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Welcome to my weekly update for October 4, 2020!
Friday is our sixteenth wedding anniversary. I’m not quite sure where the time has gone! We normally take our big vacation for the year in October but that’s obviously out of the question this year. Oh well. When you’re traveling with work because you actually enjoy traveling, every day off feels like a vacation!
I posted last week about how Banned Books Week sneaked up on me. I usually post reviews or commentary every day of the week but I only had one review scheduled last week. I hit the easy button and read and reviewed a lot of kid’s books to fill up the week.
Any of you who read children’s and young adult books should know that nominations for the 2020 Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) are open through 11:59 PM PDT on October 15! If you’ve read any outstanding books for these age groups that have been published in the past year, you should nominate them! (I’m not a judge or affiliated with the Cybils in any way; I just think good books should receive recognition).
Posted:
Everything below, except my selections for Six Degrees of Separation, is a banned or challenged book. How many have you read?
Six Degrees of Separation Meme: From The Turn of the Screw by Henry James to Bird Box by Josh Malerman
My thoughts on Banned Books Week
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo and Jill Twiss-🌟🌟🌟🌟
My Top Ten Favorite Banned Books
Melissa (Formerly published as George) by Alex Gino–🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman–🌟🌟🌟🌟
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey–🌟🌟🌟
Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray–🌟🌟🌟🌟
Read:
In addition to all of the books above, except One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which I read in June, I finished reading
The Deep by Alma Katsu, read by Jane Collingwood
Currently Reading:
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen–Yes, I finally got this book back from the library!
The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey
Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics, read by Jorjeana Marie
Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge
Watching:
We just watched the first episode of Away, a Netflix drama starring Hilary Swank, on Friday night but we were really impressed with it. We’ll continue on.
Up Next:
I just picked up a physical copy of Monstress Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda at the library on Friday. I’m determined to finish Lies and Unidentified before I let myself start it though.
What did your week look like?
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.
37 Comments
I totally missed ever seeing the Six Degrees of Separation meme! How fun! I have been away from the book blogging world too long. I haven’t read any of the books you’ve listed this week except for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Happy Anniversary to you and your husband!
Thank you! Six Degrees of Separation is a lot of fun. Some people get really creative with their links. I’m just a free form linker. Last month we started with Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld and two people formed their chain with book titles starting with the letters R-O-D-H-A-M. I thought that was clever!
I love the cover of THe Deep. Check out what I read last week.
It’s a great spooky cover, isn’t it?
Happy anniversary!
Thank you!
Yes not the time really to be travelling or indeed living in the White House either. Congrats on 16 years. The only book I read years ago was The Color Purple and I loved that.
Thank you! I was truly shocked by how much I loved The Color Purple. And I’m certainly glad I wasn’t in the White House Rose Garden on that day.
For sure! Healthy and happy and together. I’ll drink to that!
I’ve quite a few of those banned books!
There’s a chapter in Lies My Teacher… there’s a chapter that talks about John Brown and Abraham Lincoln…a new book is coming out tomorrow on both of them called The Zealot and the Emancipator by H.W. Brands. It looks really good especially after I just finished up that chapter on those in LIes! Sorry just random since you’re reading that book too.
Monstress is phenomenal! I hope you enjoy that series too. It’s well worth the wait.
Happy anniversary! We have our 17th in December. We usually don’t go anywhere since it’s so close to Christmas and winter break but we try to do something big after the holidays are over. Not this year either. I’m so sorry that’s not in the plans.
I hope you are able to enjoy it anyway despite all the chaos. Have a great week!
I finished the chapter about John Brown and Lincoln sometime in the past couple of days. It’s fascinating to see a more fleshed-out portrait of them than I ever got in history class. That books sounds good. Thanks for telling me about it! I can’t wait to get to Monstress! We’ll do something fun for our anniversary. What matters most is that we’re together and healthy, right?
Happy Anniversary! We celebrated 17 years since our wedding yesterday and we were also supposed to be on a big holiday, maybe next year or the way things are going the following year.
Have a lovely week.
Happy anniversary to you too! I saw that you’re supposed to be in Orlando. That’s a huge bummer. At least we didn’t have to cancel any plans. We’re just stuck seeing all our memories from other vacations on Facebook! I keep telling myself we’ll be able to take big trips again someday, we just have to be patient.
