From One Book Lover

Courtesy of the American Library Association , I offer for your reading pleasure: Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010 Out of 348 challenges as reported by the  Office for Intellectual Freedom And Tango Makes Three , by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson  Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , by Sherman Alexie  Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence Brave New World , by Aldous Huxley  Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit Crank , by Ellen Hopkins  Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit The Hunger Games , by Suzanne Collins  Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence Lush , by Natasha Friend  Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group What My Mother Doesn't Know...

Every year, the American Library Association reminds us that freedom is not free by holding Banned Books Week.  And every year, I get the same questions:  What's the big deal?  Books aren't really banned, they're just challenged — and shouldn't I have the right to tell my kids what they can read? Well, here's the thing: parents have the right to tell their own children what they can read.  However, they do not have the right to tell other people's children, including me and mine, what they  can  read. I was among the more fortunate children: my parents didn't curtail my reading.  I showed my folks what I had checked out from the library; in the off-chance they weren't around or available when I got home, the books were stacked on my nightstand in my bedroom.  They were books, for heaven's sake, and everyone loves books, right? That doesn't mean I didn't make my parents uncomfortable with what I read.  When I asked Dad about ...

When Conor Grennan tells his audience that his actions were not heroic, that anyone could and would have done them, he honestly believes that.  His explanation makes sense. All it takes are baby steps. All he planned to do was volunteer at a Nepalese orphanage: baby step.  After that, it was only one step to helping these children find a safe home. When a parent came to claim her sons, it was a step to help her become reacquainted with them and help her find the resources to feed and clothe them in the city. That led to the question: were they all really orphans?  Next step: find out whose parents are alive. When children became "lost," it was only a step to try to find them.  Just baby steps.  Putting one foot in front of the other.  In fact, he noted, "This book has one message: there is nothing extraordinary about the person I was going into this." It's a truth I hold very dear: you don't have to be a hero to do heroic things...

On National Punctuation Day, let's salute Portland, Oregon's sense of whimsy. Scattered around TriMet's Yamhill platform are seats like this: question marks, exclamation points, semi-colons, commas — all properly used. Look around you at all of the ways punctuation helps us understand what is being communicated.  And take a minute to appreciate  art as Portland has used it  — and think of how you can do the same in your world.

First of all, if you're in a book club, Abraham Verghese salutes you: it was you who made his debut novel a success. "Book clubs made this book happen," he flatly stated during his appearance at the 2011 Fall for the Book Festival .  It was the widespread reading by those very book clubs that propelled Cutting for Stone onto the New York Times bestseller list, he freely admitted. Myself, I know it was more than that.  Cutting for Stone is a thoughtful, sensitive, thought-provoking book — which started out as a glimmer of a story to an exhausted, nearly burned-out physician treating HAV/AIDS patients in a small town in Tennessee.  "All I knew is that there was a beautiful South Indian nun who gives birth to twins," he said. He needed to take a break from his medical practice.  He had written two books already, both non-fiction, My Own Country and The Tennis Partner .  He had an idea for a story, and he wanted — no, needed to try his hand at fiction....

There are some great authors scheduled for this year's Fall for the Book in Fairfax (and beyond). I have two words for you: Stephen King. Two more: Amy Tan. Actually, that's not even my immediate reading list. Every year, the festival has many great authors, and I have to pick and choose which events I can attend.  For this year's festival, I plan to attend the events featuring Abraham Verghese ( Cutting for Stone , the author's first novel) and Conor Grennan ( Little Princes , a memoir).  I already read Natasha Tretheway 's 2007 Pultizer Prize-winning poetry collection, Native Guard , multiple times, and it is in my library collection.  (If I don't excavate my copy this weekend, I shall be purchasing another copy for her to autograph at her reading next week.) Needless to say, I have read books by the "headliners." My first exposure to 2011's Fairfax Award-winner Amy Tan was The Joy Luck Club , which was touching yet sweepi...

I have become a fan of short-story collections.  I have enjoyed the works of John Connelly , not enjoyed the works of Kelly Link — then I encountered Tunneling to the Center of the Earth .  Please stop what you are doing (yes, reading this review) and go purchase a copy, read it and return to this review. See??????? Holy cow.  This begs not only the question of who thinks of this kind of stuff, but how can someone make the telling of it so right ? Like with other collections, the first story had a wow-factor of 11.  The idea of a "professional" grandparent is intriguing, and a business that would be really pretty win-win for all parties involved. If that's where Kevin Wilson left it, I'd be impressed.  No, it's where he goes with "Grand Stand-Ins" that haunts me now, weeks after my first encounter with it. And "The Shooting Man" may not have been a total surprise, but — again — it's where the story travels after it leaves my im...

Do we need to be taught to be happy?  Children, usually not — but adults... We need some help in that area, Gretchen Rubin decided one day.  She saw a harried woman with a child, and no one looked happy.  She wanted to change that in her own life. And, with the help of a publisher and marketing department, she turned it into a movement: The Happiness Project .  It comes to you with daily quotes, a book, a daily blog (maintained by the author herself!) and a whole lot of discussion.  Making a mint off the idea that she should be nicer to her family may not have been her original intention, but I am sure it made her happy. From this writing, you may think me a skeptic — and you would be wrong.  I fell for this idea: hook, line and sinker.  I didn't think I needed to be happier for any particular reason , but the idea intrigued me.  Walking by the stack of books in the bookstore, I wondered to myself exactly what one does to make herself sing in th...

I have seen the future without Borders, and it is Target. And it makes me wish to weep. David and I stopped by Borders the other day to indulge yet again (and to say "hello" to our future shelves).  We had a stack of goods we literally could not carry without each others' help.  Between coffee table books on music and guitars, a Jackie Chan video, Game of Thrones , The Anubis Gates , another Flavia mystery novel and a few novels and DVDs that will be gifts, our arms were full. While we were there, I could not find some of the more recently published books, but I suspect most of the newer items had been snatched up quickly.  There was a biography I had tried for the better part of a year to pick up at the bookstore, but was again unsuccessful. Today I encountered a book trailer that made me want to race out and purchase said book (thanks to Harper Collins Canada ).  I knew I wasn't going to risk another encounter at Borders so soon — it's too exhausting ...