On Book Banning - by Ira Wells

Whenever I talk about book banning I make clear that the current crisis is driven by the religious right who are requesting the removal of thousands of books from schools and libraries (and have lately taken to targeting booksellers as well). I also make clear that they are not the only ones who are looking to censor what we can read. Book challenges come from both the left and the right, feminists and misogynists, people of a variety of religious backgrounds, politicians, and even from librarians. Ira Wells recognizes this and does not shy away from discussing this full range of restrictions and its consequences.

Wells begins by describing a "library audit" conducted at his children's (Ontario, Canada) elementary school. 

...the principal...told a group of parents...that she wished she could get rid of "all the old books". The bulk of the library's holdings were, from her perspective, to Eurocentric, too male, too heteronormative.

By "old books" the principal meant any book over 15 years old, regardless of its other qualities. This would necessarily include a lot of children's classic works, as well as plenty of works by LGBTQ authors and BIPOC authors.

He makes fair comparison between the Mom's for Liberty crowd in Florida and the Ontario progressives each with their own agenda for "child safety". Each group has identified categories of books that they believe should go. While the religious right wants all books with LGBTQ themes removed, the Canadian progressives would like to see books that are not "woke" enough removed.

Greater sensitivity to racially charged language and imagery has resulted in school library challenges to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, and several titles by Dr. Seuss. After some school districts banned from classrooms all books by non-Black authors that contain the N-word, novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird went from being mandatory to unteachable.

Predictably both groups of would be banners identify the works they'd like removed as "potential sources of student 'harm'". 

Also, predictably, the principal of Wells' children's school insisted that she was not banning any books, but rather simply "weeding" the collection.

...but this is a misrepresentation of library protocol: As the American Library Association states, "While weeding is essential to the collection development process, it should not be used as a deselection tool for controversial materials."  

Wells work also explores the history of book banning through a lens of religion as well as the history of libraries and the freedom of speech, current trends in monitoring speech including "soft censorship" which happens when titles are excluded from publication or purchase in order to avoid challenges. 

Mennonite Valley Girl - by Carla Funk

This memoir, written as a collection of essays, details Funk's upbringing in the Mennonite Community of Vanderhoof, British Columbia in the 1980s and 90s.

In the chapter called "The Changeroom" Funk describes the cringey awkwardness of her mother and older girl cousins trying to explain puberty to her in a world where euphemisms around body parts and bodily functions abound. In universal adolescent fashion a young Funk rolls her eyes at her mother and declares that she probably knows more than her mother, having read the "secret book" in the library of the Christian school she attended, that explained how the human body worked - including a "single page dedicated to reproduction". She and her friend attempted to sound out words that they'd never heard before and Funk confidently proclaims that "it rhymes with tennis" only to learn in a rather humiliating manner that penis has a long "e" sound. They didn't dare to ask any adults the correct pronunciation of any of the words because they (the adults) couldn't possibly be aware that the school's four-shelf library "contained a book with such forbidden language".

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections - by Eva Jurczyk

A missing manuscript, a missing librarian, and a desperately ill department head are all concerning aspects of this story. The most concerning of all, however, was that Liesl Weiss had to abort her sabbatical in order to sift through it all.  And of course, through it all she is berated and undermined by the pompous University president. 

Things in this novel that were absolutely believable: The University President asks Liesl to keep quiet about the missing books, and the missing librarian (no need for bad press, and what would the donor's think?); the male library director could count on his (mostly) female staff to cover for him, while he always got the credit; when a woman is put in charge of the library she is constantly questioned by those she supervises who also point out that the previous (male) director did not do it that way. 

This was road-trip listening for our recent mid-west adventure. While I don't typically enjoy mysteries,  this one eventually grew on me, although when it started neither my husband nor I thought that we would be especially interested.

The Blind Assassin - by Margaret Atwood

I do enjoy a good bit of metafiction. In the tradition of Irving Wallace's The Seven Minutes; Ann Patchett's Commonwealth; and Cornelia Funke's Inkheart Atwood's The Blind Assassin tells the story of a fictitious novel of the same name.