Happy anniversary! I didn’t read any banned books but have read most of the children’s books you list. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Thank you!
Happy Anniversary! Where do you normally go on your vacation? Maybe you could travel to someplace closer for a day trip, planning in all the places you can safely go and to stay far away from other people. Sigh.It’s scary out there. It was a weird week. Here’s what I have to say about it on my blog
We usually take an international trip for our anniversary vacation, or at least hit some national parks in distant states. We’re looking at the weather and trying to decide on something closer and safer now.
I think I’ve only read two of those banned books, but I’ve read several over the years.
Have a great anniversary! I think you’re in the same boat as most this year as far as we have to celebrate differently.
Thank you! This year has wrought havoc on everyone’s celebrations and plans.
It’s always surprising when I realize that a book I read just because I wanted to has been banned or challenged somewhere.
Happy Anniversary! Banned books week sneaked up on me too this year. But I always end up reading a few without even knowing they were initially banned. Enjoy your reading week!
Thank you! Looking at the list of banned books always surprises me. In past years I’ve inadvertently read banned books, realized they were banned, and just held my review until Banned Books Week. I’ve mostly just read fluff this year though. My brain isn’t up for difficult books when the real world feels difficult enough on its own.
Happy anniversary! I watched Away too. I’m interested to see where it goes. Have a good week!
At least Away is off to a promising start!
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest has been on my TBR for far long and the Netflix series has bumped it up the list. I will be getting on to it soon. Have a great week!
I’ll be curious to see what you think of it!
Happy Anniversary 🥂
I binged on Away this past week and really enjoyed it.
Wishing you a great reading week
Thank you! I’m happy to hear that Away continues to be good.
Happy anniversary!
I forgot about Banned Books Week, too.
I have Away in my Netflix queue and I have been looking for something to watch next. Thanks for sharing.
Here are MY WEEKLY UPDATES
Banned Books Week sneaked up on everyone this year, I think. We’re all overloaded just trying to keep up with the news.
Happy anniversary!
Thanks for sharing information on nominating for the Cybils. I completely forgot to do that this week.
I almost forgot about Banned Books Week, too. At the last minute, I read and reviewed two picture books. I always get upset when I think about people trying to ban books. I remember when I faced that situation in my school library. A parent wanted Princess Diaries pulled off the shelves. I encouraged the parent to make that choice for her own child, if she wished, but to not make that choice for all 1200 kids in the school.
I haven’t seen Away. I need a new show. I will look for it.
Have a good week.
Thank you! It’s hard to keep track of everything right now, isn’t it? I feel like not much changes from day to day but at the same time so many things on the national stage are constantly changing. It’s a bit exhausting.
Princess Diaries? Do I even want to know what upset that mom? I’m glad you were able to work some banned books into your schedule!
Shellyrae at Book’d Out mentioned Away in her post too. It sounds like she’s further along than I am and still enjoying it.
Don’t worry, banned books flew right over me! I didn’t even do one post. Just having a look at all your great posts! We were on holidays, so I do have a good excuse…..
That cover for The Turn of the Screw, never seen it before! Good one! I will try to do my Six degrees of separation later today or tomorrow. Lots of things to catch up with after a holiday you know!
I want to read Lies my Teacher told me. Think that will be worth it.
Hope you will have a good week! Here’s my latest update: The Sunday Post #13
I hope your holiday was relaxing! Lies My Teacher Told Me is informative but upsetting too. I was definitely aware that White people in America were shameless in their treatment of minorities but this book is hammering away at exactly how bad it was. And as I write this, I’m debating whether I should be using present tense in that sentence because we haven’t improved as much as we should have. And so many of us don’t even see that. I don’t know what the answer is but we aren’t even close to finding it. At least we’re having a national conversation about it now, I guess.
Happy Anniversary, Jen! 🥳🥂💕🎉
Thank you!
Happy anniversary! That’s a bummer about your vacation, but hopefully you’ll be able to take one before too long and it’ll be worth the wait. I’m not sure how many actual banned or challenged books Ive read, I feel like not that many but hmmm. not sure.
Unidentified looks like a lot of fun!
Thank you! You would probably be surprised by how many banned/challenged books you’ve read when you really start looking. The most innocuous books show up on those lists! The Unidentified is certainly interesting!