampshire.  From here, the novel follows each member of the Berry family through their troubled, often tragic, and very, very human lives.  Irving doesn’t do anything gratuitously in this work–he uses the Berry family as a vehicle to discuss the horrors of the world that we often take for granted.  By showing their effects on a realistic, sympathetic, and loving family, we can really begin to think about the world in which they (and we) live, and the toll it takes on each and every one of them (and us).

However, in 2008, a staff member at Plymouth High School in New Hampshire decided that Hotel New Hampshire was inappropriate reading matter for the students there, and lodged a complaint with the school’s library to have the book removed.  An internal review resulted in a vote of overwhelming support for the book, and it remained.  Following the vote, the school’s librarian, Pam Harland, wrote a letter to Irving’s literary agent about the event, which resulted in a personal letter to Harland from Irving, discussing not only his work, but why it is so important to read about the tough stuff, to support those who do, and to stand tall in the face of those who would try and tell you otherwise.  Thanks to our friends at Letters of Note, we have Irving’s letter to share with you, so I’ll let him take over:

John Irving
P.O. BOX 757
DORSET, VERMONT 05251

Pam Harland, Librarian
Plymouth Regional High School
86 Old Ward Bridge Rd.
Plymouth, NH 03264-1299

November 4, 2008

Dear Ms. Harland:

My wife and agent showed me your letter, and I commend your efforts to keep “The Hotel New Hampshire” available to young readers at the Plymouth Regional High School Library. Thank you! Thank you, too, for contacting me; it’s often the only way I hear about efforts to ban my books. To my knowledge, only three of my novels have been successfully banned—”The World According to Garp,” “The Cider House Rules,” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” (All for different reasons.) I recently spoke at a school library in Massachusetts during Banned Books Week, and I will speak this coming Sat., Nov. 8, at a public lecture for the Nashville Public Library in Tennessee—once again on the subject of banned books.

I enclose five other books of mine, signed to the Plymouth Regional High School Library. I feel they are in good hands!

I know that you already know this, because you read my novels, but in my stories there is often a young person at risk, or taken advantage of; many of my stories are about how innocence fares in the adult world. I take the side of young people, but I am also a realist; it is especially offensive to me when an uptight adult suggests that my stories are “inappropriate” for young readers. I imagine, when I write, that I am writing for young readers—not for uptight adults.

I thank you for having the courage to stand up for a novel that is utterly sympathetic to young people. As you know, the last so-called Hotel New Hampshire (at the end of the novel) is, in reality, a rape-crisis center, a place to counsel victims—most of whom are young. I wonder if the staff member who found my novel offensive actually read that far, or if the incest issue—or the sexual explicitness, of the four-letter words in the dialogue—was sufficient to impede their progress. (Real readers finish books, and then judge them; most people who propose banning a book haven’t finished it. In fact, no one who actually banned Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” even read it.)

With my heartfelt best wishes,

(Signed, ‘John Irving’)

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Banned Books Week 2016

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It’s a dangerous world out there for books, dear readers.  Not only for their easily-damaged covers, or for their fragile pages, but for their words and ideas as well.  Every year in the United States, the American Library Association deals with hundreds of “challenges” to material in both public and school libraries.  A “challenge”, technically speaking, is defined as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness”.  It’s the first step towards making a “banned book”, which is the actual removal of said book from a library’s collection in response to a “challenge”.

There are any number of reasons people provide for challenging books, which the ALA has recorded : inappropriate or offensive language, offensive content, content that is considered inappropriate for the age group to which is it offered, nudity, sexuality, violence…the list goes on and on.  But every reason, every single reason that people provide for challenging a book boils down to one main point:

A “challenge” is not just someone stating what they disliked or disagreed with in a book.  It is an attempt to restrict, totally, the access of other people to that book because they disliked or disagreed with it.

