I never got into Second Life, but this almost makes me wish I had: ALA’s Banned Books Week 2.0.

Actually, I’ve been tempted before, too, when George RR Martin did a virtual reading. (Yes, ASIOAF fans, his avatar was Tyrion Lannister.

I’ll always insist that paper-and-ink books are the best, but I love seeing the cool ways the book industry uses technology to promote new things.

Today’s “Shelf Awareness” newsletter has a great round-up of Banned Books Week articles about halfway down.

And via this article on Galleycat, a link to The Haphazard Gourmet’s “Civilization is Cooked Without Books” series (which includes a recipe for a vegan chocolate mousse pie. You dirty hippies.)

In poking about my alma mater’s website, I noticed that they’re hosting an event for Banned Books Week on Thursday night. I have to check and see if it’s for current students only, but if it’s open to the public, I think I’m going to go.

Now’s a good time to take a look and see what’s going on near you. If there aren’t any readings to attend, check out your local bookstore and see what they have on display.

Via the ALA, these were the ten most challenged books of 2007:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
   Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
2. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
   Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence
3. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
   Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language
4. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
   Reasons: Religious Viewpoint
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
   Reasons: Racism
6. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
   Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,
7. TTYL, by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
   Reasons: Sexually Explicit
9. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
   Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit
10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

For an even more comprehensive selection, take a gander at the ABFFE’s Banned and Challenged Book List. If you’re between books and looking for something new to read, why not see if anything on there tickles your fancy?

Banned Books Week starts tomorrow. I’ll be putting up posts throughout the week, but I haven’t quite decided what I’ll be doing, so in antici… (say it, say it)… pation, go on over to the link and click around.

Maintaining two blogs seems kind of unfeasible at the moment, while I work on writing and other things that take up my spare time (neglected guitar practicing, writing, housekeeping/fixing up, more writing…) so I’m officially putting the book blog on hiatus and will squeeze in the occasional bookish things here. Consolidation ftw.

No, I’m not abandoning the idea of opening a bookstore - there’s still more than three years to go on that goal - but while I watch what others in the industry do, and see how the changes shake out, there won’t be a lot of progress to see over there. I’ll start it back up again at a later date, but for now, my book rants will move over here. See? You can even clean up your bookmarks a bit. I’m helpful!

It seems right to kick off the blogsolidation with Banned Books Week. Lists of bannination and other interesting things still to come. In the meantime, why don’t you kids tell me which of your favorite books have been banned or challenged? Have you ever read anything simply because someone else tried to tell you (or someone you knew) that they shouldn’t?

Nothing witty to say about this. I just think it’s awesome:

George Takei Marries Longtime Partner Brad Altman

“The Mariner’s Revenge Song” is fucking awesome.

Decemberists tickets. I has them.

In an effort to not only eat better to be more healthy, but to also be a bit more environmentally conscious and because holy crap meat’s getting expensive, I’m on the prowl for good meatless recipes.

No, we’re not going completely vegetarian by any means, but I realize that there are certainly ways we could cut back and improve our eating habits. I know if I go and stand in a bookstore and stare at the wall o’cookbooks, it’s going to intimidate and overwhelm me. Some of the dishes in there will seem way too fancy/complicated/involved and it’ll just languish on my bookshelf.

So, tell me what you eat. Are there brands/products I should always have on hand? Are there ones I should run screaming away from at the store? I am certainly open to suggestions from the carnivores here, too - my goal is to collect healthy recipes in general, so they don’t all have to be meatless.

And if your’e curious, this weekend I decided to kick my ass back into gear and get back on track with Weight Watchers. But, rather than filling up this blog with food-oriented posts, I started up a google doc and published it for anyone who cares to follow along. I’ll toss a link over there in the sidebar, but for now, you can find it here.

I don’t like getting political on this blog very often, mostly because when it comes down to it, someone over there under my politics sidebar or one of my more outspoken friends will have said what I’m feeling much more eloquently than I’d put it.

But Karl Rove’s questioning Michelle Obama’s patriotism really, really gets to me.

