The Buzz...About Books

Writing the Revolution by Michele Landsberg

 Why should Michele Landsberg's Writing the Revolution win the Toronto Book Award on October 11th? Let me tell you why:

To begin with, Writing the Revolution is a lively and unpretentious read. Composed mostly of articles selected from Landsberg's long career as a columnist for The Globe & Mail and The Toronto Star, Writing the Revolution is edited to follow the evolution of the feminist movement in North America in a neat and vivid arch.

You don't have to have stood as witness to the events Landsberg so courageously wrote about (i.e. you don't have to be middle aged) to get excited about this book, because Writing the Revolution does a good job of taking you there, exemplifying through Landsberg's own trajectory the world that was Canada in the 1950's through the 1980's.

It wasn't all that good, as it turns out. Much needed to change. The activist work of women like Florence Bird (first Chair of The Royal Commission on the Status of Women), Doris Anderson (ground-breaking Editor of Chatelaine magazine), Kay Macpherson (first woman elected to the House of Commons), Jane Doe (tireless activist for victims of rape), June Callwood, and so many more, did, in fact, constitute a revolution, a transformation of Canadian society.

Writing the Revolution is meaningful and important, not just because Michele Landsberg is a good writer willing to fight for space in the male-controlled media of the time, but because she herself was an active agent of the change she was chronicling.

Painterly in its writing, these selections are accompanied with a plethora of photographs (don't miss Michele Landsberg and Stephen Lewis' wedding photograph on page 69) which bring to life the excitement of an era that shaped who we are today.

Christopher Hitchens: 1949 - 2011

 
Christopher Hitchens, British author and essayist, died last night of complications related to cancer. A fierce intellectual and polemicist, Hitchens was no stranger to controversy. Indeed, his impressive body of work has both engaged and enraged his many readers over the years - and his passing has resulted in an outpouring of editorials reflecting on his life and work.  

Read obits from the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the BBC, CNN, the Guardian, the National Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail and Vanity Fair.

See Vanity's Fair's photo essay.  Read some of his memorable quotes here and here.

Watch Hitchen's inteview with Sally Quinn of the Washington Post in which he reflects upon his life's work. 

 

The Guardian reports on a forthcoming memoir, Mortality, based on his Vanity Fair columns.

Until then:

 

 

 

 

 

• God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
• Hitch-22: A Memoir
• Arguably: Essays 
• The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism

 

Hitchens in 1968.

 

Go the [Bleep] to Sleep: Tender Tales for Sleepy Adults

No one was more surprised than Adam Mansbach when Go the Fuck to Sleep became a bestseller in advance sales.  Definitely not for children, this book is intended to reflect the frustration of parents whose little (non-sleeping) angels remain wide awake long after their bedtimes. Mansbach, a prof at Rutgers University, a novelist (The End of the Jews), and a first-time parent, was inspired to publish this book after he joked on Facebook that this would be the name of his next novel - and received an overwhelmingly postive response. See his interview on ABC news.  Listen to his interview on CBC.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of childrens' storytellers, American actor, Samuel L. Jackson and German director, Werner Herzog naturally spring to mind.

Listen to Samuel L. Jackson's tender interpretation. 

And here is Werner's version.

Read what the NY Times, the Washington Times, and the Globe and Mail have to say.  The U.K. Guardian writes about the curious phenonemon of children's books for adults.

Read what the New Yorker says about nervous publishers dealing with profanity-laced bestsellers in a post-Cee Lo universe.  Forget you, indeed.

Will parents find this funny?  Of course.  No doubt some parents will find this offensive, or dismiss it as a one-joke gimmick.  Serious parenting pundits will wade in to argue for or against the book's "premise."  One thing is for sure - this book stands to make a lot of money. 

For those who prefer to hear bedtime tales with an old lady whispering 'hush,' there is always the classic Goodnight Moon.

(author Adam Mansbach with his daughter)

Freedom to Read Week

This is Freedom to Read week and there are a number of library programs taking place exploring various aspects of censorship. 

Sexual Outliers: Censorship, Advocacy Journalism and the Gay Press
Pink Triangle Press (PTP), publishers of Xtra and fab, presents a lively and titillating salon discussion on moral puzzles involving censorship and free expression as covered in the gay press.
    Yorkville Branch, February 23, 7:00 p.m.

Censoring Manga for Fun and Profit
Beguiling Bookstore manager Christopher Butcher talks about the many surprising and unfortunate ways manga are censored in North America, as artistic integrity is sacrificed out of fear and a desire to maximize profit--and what you can do about it!
    Lillian H. Smith Branch, February 23, 7:00 p.m.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Hate
A panel discussion about hate speech, censorship and free expression sponsored by PEN Canada and Toronto Public Library.

Panel: Susan G. Cole, author, playwright, broadcaster and senior editor at NOW Magazine; John Moore (host of NewsTalk 1010's Moore in the Morning and columnist for the National Post); Janet Keeping, President of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership;
Richard Moon, author and Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor.
Moderator: Steve Paikin, Host of TVO's The Agenda.
    Toronto Reference Library, Friday, February 25, 7 p.m.
    Tickets are $10 with proceeds going to PEN Canada

Banned Books--Madame Bovary
Join the discussion of the banned book which sparked such moral outrage that the author and publisher were put on trial.
    Deer Park Branch, Monday February 28, 2 p.m.