Laura Chase's posthumously published book (following a questionable suicide at the age of 25) has a kind of cult following. Although some love it and it was "well received in critical circles in New York and London",  others thought it 

would best be forgotten. Although it isn't...even after fifty years it retains its aura of brimstone and taboo. Hard to fathom...as carnality goes it's old hat, the foul language nothing you can't hear any day on the street corners, the sex as decorous as fan dancers...

However, even the "whimsical" sex was enough for the book banners to come out against it

What people remember isn't so much the book itself, as much as the furor: ministers in church denounced it as obscene, not only here; the public library was forced to remove from the shelves, the one bookstore in town refused to stock it. There was word of censoring it. People snuck off  to Stratford or London or Toronto even, and obtained their copies on the sly, as was the custom with condoms. Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd never thought of opening a novel before. There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy. 

There are more than a few mentions of private libraries. Other libraries get a bit of ink as well. The Chase sisters, Laura and Iris (the narrator) take their lessons in their home library from a succession of governesses and other instructors following the death of their mother. The curiously named Miss Violence gave the girls the run of the library and "let us do what we liked" while she (Miss Violence) "sat by the window and read romantic novels from the lending library".

An aging Iris also considers what do with a trunk full of "notebooks...typescript...letters to publishers ... corrected proofs...[and] hate mail". Leaving this archive to a university or library where it "would be at least be appreciated...in a ghoulish way" seemed reasonable. 

There were more than a few scholars who'd like to get their claws into all this waste paper. Material [emphasis in original] they'd call it - their name for loot.

There is a somewhat surprising ending, although as Iris points out to her audience "you must have known for some time".

It took me a while to get into this book. In fact the first time I tried reading it was about twenty years ago. However, I not only finished it this time, I was sorry when it ended.

Heart Berries - by Terese Marie Mailhot

I learned of this book when the author gave a Zoom talk at my University earlier this year. True to form the organizers of the event neglected to alert the library of the author visit, but I ordered a copy of her book when I saw the announcement flier.

This slim memoir provides a glimpse into Mailhot's story. Some pieces are left out, and it is told in a non-linear format. One thing we do learn is that her single mother "destined to die of exhaustion" knew when to use the library. Her near miss with the "miracle of fortune and justice" involved Paul Simon (yes, that Paul Simon) who contacted Maihot's mother in order to get some correspondence he needed for a play he was writing about Salvador Agrón. Mailhot was concerned after the two spoke on the phone that Simon was on his way to becoming her stepfather.

I began to suspect they were flirting when I went with Mom to the library to look up if Simon had a wife. I didn't want Paul Simon to be my new father. I saw an album cover once. He wore turtlenecks. He was pasty. He had beady eyes.

After reading a biography and looking at some news clippings it was determined that Simon was "married to some redhead...".

Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983-2005 - by Margaret Atwood

My husband and I read this collection of Atwood's writings over an eight-month period. Thought provoking, as well as conversation provoking, we both just felt smarter each time we read some of this work. 

Atwood gives libraries and librarians their due in various essays - starting with the Introduction

As one early reader of this book pointed out, I have a habit of kicking off my discussion of a book or author or group of books by saying that I read it (or him, or her, or them) in the cellar when I was growing up; or that I came across them in the bookcase at home; or that I found them at the cottage; or that I took them out from the library. If these statements were metaphors I'd excise all of them except one, but they are simply snippets of my reading history. My justification for mentioning where and when I first read a book is that...the impression a book makes on you is often tied to your age and circumstances at the time you read it, and your fondness for books you loved when young continues with you through your life.

This custom of telling of the history of reading a book is something that can be found in my blog as well. I often begin my posts by saying where I found a book, or when I first read it. There is in fact something rather meta in my description of my first encounter with Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale when I consider it in light of what Atwood says here. And in honor of this tradition, I will divulge that I checked this book out of the Maxwell Library, the one in which I work. I picked it out specifically because I wanted to read Atwood, and this seemed like it would be a good read along with my husband.

