Posted by barb on Sep 20, 2003 in
Books This week is designated as Banned Books Week by the American Library Association. Every year our right to read numerous books, from classics to new releases, is challenged by various groups for various reasons. Perhaps the most prominent recent example are the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling. Many ultra-conservative religious groups have deemed that the Harry Potter books promote witchcraft and devil worship in our children. Some groups have gone so far as to burn Harry Potter books .
However, we have a little thing called the First Amendment in this country — we are guaranteed the right to free speech, which includes the right to read books that some people might find offensive. My advice to these groups who would stifle my right to read a Harry Potter book: don’t read the book. That way you aren’t offended, and I retain my right to read the book. Nazis burned books — I would hope that we were more civilized than that.
In honor of Banned Books Week, I collected several books on the 100 most challenged books list (from 1990-2000) that I have read, and will be making Bookcrossing releases of them all week. In addition, I am putting bookmarks in these books acknowledging banned books week and explaining that the book was one of the most frequently challenged books in the 1990s. Feel free to grab the bookmarks and print your own.
Posted by barb on Sep 20, 2003 in
Books by Robert Cormier
While the annual fundraising chocolate sale at Trinity prep school is voluntary, no boy has ever refused to sell the chocolates. Until this year. Jerry is a freshman whose mother died the previous spring. He has gotten a spot on the football team, but his school spirit does not extend to the annual chocolate sale.
Behind the scenes at Trinity, the secret school society, the Vigils, are at work. They give assignments to various boys throughout the year as a stepping stone into the society. This year, they have been pressured into assuring that the chocolate sale is a success. However, with Jerry’s refusal to sell, other boys see that they, too, don’t have to participate. Chocolate sales fall.
As Jerry continues to defy the Vigils, he finds that his life starts to spiral down into hell. He gets pummeled at football practice. The phone at his apartment rings at all hours, with only a chuckle on the other end of the receiver. Still he refuses.
While the book is a bit dated in places (it was written in the 1970s), the themes hold up well over time. The ending is also much more realistic than the novels that end with all the villains getting their due. Of course, this also makes the ending quite unsettling.
Posted by barb on Sep 14, 2003 in
Books by Merill Markoe
This novel is told as letters written by a woman to herself on her birthday for seven consecutive years. She struggles into her forties while trying to determine ways to not repeat mistakes made with her parents and in her love life. While Markoe interjects many humorous anecdotes, I found the book to be a bit depressing overall. Though the back of the book asserts that the woman ultimately succeeds in finding happiness, I could only see that she ended up in much the same place as she began.
Fun but forgettable.
Posted by barb on Sep 7, 2003 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
The Ring is another horror movie, but one that succeeds more than others have for me. The premise is that once someone watches a certain video tape, that person dies seven days later. When a journalist’s (Rachel Keller, played by Naomi Watts) niece dies, her sister asks her to investigate. Naturally, Keller sees the video, and receives a call within a few minutes telling her she has seven days. Keller must frantically search for the origin of the tape, and a way out of death, before her seven days are up.
I think that in a dark theater with a big screen, I might have been drawn in completely to this film. However, I’m not generally drawn in to horror films, though I enjoy watching the more intelligent ones (read: not the Freddy or Jason films). Overall a good, enjoyable movie.
Posted by barb on Sep 7, 2003 in
Books by Peter David
While I’d found David’s style fun in his Star Trek novels, I had trouble getting into his non-ST book, Sir Apropos of Nothing. I wanted to give him another chance, but going in I wasn’t expecting much from Knight Life.
Though Knight Life was still fluffy, it was much more enjoyable than Sir Apropos. I got suck in right away and had a fun ride until the last page. King Arthur has returned, and is running for mayor of New York City. The whole gang is present — Merlin, looking like an 11-year-old boy since he’s been aging backwards all these years, Morgan Le Fey, nasty as ever, and Modred. There is even a Guinevere of sorts — she is a reincarnation of the original Guinevere and goes buy the name Gwen DeVere Queen.
Fun read. I’ll have to look up the sequel: One Knight Only
Posted by barb on Sep 6, 2003 in
Movies 2/5 stars
What an odd documentary.