Such a Long Journey banned in Mumbai

Canadian author Rohinton Mistry's novel Such a Long Journey is the focus of controversy in India after it was removed from an English syllabus at The University of Mumbai. 

The university received complaints about the content of the book from the youth arm of Shiv Sena, a right-wing political party in India.  Aditya Thackeray, a Mumbai University student and grandson of Shiv Sena's founder, objected to the portrayal of the party in the book.  Party members burned copies of the book and also made threats against Mistry. 

Ashok Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra, where the university is located, has supported the ban citing objectionable language in the novel, although he has not read the book. 

Mistry has released a statement condemning the actions of the University, accusing them of blindly acquiesing to the demands of an extremist group. 

The novel was released in 1991, winning the Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.  It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and Trillium Award. 

An eBook version of the novel is also available. 

Banned Books We Love!

To celebrate Banned Books Week, I asked a few of my colleagues to pick a banned or challenged book and write about its importance to them.  Some books they selected have been inspirational, educational and sometimes even made us squirm.  Nevertheless each has
played a meaningful role in our lives.

Thomas read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho on the recommendation of a friend. While the graphic violence in the book made him intensely squeamish, he found that the book painted a powerful and compelling portrait of our current society's materialism and meaningless commodification of sex and violence.

Cathy reports that reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee gave her 15 year old son a perspective on racism that he might not have gotten in his primarily white suburban school.

S. a library assistant, read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh as an impressionable 8-year-old and developed a lifelong love for detective novels.  While the lack of anything to detect in her boring childhood was an ongoing source of angst, she believes her ability to solve day-to-day problems in unusual and imaginative ways comes from devouring mysteries throughout her life.  Also available as an audiobook.

E. reports that reading Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut changed her perspective on storytelling.  She was impressed by the way Vonnegut played with traditional conventions of fiction and loved the story, too.  Also available in large print and audiobook formats.

Paul read Allen Ginsberg's seminal book-length beatnik poem, Howl and was in spired to write appallingly earnest poetry for a full year while in university in the early 80s. 

Despina notes that she loves Thomas' Snowsuit by Robert Munch because of the humour.  She has often used it in library programs and has never had a parent complain that the book is a bad influence on children.

Helena read the YA coming-of-age story The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and immediately wanted to make a mixtape.  Also available as an audiobook.

 

 

 

Read a Banned Book This Week

This week is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week. There is Canadian version called Freedom to Read Week each February but this issue is far too important to only discuss once a year.

My personal experience with censorship occurred in high school. My grade 10 English class was reading a book called Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford. Well, perhaps other students were reading it. Even then, I didn’t like being told what to read and I hadn’t started it.  After a couple of weeks, the teacher asked us to return the books. He told us that parents were complaining about the language in the book and the decision had been made to take the book off the curriculum.

This incident should have taught me that being told what you may not read is even worse than being told what you must read, but at the time, I was just relieved that I had one less book to pretend to study. Later, I recognized how sad it was that we lost the opportunity to read the book, think about its content and decide for ourselves.

During Banned Books Week, I’d like to encourage everyone to read a banned or challenged book. The Bradford book is available at Toronto Reference Library, so I may take a trip there. Lists are available on the ALA website. Here is a small selection of my favourite banned and challenged books. 

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

This book is the story of a teenager who stops talking after she is raped. Recently the subject of a challenge in Missouri, the irony that a book about speaking out is being silenced would be funny, except that it isn’t. Not even slightly. 

• Audiobook

Thomas’ Snowsuit by Robert Munsch
It was removed from a school library in Alberta because it makes authority figures look bad. I think it makes authority figures look bad when they ban books. 

• DVD

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

My grade 10 class actually made it through this book and it became one of my favourite books. Students elsewhere have not been as fortunate. In 2009, it was removed from a school in Brampton over concerns about racist language in the book. This makes me really sad because it would have been a great opportunity to teach students how language evolves over time. A word that was commonplace in Alabama in the 1930s when the story takes place or in 1960 when the novel won the Pulitzer Prize may not be acceptable today for many reasons.  By removing the book entirely, it is true that students are not exposed to the objectionable language, but they also lose the book's message of justice and tolerance.

• Audiobook
• DVD

'The Kite Runner' among most-challenged books of 2008

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini's bestseller about a friendship and betrayal between two Afghan boys, is among the most-challenged books of 2008, according to the American Library Association.

For a third consecutive year, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell's award-winning And Tango Makes Three, a children's book about two male penguins caring for an orphaned egg, tops the American Library Association's (ALA) Top Ten list of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008.

Also in the Top Ten were His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman and the Gossip Girl Series by Cecily von Ziegesar.

The association, which annually issues a list of the most-challenged books, recorded 513 complaints about books in the past year, an increase of 93 from 2007, but well below the levels of 700 and higher in the 1990s.