Not only is that censorship, it goes against the very foundation of what a public library is and does, which is to be a space for the safe, free, and open sharing of ideas.  And, in response to those hundreds of challenges that the ALA receives every year (not to mention the hundreds more that don’t make it up to the ALA, but stay in their local or school libraries), Banned Books Week was established to give us a chance to highlight the value of free and open access to information. As the ALA states on their website: “Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.”

downloadAdditionally, every year the ALA puts out a list of the 10 Most Challenged Books of the past year.  As this article from Time Magazine points out, the list is always provides interesting commentary on the things that “society” (or that part of society that feels the need to restrict other people’s access to books) fears.  For a long time, the titles on the Most Banned List were for pretty straightforward issues, like sexual content, graphic language, or drug use (or, in the case of the Harry Potter books, which made the list from 2000 to 2009, for ‘promoting Satanism’).  This year, however, there appears to be a worrying trend running through the list of Most Banned Books, according to James LaRue, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom.  As he notes, “there’s been a shift toward seeking to ban books ‘focused on issues of diversity—things that are by or about people of color, or LGBT, or disabilities, or religious and cultural minorities,’… It seems like that shift is very clear.”  You can check out the list at the bottom of this post and see for yourself.

Now, to be frank, people have gotten uppity over language, sexual behavior, and other taboo issues since the establishment of “western civilization”.  Truth be told, it’s part of the foundation of “western civilization” to get uppity about these things–so that probably isn’t going to change, no matter how many blog posts and book displays we put up to tell you that four-letter-words and some sex scenes are not going to ruin lives.  But to challenge a book because it reflects a lifestyle that is not your own, a faith that you don’t share, or an identity that you do not personally own is so much more dangerous–especially when the vast majority of these books were written to help those struggling and lost, or to provide voices to those who are so often silenced by mainstream society.

The world is, in many ways, becoming a bigger place, with room for a number of new identities, recognition of more diverse cultures and traditions, and discussing new, complex, and sometimes scary issues.  And that is a good thing.  Because everyone should be able to dance their own dance through life, so long as they don’t intentionally stomp on anyone else’s toes.  To keep these books off our shelves–to keep people who are different from you from speaking, or from having their stories told–is doing a damage far greater, and far more profound than the act of simply taking a book from the shelf.

So this week, come check out a banned book, think for yourself, and let others do the same.   Here’s the list of the Most Challenged Books of 2015 to get you started:

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Most-challenged books of 2015:

  1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
    Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
    Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
  3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
    Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
  4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
    Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
  5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
    Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
  6. The Holy Bible
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
  7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
    Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
  8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
    Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
  9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
  10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
    Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).

Saturdays @ the South: It’s that time of year…

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…For apple picking! (Don’t worry, I’m not going to burst into any Christmas carols, despite there being a mere 92 shopping days left….) This is the time of year where the weather, presumably starts to turn crisp and the leaves start to turn the vibrant colors of fall. Though, with the summer we’ve had and the heat we’ve been experiencing the days are more muggy than crisp and I’m not holding out too much hope for vibrant oranges and yellows and reds. The apples, however, have been great. I got some McIntoshes from Brooksby Farm the other day that were exactly what Macs should be – crisp, tart and so juicy. With all of our unseasonable weather, those apples have been the first real sign of fall for me.

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One good thing about the lack of rain is that there are more days to go out apple picking (less good for the apple trees, but still…). We’re so lucky in New England to have great farms that offer pick-your-own. Right here in Peabody we have Brooksby Farm, there’s also Connors Farm in Danvers, and only a short drive away you can find u-pick apples (and in a few more weeks, pumpkins!) in Ipswich, Amesbury and even New Hampshire. It’s a great opportunity to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine and it’s an opportunity that not a lot of people outside of New England have. I have college friends who grew up not too far from New England and have never experienced the quintessential fall joy of eating an apple right off the tree, have never snacked on a cider doughnut, warm and coated in cinnamon. They’ve never had their mom pull them back by the hood of their hoodie to stuff a few extra apples into them to make *sure* we’re getting our money’s worth (or maybe that’s just me….). Anyway, we’re extremely fortunate to have such great farms and opportunities to get outside so close to us.

If, like me, you just can’t get enough apples this time of year whether or not you’re able to pick them yourself, here are some book choices that will help with the cravings both literally and metaphorically:

2982601Good Enough To Eat by Stacey Ballis

Stacey Ballis is a bit of an under-the-radar author who writes charming, endearing books about food, love and life. We have a couple of her books here at the South and they spend very little time on our shelves. In this one, main character Melanie loses a great deal of weight and seems to gain control of her life, only to have her husband leave her for another woman, forcing her to reexamine everything she was working towards. If this cover alone doesn’t make you want to run to the nearest apple orchard, I don’t know what will.

3262129The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

Another book of food and family with almost as enticing a cover. Perennially popular Wiggs writes of Tess Delaney who has spent her professional life returning stolen treasures to their rightful owners. One day she finds that she is set to inherit half of a 100-acre apple orchard with a heretofore unknown family member.