Atwood gives a shout out to librarians and archivists as "guardian angels of paper" in her essay "In Search of Alias Grace".

Without them there would be a lot less of the past than there is, and I and many other writers owe them a huge debt of thanks.

This was written in 1996, and seems to set up her comments in a later work - a review of A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World by Robert Bringhurst (2004). Bringhurst's book tells of two poets Skaay and Ghandl who were from Haida "one of the many cultures that flourished along the northwest coast of North America before the arrival of the smallpox-carrying, Gospel-bearing Europeans in the nineteenth century." The two survived the disease, but were left blinded. They told their stories, in the original Haida language to John Reed Swanton, an ethnography/linguist who was "collecting stories as a way to learn a language." The poets died in the early twentieth century and "their stories gathered dust in libraries for almost a hundred years" before Bringhurst found them and over a twelve-year period taught himself the language and wrote a book about it.

It is a good thing we have archivists and librarians, otherwise we wouldn't know this story at all.

In her discussion of author Dashiell Hammett Atwood laments the lack of a library in northern Canada where she spent her preadolescent summers, and informs the readers that she, therefore, had to re-read a lot of detective fiction. Where she found Erle Stanley Gardner, or Ellery Queen "dry", Hammett's writing was, conversely, "fast-paced, sharp-edged, and filled with zippy dialogue." We also learn that "as a boy [Hammett] wanted to read all the books in the Baltimore public library". I imagine she means the Baltimore City library, rather than the Baltimore County library, which is where I got my first library card. Nevertheless, this bit of trivia gave me a special thrill.

Atwood describes her foray's into Harvard's Widener Library as a graduate student in the 1960s in her Introduction to She by H. Rider Haggard

Once I was let loose in the stacks, my penchant for not doing my homework soon reasserted itself, and it wasn't long before I was snuffling around in Rider Haggard and his ilk...

In her introduction to "The Complete Stories, Volume 4 by Morley Callaghan" we learn that Callaghan's books were

sometimes banned by the public library in Toronto - I forget what the rationalization was, but the real reason could only have been that if a Canadian were to do anything so ethically dubious as write, he should at least write like a proper colonial and not like someone who had lived in the Paris of Joyce and Gertrude Stein.

Totally appropriate that I'm writing about this during Banned Books Week.

And speaking of banned books, Atwood's review of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi begins with the question of where to categorize such a book. After making, and rejecting several suggestions she says

A mischievous soul might stash it under "book groups," which would be about as close as my college library's choice of "veterinary medicine" for Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon.

 This same kind of questioning of classification is used in her review of W.S. Merwin's The Mays of Ventadorn. She clearly understands the kind of struggles cataloging librarians face when she recognizes that

It is...the sort of book that poses a problem for classifiers: What shelf to put it on? Is it a memoir? Not exactly, but sort of. Is it a rumination upon memory? Yes and no. It is about poetry? Not only.

I image that not everyone will read this book cover to cover. I expect many scholars will likely read the most relevant parts for their specific research and then return the book to the shelf.

But those who decide to take the deep dive will be richly rewarded.

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

If I had a "Bucket List" the Haskell Free Library and Opera House would be on it. The public library in Derby Line, Vermont, USA straddles the border with Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. A line down the middle of the floor of the building marks where one country ends and the other begins. There is no port of entry inside the library. Library users are free to walk back and forth between the countries any time.

Charles Pierce discusses the history of the library in Idiot America and explains that prior to 9/11 residents of Derby Line and Stanstead could freely pass between the countries even without going into the library

For decades, it was a point of civic pride for the people in both towns that they lived right atop one of the friendliest stretches of the friendliest borders in the world. People wandered down the tiny, shady backstreets of the place, passing back and forth between the two countries without ever really noticing.

After September 11, 2001, however

The border authorities in both countries acted quickly to restrict access along the side streets in Stanstead and Derby Line. As part of the plan, it was proposed that anyone parking a car outside the library on the Canadian side might well have to pass through a port of entry before walking up the front steps, which are on the American side.

