I have my iGoogle homepage set up with a "Quotes of the day" section. One of the quotes today is particularly relevant:

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel

I have stacks of to-be-read books in various places throughout the house, so I can totally relate. I know that many of my other fellow freelancers, such as my friend Kathy Kehrli, probably can too!

Labels: reading

One of iGoogle's quotes of the day pretty much sums up my attitude toward books:

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"

-Henry Ward Beecher

I've gotten better than I used to be, primarily because with all my other hobbies I have to save money where I can: Now, instead of buying every book I want to read, I check most of them out at the library. Having due dates also prevents me from developing stacks and stacks of books I own but don't have time to read.

Even so, every time I'm at the bookstore I have to fight down the urge to buy something.

Labels: miscellaneous, reading

Well, I just pulled an all-nighter -- and read an entire book in five and a half hours straight. It's very possibly a record for me -- I think I put the book down once all night, and that was to check my blood sugar. Even I haven't read a full-length novel all in one sitting before... All in one day, yes, but all in one sitting, no -- until now.

The book is My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, my new favorite author. I read two of her books while I was visiting my grandfather recently, the first I'd read of her work, and I fell instantly in love. She writes with a depth of human emotion that few authors can lay claim to; she addresses controversial issues with grace, somehow managing to always put a human face on both sides of the debate...at the same time, no less. Picoult is, in short, the writer I hope to be someday, and she is now tied with Judy Blume for the position of my favorite contemporary author.

I blogged more about My Sister's Keeper and my discovery of Picoult on my book blog, Livre du Jour, which I am updating again. I hope you'll stop by there and read what else I have to say about this riveting novel.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired right now, as can be expected, but it comes in waves. I'm thinking I should take advantage of the fact that I'm up and work a little bit before I go to bed. Hopefully I can keep from sleeping all day long and throwing off my sleep schedule even more!

Labels: reading

Today Debbie Ridpath Ohi blogged posted a survey on her blog asking about people's weird book habits. Unfortunately, she left comments off (by accident, I'm assuming), so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to add to my blog.

To answer Debbie's questions:

1) No, I almost never put a book face down on a flat surface. Maybe if it's a library book, and it's a hardback with a spine that's already well broken in. But that's it.

2) If you are on my list of people I'll lend my books to, you are either as OCD as I am, or I live with you.

3) Yes, I remove dust jackets while I'm reading the book. I'm a book collector, so it's been drilled into me: a book without a dust jacket with a damaged dust jacket isn't worth as much (not to mention incredibly ugly).

4) I used to write my name in my books, but I don't even do that anymore. The only exception was my school books while I was in school, but even that was difficult. I stopped doing it so much when I realized I rarely looked at my own notes afterward.

5) I am, as Debbie calls herself, neurotic about books. I'm not just a bookworm - I'm also an amateur book collector, and even if my books aren't worth a fortune, I'm still proud of the beautiful old volumes (some of them first editions!).

I was neurotic about books before I started collecting, though, so my hobby isn't the cause of my neurosis. In high school I developed a pet peeve against fingerprints on the covers of glossy paperbacks - I would actually make one of my best friends hold my books so that her fingers were on the corners of the spine, thus leaving minimal fingerprints.

While I'm not that bad anymore, I still am anxious enough about the condition of my books that I don't lend them to very many people - and not at all if they are first editions or antique or some other special edition. I only open my paperbacks about 90 degrees when I read them, and God help anyone who returns one with the smallest spine crease!!!

Labels: blogging, other writers, reading

I ran across this story today, about the controversy the newest Newberry Medal winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, has inspired. (I'm including a link to Amazon's page for the book, in case anyone else is like me and likes to show their support for banned books by buying them.)

Basically, the book has been banned in some schools because it uses the word "scrotum." The use isn't anything sexual, either: according to NPR, the word is used simply "to describe where a dog gets a snake bite."

What exactly are we protecting our children from here? Knowing the real name for a body part that half the population has? Let's get real here, folks. What exactly do you think it is going to do to our children to know this word?

In my opinion, the worst danger is in painting the body's natural sexuality as a forbidden fruit. As Mark Twain said in Tom Sawyer, "in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."

In this case, as the children learn they can't read a certain book because it contains the word "scrotum," I imagine there are whole armies of children who are going to go home tonight and ask, "Mommy, what's a scrotum?" Hopefully, most mommies and daddies will have the sense to explain it in a matter-of-fact way, satisfying the child's curiosity and thereby ending the allure of the forbidden fruit.

Naturally, though, there will be a great many parents who shy away from the topic. Intrigued by whatever it is that makes Mommy stutter and blush like that, little Sally may stop asking, but her mind doesn't stop wondering. And in time, she may decide to find out for herself. Having been thwarted in her quest for knowledge by a well-meaning adult, it's highly unlikely she'll try that route again.

Now let's look at what might happen if the book weren't banned, and little Sally was reading it. She gets to the part where the word "scrotum" is used, and asks absentmindedly, "Mommy, what's a scrotum?"

Mommy's answer might range from, "It's a body part that only boys have," to showing Sally the corresponding anatomy on her own dog (or gerbil or hamster). If Sally gets very curious, Mommy might produce a children's anatomy book or search online for an anatomically correct drawing to show Sally, but chances are that the first answer has satisfied Sally. This is nothing special, or even particularly interesting; and, having solved a minor mystery, she goes back to reading.

Unfortunately, though, some people can't be satisfied with this. Our society has maintained the Victorian fear that learning certain words or knowing certain realities will cause our children (namely our girls) to become miniature sexual wantons. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't find anything remotely sexual about the imagery of a dog's "scrotum" getting bitten by a snake.

I realize that this explains more of why I'm against banning books, rather than why I love banned books. The truth is, I have immense respect for anyone willing to go against the expectations of our society, no matter how minor the transgression is. In fact, some of my favorite authors and literary heroes have also been very controversial: Judy Blume, the Bronte sisters, etc.

My advice to all of you is to support banned books as much as you can. Buy them, read them, recommend them - anything that you can do to counteract the efforts of the knowledge-Nazis who try to ban them.

Labels: advice for writers, banning books, diatribes, news, reading

For several of months now, I've kept a blog on myspace reviewing my "Book of the Day" - whatever I'm currently reading. As myspace is quickly losing its appeal to me, I decided to transfer my blog to Blogger. Livre du Jour will tell you what I'm currently reading, what I think of it so far, and provide you with a link in case you're interested in checking it out for yourself. If you like what you see, be sure to check back frequently - I tend to finish a book every 2-3 days, sometimes less.

I've also made a few changes to my existing blogs. I've put a picture and link in the sidebar of each so that you can see what I'm reading now without visiting Livre du Jour, if you'd prefer not to. (Of course, to see what I have to say about it you'll have to visit anyway.) Also, I'm going to try out the Blogger search banners - I don't usually care for them, but as large as some of my blogs have gotten, I think it might be convenient for my visitors to be able to search for a specific post.

I'd love to hear from you - please comment and let me know what you think about my new changes!

Labels: blogging, reading, website maintenance, website updates