2584615Biting the Apple by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Eve Glass has led an enviable life as an Olympic sprinter and then as a well-known, successful motivational speaker who finds that her professional self and personal self are increasingly at odds. She manages to lose nearly everything in a search for an authentic self that may no longer jive with the life she has carved out for herself.

2750270Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke

Now featured on TV as Murder She Baked, this installment of Fluke’s endearing cozy culinary mysteries Hannah Swenson encounters the body of a man with whom she shared a youthful indiscretion. In the hopes of keeping the secret from her policeman beau, she does a little investigating on her own. If you’re not sure what to do with the abundance of apples, the recipe for apple turnovers in this book might be just the thing to help with that surplus…

3758713A La Mode: 120 Recipes in 60 Pairings by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

What kind of librarian would I be if I didn’t offer a tried-and-true outlet for apples? Bring on the baking!! This new book is particularly well-suited to apple pies and the ice cream that pairs so well with it. You’ll find a host of delicious recipes in this colorful, extremely well-photographed cookbook any one of which is likely to make your mouth water.

Whether you’re able to take advantage of the apple bounty this fall or if, perhaps you’re just looking for a new beginning, often represented, particularly in some of these books, with the imagery of an apple, I hope you’ll be able to take some time to enjoy the beginnings of autumn. Till next week, dear readers, I’m off to munch on another crisp, delicious, local MacIntosh!

 

Five Book Friday!

And a very Happy Birthday to Victoria Woodhull, American suffragette, activist, and the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872.

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Not only that, but Woodhull, born on this day in 1838, was the first woman to run a newspaper, the Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, founded in 1870, which she ran with her sister, Tennessee Claflin.  Not only that, but that same year, she became the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, called Woodhull, Claflin & Company (also run with her sister Tennie).

woodhull-douglass-electionWoodhull was born in Ohio, and though she had no formal education, she certainly had a remarkable mind and impressive will.  She made her first fortune as a “magnetic healer” (not precisely a legitimate form of medicine, but one that was incredibly popular in the mid-19th century).  During this time, she also met Cornelius Vanderbilt, who became a lifelong friend, a constant source of financial support, and very nearly her brother-in-law (rumors had it that he had proposed to Tennie, but his family refused to allow him to marry her).  It was her work as a medium that allowed Victoria to fun her brokerage form and newspaper, and the intensity of her convictions that won her national attention.  Woodhull was a champion of women’s legal, voting, and sexual rights, which polarized not only the women’s suffrage movement, but society in general.  She was also an advocate for equality between races, as well– when nominated for president, nominated Frederick Douglass in turn for her running-mate.

Though votes weren’t counted in the same way they are now, so we can’t know for sure how many votes Woodhull received, but we know it wasn’t many.  Her campaign was seriously harmed when a self-proclaimed “moral defender of the nation” named Anthony Comstock had Woodhull, her husband, and Tennie arrested for “publishing an obscene newspaper” a week before the election.  They were acquitted at trial six months later, and Woodhull ran for president again in 1884 and 1892.  Following her two defeats, she moved to England, where she offered lectures on health and the human body, and married her third husband (she had divorced her two previous ones, much to the chagrin of the American public).  Victoria Woodhull passed away on June 9, 1927, leaving a legacy with which we, as a people, are still grappling today.

If you would like to read more about Woodhull and her radical run for president, check out this website from American Experience.

And now…on to the books!

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3794357The Last Days of Jack SparksThis book…it’s a weird one that tricky to sum up in a few sentences.  What you need to know going in is that (fictional) journalist Jack Sparks died while writing a book on the supernatural, and his quest to prove it definitely true or false.  As a tribute, his brother Alistair, has put together Jack’s manuscript, along with notes that Alistair made in his quest to track down the truth about Jack’s final days, and how on earth a video got posted to Jack’s YouTube account that he insisted was not of his making.  The result is a myriad of unreliable narrators all fixated on their own agendas and needs, and a story where nothing–or everything–is true, and the implications for both are really quite chilling.  At turns hysterically, cynically funny, at times horribly insightful regarding the horrible isolating narcissism of social media, and at times just plain weird, Jason Arnopp’s book, I promise, is like nothing else you’ve ever read.  Paul Tremblay, who wrote the sensational A Head Full of Ghosts, said that this book was “Funny, creepy and totally nuts.”  And I agree.  (For real devotees, Jack Spark’s website is still online, just to add to the verisimilitude.)

