Banned Books Are the Best Books

It’s banned book week! Or rather, it was last week. . . .Time to celebrate those books that have been challenged and banned. Many classics that have been a part of the literary canon for decades have had their merit questioned. We have days to commemorate what happened. And we have Banned Books Week to remind us of what could have happened. We could have lost so much art if brave publishers and booksellers did not protest censorship. Books were banned for their language and content. Anything remotely sexual was considered pornographic. Racial slurs used to indicate a racist society were challenged. Something slightly bawdy was banned. And books that reinterpret religious texts were burned. Why? They are all merely ideas. They are all just musings, just observations, just words. But people become so caught up in their personal beliefs that they want to force them on other people. It seems strange to me that books are still being challenged and banned to this day.

J. K. Rowling Writes More Contemporary Literature: Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling

The Cuckoo’s Calling was written by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Rowling created this pseudonym so she could have the freedom to write without expectation and receive honest feedback from editors and critics. She did not want her latest novel to be judged against her past—the Harry Potter series. Her pseudonym is a man who worked in the Special Investigation Branch of the military, which would explain why his photo was not included on the dust jacket or the lack of author appearances.

Archiving My Life Through Objects I Find in my Books Part V

Gaudi by Gijs Van Hensbergen

Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle

The Lennon Companion by Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman

Parallel Myths by J. F. Bierlein

Orientalism by Edward W. Said

Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ll be your Mirror

Stargazer by Stephen Koch

Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire by Paul Alexander

Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close up by Bob Colacello

Part V of my ongoing quest to archive all the items I find in my books. Sometimes people store money or checks in their books. My friend Heather once found $20 in a book she found on the street. I cannot imagine getting rid of a book without carefully going through it to see what might be inside.

I’ve Met You Before, William S. Burroughs, Hipster and Junky

William S. Burroughs‘ Junkie is written tight and clean, just like I like it. But there is no humor, no black humor, nor any dry humor. The book is dark and hopeless, just as Burroughs’ addiction is. There is no redemption for his narrator; he never changes. But without Burroughs’ strict attention to detail, without his lack of repenting, we would not have the literature we have today.  He wrote about gay sex easily without explaining it or making it dirty or salacious. He just wrote about his life. He created a whole new genre—cult culture.

Archiving my Life By Things I’ve Found in My Books part IV

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

Star Wars: Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn

Star Wars: The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

Marcel Proust by Edmund White

The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George

Huckleberry Finn As Idol and Target, the Functions of Criticism in Our Time by Jonathan Arac

D. H. Lawrence by Anais Nin

No Cure for Cancer by Denis Leary

Swingers by Jon Faveau

Bridget Jones’s Guide to Life by Helen Fielding