This week past was Banned Book Week. It is kind of a holiday for me as a writer. For the past several years I have read a banned or challenged book on or about this time. Of course, much of what I normally read is banned stuff. This practice began when my writing partner Elizabeth was still in school. As she was assigned classics that I'd never read, I tried to keep up, reading them as though I were assigned the books. Catcher in the Rye , J. D. Salinger's masterpiece, was one such book. Although it has sat on my shelf for years, I finally got around to reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 . Kate Chopin's The Awakening , John Gardner’s Grendel , Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita , and many others have brought new insights to my inner eyes. Although I abhor the idea of books being banned, sometimes it performs a very great service. Banned books garner a great deal of attention and sometimes become bestsellers because of it....
Blog of a struggling writer.