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control is a documentary featuring four men from very different and somewhat eccentric fields. Dave Hoover is a wild animal trainer, George Mendonca is a topiary gardener, Ray Mendez is a mole-rat specialist, and Rodney Brooks is a robotics scientist. I connected most, of course, with the robotics scientist — since he was a bit out of touch in similar ways to me. The wild animal trainer rubbed me the wrong way, because of my feelings about using wild animals purely for our entertainment.
I’m pretty sure that the documentary was trying to make connections between these disparate-seeming men. While I will agree that they were all eccentrics, any other connection was lost on me. By themselves, the stories of these men were quite interesting — how they got into their chosen field, what accomplishments they’ve made, and how their field will be perpetuated (or not perpetuated) through future generations. However, it’s beyond me why these four in particular were chosen and why their stories were told as an intertwined narrative.
Also, I was confused by the origin of the title. Brooks mentions it as a title to a paper submitted to the Planetary Society, in which he proposes to use armies of very small robots to explore the planets in our solar system. However, fast, cheap and out-of-control are not adjectives that I would use to describe any of the subjects of the film.
Posted by barb on Aug 30, 2003 in
Books by Sheri S. Tepper
After picking mushrooms near her New Mexico home, Benita is confronted by two strange-looking aliens. They hand her a cube and $100,000, and ask her to see that the cube gets into the hands of someone in authority. For Benita, an abused wife who has worked at a bookstore for the past 16 years with two kids in college, the job looked frightening and exhilarating at the same time.
Her role did not end, though, with the cube safely in the hands of her congressman in Washington, D. C. Instead, she is called on to be a liaison between the Pistach (the aliens who gave her the cube) and the US government. The Pistach’s mission is to help Earth achieve “neighborliness”, to learn how to live in a way that will not disturb or harm nearby neighbors. And things start to get better. But the Pistach are not the only aliens on Earth…
Tepper’s style remains top notch. However, this novel does give Tepper a platform to express her feelings about the current state of our world — disappointment/outrage at poverty, overpopulation, religious strife, political shenanigans, and the state of the environment. At times the novel sounds a bit preachy, but that’s fairly easy to get past.
Another great read from Tepper!
Posted by barb on Aug 25, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
Wow. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this was far better.
Tom Hanks plays Mike Sullivan, a hit man working for a mob boss, John Rooney. One night, Sullivan’s son sneaks along on a job, to see what it is that his dad does. He sees everything in gory detail. This puts the entire family at risk, and Sullivan does what he has to to ensure the safety of his son.
Andrew’s comment that he wishes we’d seen it on the big screen, since many of the scenes would have been more spectacular. I must agree.
Posted by barb on Aug 24, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is not a film to go see if you want a pick-me-up. Though dark, it was quite good, though.
The Magdalene Sisters follows three girls who are forced to become Magdalenes in an Irish convent. These Magdalene laundries were places that devout Catholics could take girls who were thought to be “going down the wrong path”. The three girls we follow each get there for differing offenses — Rose has a baby out of wedlock, Bernadette was an orphan who flirted with guys who hung out around the fence of the orphanage, and Margaret was raped. At the laundry, the girls (there were many women there of all ages — some old and gray) are forced to work from dawn to dusk, they are fed gruel while the nuns eat heartily in the next room. Disobedience is not tolerated, nor are attempts to run away. The only way for a girl to go home is for a family member to come and get her. Since often the only family the girl had was the one that put her there in the first place, we don’t see many girls go home. The essentially become slaves of the church for life. Of course, all of this is done in the name of God.
The scary part is that the Magdalene laundries were real, and the last one was only shut down in 1996. Its amazing how many atrocities have been committed by the Catholic church in the name of God. What’s more of a wonder is that they continue to get away with it.
Posted by barb on Aug 23, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This was a fun, fluffy movie. Borrowers are little people who live between the floor boards of people’s houses (at least the “innies” are), and they borrow things from the house to survive. They are never to be seen by the beens (human beings). The Clock family lives in the floor of the Lender’s house, but after the Lender’s grandmother dies without a will (supposedly), they have to move to make way for Ocious Potter’s luxury apartment complex.