Book Reports

Latest Book Recommendations

Read a Banned Book! In honor of Banned Books week

These are all books on the American Library Association's list of "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000" - and all books that I love.

And more that I enjoyed:Sharpe series | Aubrey-Maturin series | Lord of Light

More book recommendations in my Amazon store!

Doonesbury

June 10, 2004

I'm a long-time fan of "Doonesbury," and read it online every day. Those of you who also follow the strip will have noticed that the long-time character BD recently lost a leg in Iraq. BD, unlike his creator Garry Trudeau, is a staunch Republican; it will be interesting to see how he ends up feeling about the war he has so far supported. That's all in the hands of author Trudeau, of course.

There was some press coverage about this event, including the following:

"About 10 newspapers have called Universal Press with concerns about the strip, primarily with language the character uses after learning his leg is gone...."

Verbatim: BD looks down, sees he's missing a leg, and yells "Son of a bitch!" As one newspaper editor pointed out, that's hardly surprising: most people would say a lot more.

It is both amusing and sad that people get so exercised about swear words, or bare breasts on television, that they keep missing the big picture. The obscenity is that anyone (even fictional) has to lose a limb in Iraq - not what he says about it.

Now available in book form

Jane Austen

June 2, 2004

I love Jane Austen, in both written and film form, having read most of her books and watched most of the recent films several times over. I enjoy her sly observations on the class distinctions and mores of her day.

I can't help noticing, however, the class gap that Austen doesn't mention - that between her own genteel middle class, and everyone below them. For example, in "Pride and Prejudice," the eldest sister sets off on horseback to visit a neighbor three miles away. The weather is threatening, and her mother hopes that she will be forced to remain at the friends' house at least overnight, since she could not ride home in the rain for fear of getting wet and taking a chill. In fact she gets thoroughly wet on the way over and becomes ill, but that's beside my point: the rain continues to pour, and servants are sent back and forth (on foot) with notes about the young lady's condition. Apparently the servants are waterproof.