In the spirit of full disclosure I must mention this bit of odd news about the Haskell Free Library and Opera House involving a case of gun smuggling that took advantage of the library's unique location. Canadian Alexis Vlachos had a friend purchase guns in the United States and leave them in the bathroom of the library to be picked up by Vlachos, who entered from the Canadian side. This story might cause some to get their xenphobic hackles up, however, as quoted by Canadian Don Browning in the article "if we live in fear we have to close up every little potential loophole, that would probably change our way of life a little bit and I don't think it's worth it".

Pierce goes on to point out that it (the 2000s) had "not been an easy decade for libraries" citing closure of the the library run by the Environmental Protection Agency by the Bush (43) Administration, and the passage of Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to look at library records without a warrant.

He further uses libraries as a metaphor describing their orderliness, and contrasts it with the disorderliness of "Idiot America" where the gut, rather than the head rules. Rather than separating Fiction and Non-Fiction (as real libraries do) in Idiot America

Fiction and nonfiction are defined by how well they sell. The best sellers are on one shelf, cheek by jowl, whether what's contained in them is true or not.

The book was published in 2009, Pierce could not have known how prescient his words were.

My husband and I listened to Pierce's book on audio during a long car drive between Massachusetts and Maryland. When I heard the piece about Derby Line I realized I would need to blog about it, and had to then request a hard copy of the book through Interlibrary loan.

A Year of Living Prayerfully - by Jared Brock

Our One Book One Community (OBOC) steering committee is looking for a light-hearted book with a spiritual theme to read next spring. We had a suggestion of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't by Stephen Prothero which I started to read, and do like, but I am not sure it is a good choice for a community read. Our community likes to read stories, and Prothero's book is not only not a "story" it is also rather didactic (as the title would suggest). These are two things that make the book a less-than-ideal choice for OBOC. With this in mind I started to look for other books - specifically something with a plot. Then I remembered that during my "Year of Reading 'Year of' Books" I read two religiously-themed humorous books that were about spiritual quests: The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs; and My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. I correctly surmised that more such books must have been written the last few years and selected Brock's book as one that had potential for OBOC. Brock's story features a genuine inquiry into what prayer means. He travels across the globe, often with this wife, to talk to religious leaders about their own spiritual journeys and ultimately finds more questions than answers.

As a Unitarian Universalist I respect and support each person's search for truth and meaning (see our fourth principle). I was intrigued with Brock's quest, and especially appreciated his final comments regarding having more to learn

After an intense year of learning about prayer from some of the best sources on earth, I don't feel like I'm further along. If anything, I feel like a first-year university student-I now know all the things I don't know-all the things I haven't yet learned, understood, or experienced. I am not, in any way, a prayer expert. I'm a failing student who's playing catch up, at best. Rather than coming to the end of a journey, I've only just begun.

As he continues his inquiry I hope he branches out beyond Judeo-Christian traditions. His interactions with Muslims were limited and I don't recall him meeting with any imams. Nor did he talk to any Buddhists (he did meet with one who had converted to Christianity) or Hindus. Likewise, his dealings with women religious leaders were rather narrow. I think the woman with whom he had the longest conversation was Rachel Phelps-Hockenbarger, daughter of Fred Phelps of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. I have to give him credit for his perseverance in getting the interview, though.

Brock's travels took him to, Israel, several parts of Europe, his native Canada, the United States, and also to North and South Korea. I was impressed with his courage in voyaging to North Korea, and his refusal to bow down to the body of Kim Il-Sung. There were no visits to any African or Latin American countries, however, and I suspect that if he had spoken to someone in Central or South America about liberation theology, or talked to anyone in Africa about colonialism, or attended a religious ceremony on an Indian reservation in the United States, he might not have simply and naively accepted the comments he found in Christianity Today that

Missionaries brought about reforms, fought colonialism, taught people to read, and rallied support for struggling peoples around the world. The conclusion the article makes is striking: "Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple-if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary."

I was, of course, glad to see that he began his globe-trotting voyages at his local library. On page one Brock tells us

Michelle and I decided to live prayerfully for an entire year. It was a nice, shiny idea. But where should we start? 