3743074The WonderAs we noted here last week, fall is the Season for Books, with publishers putting out all their heavy hitters now in time for literary awards and holiday shopping sprees.  Irish author Emma Donoghue’s new release is among the most noted of the year, and being hailed as her masterpiece–high praise indeed considering the success of her previous works.  Set in small Irish village of Athlone in 1859,  the plot of this story centers on eleven-year-old  Anna O’Donnell, who believes that she is living off the manna of Heaven, and thus, reportedly hasn’t eaten for months, yet shows no signs of fatigue or ill-health.  As international interest in Anna’s case grows, Lib Wright, a veteran of Florence Nightingale’s Crimean campaign, is hired to watch over the girl for two weeks, and prove her story true or false for the press.  The result is a deeply searching, insightful book about relationships and faith and darkness that shows Donoghue is as skilled in historical fiction as she is in any other genre.  Booklist agrees, giving this one a starred review, and calling the book, “Outstanding…. Exploring the nature of faith and trust with heartrending intensity, Donoghue’s superb novel will leave few unaffected.”

3785025-1Blood Crime: Another example of historical fiction done right, Sebastià Alzamora’s gothic thriller takes us to 1936, during the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and to the besieged city of Barcelona.  Death is everywhere, but when a Marist monk and a young boy are discovered dead, drained of their blood, the event is gruesome enough for the police to take notice–and for a thirteen-year-old Capuchin novice to take matters into her own hands, and risk meeting a monster face-to-face in order to discover the truth.  Inspired by true events, but given a fascinatingly dark, unique twist by Alzamora, this book was a sensation in Spain when it was first published, and earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, that called it “”Extraordinary… Alzamora deftly balances a swiftly moving, multithreaded plot set firmly in a historical context with a transcendent, nearly timeless exploration of the dark, violent nature of humanity and the vain search for God’s mercy, and, in doing so, creatively fulfills the challenge of reinventing gothic horror for a modern age.”

3788971-1Everfair: For a time, steampunk and neo-Victorian books were the stuff of romances and graphic novels, imaging a world of other-wordly inventions and providing an escape from the painful realities of our own history.  But Nisi Shawl has reinvented the steampunk genre by using it, instead, to explore, question, and contest history, by creating a world where imperialism was challenged by natives who have harnessed the power of steam and established what our history calls the Belgian Congo into a utopia called Everfair, where native Africans and European socialists and escaped slaves from the United States can live in freedom.  Told from a number of voices that have long been silenced by our histories, and whose complex relationships have gone painfully overlooked, this book uses alternative histories to tell a powerful story that is both wildly imaginative and deeply reflective of our reality.  This also earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, who said of it, “This highly original story blends steampunk and political intrigue in a compelling new view of a dark piece of human history.”

51eqm8zkfel-_sx341_bo1204203200_Wilber’s War : An American Family’s Journey Through World War II Written by local author–and Library patron!–Hale Bradt, this book is the reconstruction of his father life, his parents’ love, and the world events that shaped and defined his family.  While Norma Bradt endured the Second World War on the American home front, protecting her family, dealing with rationing, and managing the daily stress of having a husband serving in the Pacific, Wilber Bradt fought with the U.S. Army in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and The Philippines, sending home richly detailed letters about his experiences, which form the backbone of his highly original work, that also looks at Hale Bradt’s own visits to the battlefields on which his father fought, and his considerations of the toll war takes, not only on armies and nations, but on individual families who are forced to endure it all.  The Midwest Book Review called this book an “inherently fascinating read…deftly crafted…[and] very highly recommended”, and we are honored to have our patron’s work displayed right here on our shelves!

 

Until next week, beloved patrons…happy reading!

Wednesdays @ West: Read for Peace

Sunflowers are a symbol of peace
Sunflowers are an international sign of peace

Today, September 21st, is the International Day of Peace.  The United Nations tells us that today: “provides an opportunity for all humanity to come together, in spirit and in action, to forward the ideals of and conditions for peace.”

The Libraries for Peace movement is encouraging libraries of all types to host events and celebrate the ways that our institutions foster peace.  I firmly that libraries build peace in a lot of ways.  As I write this blog post, West Branch patrons are in our community room taking a yoga classes and building some inner peace.  Around the world, libraries help educate people about how to build a more sustainable world.  But my personal favorite way that libraries encourage peace is a traditional one: libraries connect people with books and stories.

