BOOK NEWS
It’s National Library Week, and it’s no surprise that much of the commentary has to do with book banning. The American Library Association (ALA) released its annual list of the most challenged books of the year. Here are the top thirteen:
1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, for LGBTQIA+ content, and claims that it is sexually explicit.
2. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, for LGBTQIA+ content and claims that it sexually explicit.
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, for depictions of sexual abuse and EDI content.
4. Flamer by Mike Curato, for LGBTQIA+ content, claims that it is sexually explicit.
5. Looking for Alaska, by John Green, for claims that it is sexually explicit and LGBTQIA+ content.
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, for claims it is sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, depiction of sexual abuse, drugs, profanity.
7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, for LGBTQIA+ content, claims it is sexually explicit.
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, for claims it is sexually explicit, profanity.
9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, for claims it is sexually explicit
10. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, for claims it is sexually explicit.
11. Crank by Ellen Hopkins, for claims it is sexually explicit, drugs.
12. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, for claims it is sexually explicit, profanity.
13. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson, for LGBTQIA+ content, sex education, and claims that it is sexually explicit.
The ALA notes that 2022 was the second year in a row that book challenges nearly doubled from the year before, with 2,571 unique titles targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted in 2021.
"The list also illustrates how frequently stories by or about LGBTQ+ persons, people of color, and lived experiences are being targeted by censors. Closing our eyes to the reality portrayed in these stories will not make life’s challenges disappear. Books give us courage and help us understand each other. It's time to take action on behalf of authors, library staff, and the communities they serve. ALA calls on readers everywhere to show your commitment to the freedom to read by doing something to protect it.”
On April 24, not long after the ALA announced its list, the American Booksellers for Free Expression hosted a Zoom panel on “Local Organizing to Combat Book Bans.”
Local organizing goes well beyond petitions to legislators, and members of the panel brainstormed grassroots actions for bookstores and literary events. “This is personal—[censors] are coming after us directly and deliberately,” said Bashir, who believes the threat of a ban “will make people afraid to read a book or follow an author.”
And finally, here is a self-described old-school Reagan conservative speaking out against the book banners:
What the irate politicians and activists don’t realize is that their plans to “sanitize” public school education and prevent “ideological conformity” will have grave repercussions on our economy and society. Banning inputs of knowledge that have been identified as potentially causing “psychological distress” will reduce the ability of young people to engage in strategic analysis. It will deprive them of the skills that are needed to cite arguments, demonstrable facts, and empirical evidence to validate their points of view. Such learning curbs will create homogenous and faulty conclusions that will lead to bad decisions in every profession….At a speech he made at the Westminster College Cold War Memorial in Fulton, Mo., Reagan stated, “So long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”
On another subject, I was surprised and dismayed to learn that only 3% of books published in other languages around the world are translated into English, a figure that has remained basically unchanged for decades. There is a whole world of writing and experiences that we are missing out on. The article examines the top reasons given for this dearth of translation:
- “The market for literary translation is very limited.”
- “I am not convinced the writer’s voice/style will communicate to readers”
- “Short story collections don’t sell.”
- “No one here knows who [insert name of crucial historical figure or author] is.”
- “We already published a [insert nationality here] author.”
- “It doesn't quite speak to the present moment for me."
THIS WEEK’S NEW HARDCOVERS
- Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, by Simon Winchester. With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things—no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization—are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness? Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion—from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.
- Mott Street: A Chinese American Family's Story of Exclusion and Homecoming, by Ava Chin.
As the only child of a single mother in Queens, Ava Chin found her family’s origins to be shrouded in mystery. She had never met her father, and her grandparents’ stories didn’t match the history she read at school. Mott Street traces Chin’s quest to understand her Chinese American family’s story. Over decades of painstaking research, she finds not only her father but also the building that provided a refuge for them all. Breaking the silence surrounding her family’s past meant confronting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first federal law to restrict immigration by race and nationality, barring Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades. Chin traces the story of the pioneering family members who emigrated from the Pearl River Delta, crossing an ocean to make their way in the American West of the mid-nineteenth century. She tells of their backbreaking work on the transcontinental railroad and of the brutal racism of frontier towns, then follows their paths to New York City.
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Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future, by Jean M. Twenge. The United States is currently home to six generations of people. Professor of psychology Twenge does a deep dive into a treasure trove of long-running, government-funded surveys and databases to answer these questions. Are we truly defined by major historical events, such as the Great Depression for the Silents and September 11 for Millennials? Or, as Twenge argues, is it the rapid evolution of technology that differentiates the generations? With her clear-eyed and insightful voice, Twenge explores what the Silents and Boomers want out of the rest of their lives; how Gen X-ers are facing middle age; the ideals of Millennials as parents and in the workplace; and how Gen Z has been changed by COVID, among other fascinating topics.
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Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma, by Claire Dederer. In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
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A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South, by Peter Cozzens. The Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland. The war also gave Andrew Jackson his first combat leadership role, and his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House. A conflict involving not only white Americans and Native Americans, but also the British and the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for the American Civil War yet to come.
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These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America, by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate the insidious world of private equity, revealing how it leeches profits from everyday Americans, tanks the companies it acquires, and puts our entire economic system at risk.
