It’s banned book week and I just gotta say that …

… I’m a self-confessed and unapologetic bibliophile.  I’m a sucker for books:   good books, bad books and everything in between.  I love the smell of books, the feel of books.  I collect books and like looking at them all nestled together on my book shelves or piled here, there and everywhere in the corners of my life.  There is always a book in my purse.  There is always a book beside my bed.  I never ever go to sleep without reading at least a page or two of my current read … and there is ALWAYS a current read.   I  generally avoid bookstores because once I step through the door, I’m doomed to spend hundreds of dollars. 

… I often give books as gifts.  Because, honestly, I can’t think of anything better than to share a book that has thoroughly entertained me or taught me something new or made me laugh or caused me to weep or even perhaps changed me in some deep and fundamental way.  Is there anything better than being in the middle of a book that you can hardly put down, that you can’t wait to get back to?  If I care about you, why wouldn’t I want to give this experience to you?

… It follows that  with my liberal “brattiness” I am indeed passionately opposed to the narrow-minded minority who would attempt to ban any book, because they think they know better than you or me.   And so a few years ago I wrote the following.  I think it’s worth repeating …

Get Your Rocks OFF With a Banned Book

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

~Salman Rushdie

Won’t you join me in championing free speech this week by observing Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read. Do it anyway you want, I don’t care: Take a book to lunch. Or dress it up in stockings and stilettos–then fuck it silly or jerk off and cum all over it. But most of all, hold it to your heart and keep it safe. 

Great Book Quotes

•  To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. ~Robertson Davies
• There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. ~Oscar Wilde
• The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them. ~Mark Twain
• A room without books is like a body without a soul. ~Cicero
• Never judge a book by its movie. ~J. W. Eagan
• Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book. ~Dwight Eisenhower
• This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. ~Dorothy Parker
• I first read books to survive my life; then I read books to live my life; now I read books to celebrate my life. ~Angela St. Lawrence 

Most Sacred First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble , and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Books from the Hit List

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• Cujo by Stephen King
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Native Son by Richard Wright
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou

***Researching and putting all of the info together for this entry, I’ve had tears in my eyes more than once; fell in love with power of words–over and again; was struck heart-deep by the weight of truth which those who write always bare; and fell in love with my beautiful country all over again. If you even find your way to one of those things…I will be profoundly humbled.

***********

One more thing:  Between you and me, I sincerely believe that books saved my life.  Once upon a time I was a little girl in a bad situation — the world was ugly and there was no physical escape.  But there was the local library, just a few blocks from my parochial school.  And so I would go there to read and read and read.  My library card was my only prized possession, and with it I would borrow as many books as was permitted and read in my room, on the school bus, on the porch, in the yard.  And eventually all that reading got me from there to here.

So, yeah … spank your monkey with a book.  Fuck it, hump it, cum all over it.  Do it for me.  Do it for you.  Do it for those who read their way into their own selves.  Do it for all the little girls and boys who not only found a way out, but up, up, up …

Because books are that powerful.  And so are we.  If you don’t believe me, read a book.  You’ll see.