Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
We often list the many important reasons to read both fiction and non-fiction books as well as plays and poems.
One reason that struck me the past couple of weeks is that reading is like drawing the curtains against the night. The phrase occurs several times in the Charles Todd books and for the first time I took notice of it because reading has helped me this past summer when nothing much else could.
I read for information as well as entertainment, but sometimes a good book is a great comfort for a heart that hurts.
We often speak of comfort reads, of fluff for the brain that needs a rest, of re-reads of favorite books, but it is a little more drastic than that. Books are a bulwark against the darkness of savagery. Knowledge, empathy, compassion, showing us we are not alone, helping our minds grow, are things that books offer.
Safety from the storm, a light in a great darkness…that is what a good book is in my opinion. Books are food and clothes to me. They lift my spirits, they make me better than I would be. They ask me questions and they make me ask questions.
This week is also the time of year when we consider the problem of those who would ban books. All year long, and for many years we have dealt with people in politics who do not respect learning. Many of the banned books, if not all, have been lights shining in the darkness. Is that why they must be banned? Are they a great danger to the night?
What books do you think are beacons of light for us all?
Wiki has a list of banned books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
This list of most commonly challenged books in the United States lists some of the books challenged from 1990 to 1999 in the United States.
A few from from the list:
Nineteen Eighty-four (1984) by George Orwell
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by MarkTwain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Anastasia Again! by Lois Lowry
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Blubber by Judy Blume
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Earth's Children (series) by Jean M. Auel
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Forever by Judy Blume
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Goosebumps (series) by R. L. Stine
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Native Son by Richard Wright
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Song of Solomon (novel) by Toni Morrison
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
I have read 43 from this list. How many have you read?
Diaries of the week:
What are you reading or hoping to read?
Write on! (filler edition)
by pico
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 51: K364! Climbing The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante+*
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Mnemosyne wrote to me:
The Guardian is sponsoring a UK nationwide book swap starting this weekend. I thought it might be of interest in Bookflurries: http://www.guardian.co.uk/....
Guardian launches national Book Swap with 15,000-volume giveaway
Thousands of books left in public places around the UK for curious readers to discover
Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 September 2011 06.06 EDT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Limelite says:
The second and final discussion of Dava Sobel's Longitude will be right here, THU, Sept. 22 at 2PM ET.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Please read about the books and vote in Limelite's Poll for the next book to be read.
Books That Changed My Life: October sign calendar
by aravir
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Please stop by aravir’s diary and sign up or send aravir a message for a date to write your diary.