Happy Banned Books Week!

This week, the American Library Association (ALA) celebrates the freedom to read through Banned Books Week. Chicago will be hosting the Banned Books Readout in which six of the ten most challenged books, including And Tango Makes Three, TTYL, and The Gossip Girls Novels, will be read by their authors.

I'm glad to know that many of the books I have read are on the 2008-2009 list: The Twilight Saga, The Kite Runner, To Kill a Mockingbird, My Sister's Keeper, etc.

Ironically, the next book on my nightstand, The Book Thief, deals with this very issue. In it, a little girls becomes obsessed with reading and turns to stealing banned books to satiate her hunger for reading. Wouldn't it be funny if it made the banned/challenged books list?!

Here's to exercising our FREEDOM TO READ!

Author Spotlight: Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights was required reading (and probably still is) for high school English classes. However, it truly is one of my favorite novels. After reading Twilight and seeing so many references to it, I was inspired to reread the same copy I've kept for over 10 years. I must say that I enjoyed it as much as the first time I read it. It is full of beautiful yet dark imagery, intriguing figurative language, mysterious characters, and an unrequited, tumultous love set in a similarly, unruly and violent landscape.

Although it was Emily's only novel, it is such a masterpiece that it transcends time and continues to inspire movies and other pieces of literature. After rereading it, I noticed that it was not only mentioned throughout the Twilight saga, but there are also references to the novel in The Kite Runner and The Glassblower of Murano. Who needs a happy ending when you've experienced such an insanely passionate love story?

"My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees — my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being — so, don't talk of our separation again — it is impracticable." ~Catherine's monologue, Ch. 9.

A Picture of Afghanistan

Khaled Hosseini paints a stunning, vivid, and realistic picture of Afghanistan in The Kite Runner. This book is definitely a must-read! Although at times, it was very difficult to read not because of the writing style or the foreign terms but because of the violent accounts of daily life in Afghanistan. For Americans, this is something that is read about in the paper, listened to on NPR, and watched on the news. But, the descriptions of the atrocities that occur in the book and because they are tied to the main characters made me feel like I was living through the current history of the country - from the overthrough of the monarchy and the Russian invasion to the rise of the Taliban.

In addition to that, it was difficult at first to relate to our narrator, Amir, who does not play the typical protagonist/hero role. He is somewhat of a coward throughout most of the book. He and his servant's son, Hassan, grow up together both withouth a mother and even nurse from the same woman as children which meant their lives were destined to be intertwined. They are best friends in a world where their religions make one superior to the other - Amir, a Suni Muslim and Hassan, a Shi'a Muslim. However, many incidents, especially those in which Amir yearns to win his father's approval, lead him to commit his own shameful atrocities toward Hassan. Amir eventually leaves Afghanistan with his father and moves to California where he longs to forget his past. But, the past catches up to him and forces him to return to Afghanistan where he is eventually vindicated and finds redemption. Along the way, he discovers a secret which will change his life forever.

I loved this book and have even purchased it's follow-up, A Thousand Splendid Suns. But, it's not next on my reading list because I prefer to read something a little more lighthearted before returning to the bleak realism of Hosseini.