In the fall edition of The Horn Book Magazine, author Christopher Myers offers a heartrending take on the violence that occurred recently in Orlando.  His ruminations brought tears to my eyes, but also offered hope as to how stories can help bring about a different kind of world: “Violence strips away the personhood of those who are affected by it, reducing our humanity.  Narratives like the ones we steward, as storytellers and people who care for stories, return people to the fullness of their selfhood.  This is the revolution we can effect.”  If you find yourself inspired to join this peaceful revolution, here are a few books that can help you on your way.

Defining Peace

peacebookWhen it comes to books about peace, I make no distinction between books for adults, books for teens and books for children.  Peace, as complex and elusive as it is for us adults, lends itself particularly well to the inspiring, simple and beautiful way many books for children are written.  We “grown-ups” often even have trouble agreeing on a definition of peace.  To solve that question, I will refer you to a book that I read regularly to my ten month old boys: The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  Peace, Parr tells us, is not particularly complicated.  It lies in making friends, helping your neighbor, sharing a meal (especially  if it’s pizza), thinking about those you love and growing a garden.

peaceisanofferingAlso shelved in the children’s section but desperately needed by us adults are Peace is an Offering by Annette LeBox and The Forgiveness Garden by Lauren Thompson.  Written after 9/11, the former is a poetic and visual reminder of the roots and value of peace.  The later is the story of little children leading the way to peace by planting a garden (perhaps this is the type Todd Parr means) in their village that has been torn apart by violence and hatred.

Working on Inner Peace

twelvestepstoacompassionatelifeThe Dalai Lama certainly has his share of insights into peace and he tells us “Peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace.”  If you need a little help finding inner peace and translating it into outer peace, take a look at Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong.  With detailed and practical steps outlined, such as learning about compassion, looking at your world, learning how to speak to others and so forth, Armstrong takes a big topic, learning how to be compassionate, and makes it seem manageable, if not easy (step twelve is loving your enemies).

Heroes for Our Time

peacefulheroesWhen you find yourself doubting the plausibility or effectiveness of making peace, you need to find some Peaceful Heroes to inspire you. Jonah Winter pays tribute to some of the greatest peace makers throughout history, including Jesus, Clara Barton, Corrie Ten Boom and Oscar Romero.  For another collective biography of the icons of peace and a hopeful history of the nonviolent resistance movement in general, you may want to try  After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance by Anne Sibley O’Brien.

A fepeacefulneighborw of my personal peace heroes are also worth reading about.  If you think the transcendent father of children’s television, Fred Rogers, just wore sweaters and sang cheesy songs about self-esteem, take a look at Michael Long’s biography Peaceful Neighbor.  Long argues convincingly that our favorite television neighbor was actually a radical pacifist.

malalaquoteSpeaking of people who are radically and bravely pursuing peace in the modern world, I would be beyond remiss if I did not mention the autobiography of the world’s youngest Noble Peace Laurette: Malala Yousafzai.  I am Malala is yet another reminder that if a young person, after being shot by the Taliban for insisting on a girl’s right to education, has the courage to continue to work for peace in the world, we, as adults, have little excuse not to do our part.

international_peace_day_logoBy and large the books I’ve discussed in this post are nonfiction.  But perhaps one of the best ways we can promote peace on a daily basis is to read and share fictional works.  It’s a scientifically proven fact that reading fiction builds empathy.  If you consider that empathy is surely one of the crucial building blocks of peace, it should be concerning to you, as it is to me, that fewer American adults are reading literature.  If we are ever to achieve the goals of the International Day of Peace, we must all become a little (or a lot) more empathetic.  So, dear readers, whether or not you ever pick up one of the peace themed books I’ve highlighted today, I sincerely hope that you’ll continue to make literature part of your life.  Read some bestselling fiction.  Read popular books to your children and grandchildren.  Give works of fiction to children, teens and adults as gifts.  Perhaps best of all, read a novel about someone who is completely different from you in terms of race, religion, country of origin or socioeconomic status.  And then tell a friend about it.  Write down the title for them.  Talk about the books that have inspired you and changed your perspective on the world.  Do it today and tomorrow and forever.  Do it for yourself; do it for the world; do it for peace.

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~Frederick Douglass