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When the Smoke Cleared: The 1968 Rebellions and the Unfinished Battle for Civil Rights in the Nation's Capital, by Kyla Sommers. In April 1968, following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., a wave of uprisings swept across America. None was more visible--or resulted in more property damage, arrests, or federal troop involvement--than in Washington, DC, where thousands took to the streets in protest against racial inequality, looting and burning businesses in the process. The nation's capital was shaken to its foundations. When the Smoke Cleared tells the story of the Washingtonians who seized the moment to rebuild a more just society, one that would protect and foster Black political and economic power. A riveting account of activism, urban reimagination, and political transformation, Kyla Sommers's revealing and deeply researched narrative is ultimately a tale of blowback, as the Nixon administration and its allies in Congress thwarted the ambitions of DC's reformers, opposing civil rights reforms and self-governance. And nationwide, conservative politicians used the specter of crime in the capital to roll back the civil rights movement and create the modern carceral state.
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Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many, by Mona Gable. In the summer of 2017, twenty-two-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. A week after she disappeared, police arrested the white couple who lived upstairs from Savanna and emerged from their apartment carrying an infant girl. The baby was Savanna's, but Savanna's body would not be found for days. The horrifying crime sent shock waves far beyond Fargo, North Dakota, where it occurred, and helped expose the sexual and physical violence Native American women and girls have endured since the country's colonization. With pathos and compassion, Searching for Savanna confronts this history of dehumanization toward Indigenous women and the government's complicity in the crisis. Featuring in-depth interviews, personal accounts, and trial analysis, Searching for Savanna investigates these injustices and the decades-long struggle by Native American advocates for meaningful change.
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Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist, by Larry Rohter. Cândido Rondon is by any measure the greatest tropical explorer in history. Between 1890 and 1930, he navigated scores of previously unmapped rivers, traversed untrodden mountain ranges, and hacked his way through jungles so inhospitable that even native peoples had avoided them—and led Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Kermit, on their celebrated “River of Doubt” journey in 1913–14. Upon leaving the Brazilian Army in 1930 with the rank of a two-star general, Rondon, himself of indigenous descent, devoted the remainder of his life to not only writing about the region’s flora and fauna, but also advocating for the peoples who inhabited the rainforest and lobbying for the creation of a system of national parks. Despite his many achievements—which include laying down a 1,200-mile telegraph line through the heart of the Amazon and three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize—Rondon has never received his due.
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Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture, by Sara Petersen. On Instagram, the private work of mothering is turned into a public performance, generating billions of dollars. The message is simple: we're all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood. Linen-clad momfluencers hawking essential oils, parenting manuals, baby slings, and sponsored content for Away suitcases make us want to forget that the reality of mothering in America is an isolating, exhausting, almost wholly unsupported endeavor. In a culture which denies mothers basic human rights, it feels good to click “purchase now” on whatever a momfluencer might be selling. It feels good to hope. Momfluencers are just like us, except they aren’t. They are mothers, yes. They are also marketing strategists, content creators, lighting experts, advertising executives, and artists. They are businesswomen. Momfluenced argues that momfluencers don’t simply sell mothers on the benefits of bamboo diapers, they sell us the dream of motherhood itself, a dream tangled up in whiteness, capitalism, and the heteronormative nuclear family.
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Birth: Three Mothers, Nine Months, and Pregnancy in America, by Rebecca Grant. The author provides us with a never-before-seen look at the changing landscape of pregnancy and childbirth in America—and the rise of midwifery—told through the eyes of three women who all pass through the doors of the same birth center in Portland, Oregon. In remarkable detail and with great compassion, Grant recounts the ups downs, fears, joys, and everyday moments of each woman’s pregnancy and postpartum journey, offering a rare look into their inner lives, perspectives, and choices in real time—and addresses larger issues facing the entire nation, from discrimination in medicine and treatment (both gender and race-based) to fertility, family planning, complicated feelings about motherhood and career, and the stigmas of miscarriage and postpartum blues.
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The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption, by Katie Kelleher. In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She untangles the secret history of silk and muses on her problematic prom dress. She tells the story of countless workers dying in their efforts to bring us shiny rocks from unsafe mines that shatter and wound the earth, all because a diamond company created a compelling ad. She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk. With prose as stunning as the objects she describes, Kelleher invites readers to examine their own relationships with the beautiful objects that adorn their body and grace their homes.
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Chita: A Memoir, by Chita Rivera. The long-awaited and wildly entertaining memoir of the star of stage and screen, the legendary Chita Rivera—three-time Tony Award–winner, Kennedy Centers honoree, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero—until the entertainment world renamed her. But Dolores—the irreverent side of the sensual, dark and ferocious Chita—was always present center stage, and was influential in creating some of Broadway most iconic and acclaimed roles, including Anita in West Side Story‚ the part that made her a star—Rosie in Bye Bye, Birdie, Velma in Chicago, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Written in gratitude to her longstanding fans and with the hope that new generations may learn from her extraordinary experience, Chita takes us behind the curtain to reveal the highs and lows of one extraordinary showbusiness career—the creative fermentation, the ego clashes, the miraculous discoveries, the exhilaration when it all went right, and the disappointment when it all went wrong.
- Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley, by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans. Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos. At its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, the authors craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons.
- Shakespeare's Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare, by Chris Laoutaris. It is difficult to imagine a world without The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays that were only preserved thanks to the astounding labor of love that was the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. When the First Folio hit the bookstalls in 1623, nearly eight years after the dramatist’s death, it provided eighteen previously unpublished plays, and significantly revised versions of close to a dozen other dramatic works, many of which may not have survived without the efforts of those who backed, financed, curated, and crafted what is arguably one of the most important conservation projects in literary history. Without the First Folio Shakespeare is unlikely to have acquired the towering international stature he now enjoys. But who were the personalities behind the project and did Shakespeare himself play a role in its inception? The book reveals how Shakespeare himself, before his death, may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping his legacy to future generations and determining how the world would remember him: "not of an age, but for all time."
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them. If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be appreciated. Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 15% each week). We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month.
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