Sep 28, 2005 | Uncategorized
“AUTHORS struggle, mostly in vain, against their fated obscurity. According to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks sales from major booksellers, only 2 percent of the 1.2 million unique titles sold in 2004 had sales of more than 5,000 copies. Against this backdrop, the recent Authors Guild suit against the Google Library Project is poignantly wrongheaded.”
See the rest of the op-ed here. Killer first sentence, eh? Makes you wonder why we write. Not sure I completely agree with the argument, but it's an interesting perspective and one worth considering.
And, just when you were thinking about getting discouraged, read this article about 21-yr-old Christopher Paolini, best-selling author of Eragon and Eldest. I haven't read the books, but I salute the kid for his success and his maturity in the face of it.
Sep 28, 2005 | Uncategorized
Since I'm on a book kick, might as well include another list. How many of the best 150 novels of the 20th century have you read? I've only read 44. Dang, and here I thought I was well-educated. I only counted the ones I'd actually read, even though I know the story of Charlotte's Web from the cartoon as a child. I did read Winnie the Pooh, but I also saw the cartoons. If I've read parts of a book, I didn't count it. For instance, I am quite familiar with the story of Brave New World (in the year of our Ford), but I haven't actually read the entire book front to back so I didn't count it.
X marks the spot or, in this case, what I've read.
1.The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (X)
2.1984, George Orwell (X)
2.Catch-22, Joseph Heller
4.The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
5.Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
6.Animal Farm, George Orwell
6.Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (X)
8.Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (X)
9.Ulysses, James Joyce
10.The Lord of the Flies, William Golding (X)
11.Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger (X)
12.Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
13.The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (X)
14.Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (X)
15.To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (X)
16.The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (X)
17.Native Son, Richard Wright (X)
18.Beloved, Toni Morrison (X)
19.Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
19.To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (X)
21.The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (X)
22.The Color Purple, Alice Walker (X)
23.On the Road, Jack Kerouac
24.The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
25.The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck (X)
26.Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
26.The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien (X)
28.Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (X)
29.Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
30.The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (X)
31.A Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein (X)
32.My Antonia, Willa Cather
33.A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway (X)
34.A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
35.I, Claudius, Robert Graves (X)
36.Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (X)
36.The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemmingway (X)
36.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
39.Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
40.Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora N. Hurston (X)
41.The Call of the Wild, Jack London (X)
42.The World According to Garp, John Irving (X)
43.A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
43.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
45.The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
46.The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
47.Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
48.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
49.Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
50.U. S. A.(trilogy), John Dos Passos
51.Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
52.Sophie's Choice, William Styron
53.Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence (X)
54.Exodus, Leon Uris
55.All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
55.Rabbit Run, John Updike
57.The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
57.The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
57.Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
60.The Ambassadors, Henry James
60.From Here to Eternity, James Jones
60.Little House on the Prarie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
63.The Golden Bowl, Henry James
64.Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne (X)
65.The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
66.2001 : A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
67.Possession, A. S. Byatt
67.Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry (X)
69.All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria ReMarque (X)
69.Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
69.Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence
72.The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (X)
73.Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
74.Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
75.Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
75.Roots, Alex Haley
77.Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
78.Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter
79.Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (X)
79.The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
79.Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
82.The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
83.Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
84.Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence (X)
85.The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
86.Dune, Frank Herbert (X)
86.A Room with a View, E. M. Forster
86.The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler
86.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
90.The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
91.The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
92.The Burger's Daughter, Nadine Gordimer (X)
92.A Confederacy of Dunces, John K. Toole
94.An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
95.The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
96.East of Eden, John Steinbeck
96.Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
96.Howards End, E. M. Forster
99.Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
99.Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
101.Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
102.Ragtime, E. L. Doctorow
103.The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (X)
103.The Wings of a Dove, Henry James
105.Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (X)
106.The Studs Lonigan Trilogy, James T. Farrell
107.Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
107.Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
109.The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (X)
110.As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner (X)
111.The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder (X)
111.A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
113.A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor (X)
113.The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
115.Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
115.The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
117.White Noise, Don DeLillo
118.Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (X)
118.The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
120.Deliverance, James Dickey
120.The Wapshot Chronicles, John Cheever
122.A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell
122.Snow Falling Cedars, David Guterson
124.Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
124.Watership Down, Richard Adams
126.The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
126.The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
128.The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
129.A Death in the Family, James Agee
129.Nostromo, Joseph Conrad
131.Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
131.The Rainbow, Pearl S. Buck
133.A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
134.Pale Fire, Vladimir Nobokov
135.Ironweed, William P. Kennedy
135.Light in August, William Faulkner (X)
137.Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
138.Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford
139.Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
139.Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm
141.Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
142.Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
143.Call it Sleep, Henry Roth
144.For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (X)
145.Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
146.The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
146.Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Ann Burns
148.A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes
148.The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
150.The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Sep 28, 2005 | Uncategorized
It's banned books week! From the ALA page, here are the top challenged books of 2004:
“The Chocolate War” tops 2004 most challenged book list
Recent challenges to Anaya, Crutcher books highlight censorship concerns
CHICAGO – Robert Cormier's “The Chocolate War” tops the list of most challenged books of 2004, according to the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. The book drew complaints from parents and others concerned about the book's sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint and violence. This year marks the first in five in which the Harry Potter series does not top or appear on the ALA's annual list.
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 547 challenges last year. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.
“With several news reports just in the past week of books like “Bless Me, Ultima,” by Rudolfo Anaya being removed from schools, we must remain vigilant,” said ALA President Carol Brey-Casiano. “Not every book is right for every person, but providing a wide range of reading choices is vital for learning, exploration and imagination. The abilities to read, speak, think and express ourselves freely are core American values.”
Anaya's award-winning book was banned from the curriculum in Norwood High School, Colo., for offensive language. Young adult novelist Chris Crutcher's books also have come under fire in Kansas, Alabama and Michigan this year.
Three of the 10 books on the “Ten Most Challenged Books of 2004” were cited for homosexual themes – which is the highest number in a decade. Sexual content and offensive language remain the most frequent reasons for seeking removal of books from schools and public libraries. The books, in order of most frequently challenged, are:
“The Chocolate War” for sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence
“Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, offensive language and violence
“Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture” by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy and political viewpoint
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, for offensive language and modeling bad behavior
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, for homosexuality, sexual content and offensive language
“What My Mother Doesn't Know” by Sonya Sones, for sexual content and offensive
language
“In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak, for nudity and offensive language
“King & King” by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, for homosexuality
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, for racism, homosexuality, sexual content, offensive language and unsuited to age group
“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, for racism, offensive language and violence
Off the list this year, but on the list for several years past, are the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, “Go Ask Alice” by Anonymous, “It's Perfectly Normal” by Robie Harris and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.
For more information on book challenges and censorship, please visit www.ala.org/bbooks.
Amazing, ain't it?
Sep 25, 2005 | Uncategorized
It rained yesterday, looked totally dark and depressing, and we had flash flood warnings last night. I wasn't happy, considering my house backs up to a creek. But, though it rained in the mountains and on most of the island, we didn't get a lot here. Not enough to make the creek rise even by half, thank heavens.
Tonight, we're going to Kaneohe for dinner with some friends. Should be fun. The restaurant is supposed to have a great view. I love great views.
While out and about yesterday, stopped in the library and ran across a copy, for sale, of Freya Stark's A Winter in Arabia. It still had the Borders' tag on the back: $16.95. I paid fifty cents. The book doesn't look like it was ever read. Yet another tome for my towering TBR pile. 🙂