With For Dummies, obviously. I borrowed a copy of Christian Prayer for Dummies from the library.

After reading a bit of the work though, he found himself unimpressed and

called it quits, returning the book to the library, where [he] assumed it would remain until next year's Friends of the library book sale. 

He also visited the library at the Monastery of Vatopedi (and even borrowed a book there) and while on Mount Athos talked to Father Philotheos who, when asked to define prayer, responded

Prayer isn't one thing...You can read a whole university library full of books that have been written just on the Jesus Prayer.

Brock made at least one other attempt to visit a library while on his journeys. Sadly, however he found the library (and the museum) at Monte Cassino closed (this after he paid his entrance fee). The gift shop, however, was open.

Ultimately, I think I will keep up my own search for a One Book One Community read and look for something that explores religion beyond what one will find in the Judeo-Christian traditions.

Mr. Chef & Ms. Librarian - by Melissa Yi

Can a white-bread librarian on the rebound find true love with a Pakistani chef who promised his parents he'd find himself a nice Muslim girl?

Ivy Appleford is new to her job as a public librarian, as well as new in town and has recently been dumped by her boyfriend. She signs up for some cooking classes and falls for the sexy chef/instructor, Tariq, who is equally taken with her. It doesn't take long for the two to become swept up in a hot, and spicy romance. True to romance novel genre there are some ups and downs in the relationship, but all is well in the end.

The author played around a bit with some librarian stereotypes and fantasies. Even as Ivy notes that being a librarian no one ever expected her to be "a wild party" readers see someone who finds it thrilling to have sex outside, where anyone could have come by, and when Ivy surprises Tariq by deftly opening a condom and sliding it down on him she simply shrugs and says "I should be good at this stuff. I'm a librarian." Neither does she hesitate when her swarthy lover suggests that they have sex on the circulation desk. When Tariq shows up unannounced at Ivy's house late one night and sees her in red flannel pajamas for the first time, his mind, of course, goes right to the uptight librarian fantasy.

He grinned. "You look adorable." To his surprise, he meant it. The tortoiseshell glasses reminded him of a cat. Or, better yet, the Tina Fey, take off your glasses and let down your hair, buttoned-up sexiness."

Ivy's ex-boyfriend, Stephen, is a professor, and apparently she was not completely at ease with him because of it. With Tariq

She didn't have to prove that librarians were as smart as academics. She didn't have to pretend to like his friends. She could just hang out.

I thought about this passage a lot, not so much because I think I need to prove anything to my professor husband (he knows how smart I am, after all) but more because I am an academic librarian. I suppose that I sometimes feel that I have to prove that I'm as smart as my colleagues. This can be especially frustrating when I'm dealing with faculty members (or administrators) who may not, in fact, be as smart as I am! Librarians do know everything, after all.

Early in their relationship, when Ivy isn't so sure she should be getting involved with anyone, she tells Tariq that what she needs is more of a friend "an avuncular type". She specifically suggests that my favorite fictitious librarian - Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be a good person for her "someone who won't take advantage of me - or tempt me." Really, Giles wouldn't tempt her? Has she not seen the show, especially the episode called "Band Candy"?!

I must say that Ivy is as much of a multi-dimensional character as one can expect in a romance novel. She has a variety of interests, and cares about her community, plus she is smart, sexy, and witty. This was a fun read for Read-a-Romance month.

The Year Dolly Parton was My Mom - the movie

In the spirit of Winona Ryder's Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael  this sweet coming-of-age film features Julia Sarah Stone as eleven-year-old Elizabeth Alison Gray who, upon discovering that she was adopted, sets out to find her birth mother, whom she is convinced is none other than country music star Dolly Parton! In the 1970s one just couldn't Google information so Elizabeth seeks the help of a librarian to find out where she can get her birth records, only to discover that those records are sealed leading her on a quest across the Canada/United States border in search of answers. This is a wonderful feminist film. And it passes the Bechdel Test in spades!