What she said in February, in a speech in Madison, WI: “People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics, and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Now go on and read her speech addressing the DNC Monday night, if you missed it. If you can read that, or better yet, watch it, and still question whether or not she loves her country, I’d love to know what more you think she needs to say.

I know, logically, that questioning her patriotism is Yet Another Sound Bite. Slap a label on a candidate, or their spouse, or someone in their campaign, and it’s sure to stick for a good, long time, no matter how untrue the words written on that label. Election years are all about taking things out of context and blowing one poorly considered phrase way out of proportion. I get that. I do.

But I can tell you exactly why it bothers me so much.

Come back with me to those terrible weeks after September 11, 2001. Come sit in my parents’ kitchen, in the house where I grew up. Have a seat at the table, in this room that is so familiar but now, while the whole world is reeling, looks so different. Everything’s changed, even this place I still think of as home, even though Greg and I had bought a condo back in January.

My parents’ house is still largely the same - they won’t start redoing the kitchen for another few months; my wedding is still a year away. This place looks the same now as it did when I was three, and thirteen, and here I am at twenty-three, and the only difference I can find is that at some point they finally took the child-safety locks off the cabinets.

Except.

Except outside there’s something new.

Tell me about your neighborhood on September 10, 2001. Tell me what the houses looked like, the decorations outside. Seasonal flags in harvest colors? Cornuccopias and falling leaves? Plenty of autumnal celebration? Count the American flags for me.

Now count them for me on September 12th, or 15th, or 30th. Everywhere, aren’t they? Lining every streeet, adorning houses that never once flew anything. Flying on flagpoles, or in windows, fixed outside the front door. Red, white and blue, stars and stripes as far as the eye can see, yeah?

My parents’ house, too.

Close the front door, come back into the kitchen with me. Look at my dad. Vietnam vet, drafted into the army, served his country, came back to a nation that hated him. He’ll tell you hilarious stories about his service. Ask about the rice wine someday (but don’t be eating when you bring it up.) Ask him how he got to go to Sydney, Australia by donating blood.

There are things he won’t say, too. I was there the first time he stood at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was 1992. We were there for the National Spelling Bee, and had the day to explore on our own. I don’t know what twenty-year old memories came to him, then, but I remember the tears coming on him like a sudden storm, and the recollection of it still hurts my heart.

Almost ten years later, we sit in their kitchen, the news still filled with those towers, falling endlessly. It’s all there is to talk about, really, isn’t it? Where we were, how we heard. He was still driving the trains then, underground and away from any kind of news. When someone told him a plane had gone into the World Trade Center, he thought they meant the one in Boston. My mom called me crying, afraid Boston was the next target, telling me to go home, go home, go home.

The panic’s worn off, now, but not the shock. I don’t know if that ever really goes away.

I ask about their flag, whose idea it was to get one. Both of theirs, he says, though my mom might’ve brought it up first.

“I’ve never wanted to fly one before,” he says to me. “I’ve haven’t felt like a part of this country since I got home from Vietnam. My country didn’t want me. But now, these last few days, I’ve seen the way people have reacted. How they’ve come together.

“For the first time,” my father says — and yeah, there are tears in his eyes, which means they’re in mine, as well — “I’m proud to be an American.”

You can be patriotic and not be proud of your country. There are things this nation has done that are unspeakably shameful. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be made right. It doesn’t mean that someone or something can’t come along that uplifts you, inspires you, and brings back that spark of pride. For my father, it was the way the people of this country banded together in the wake of tragedy. For Michelle Obama, it’s seeing the energy and the determination and the hunger for change that’s been so evident during this campaign cycle.

That’s why I take such offense at Rove’s statement. Because if he’s questioning Michelle Obama’s sincerity, he’s questioning my father’s, too.

Okay, there are several of you in various stages of waiting - Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lost.

Trust me now.

You trust me, right? I know you do. (I’m looking at you, OPB, and Torteya.)

Okay, good.

Go rent Eureka. NOW. If you have Netflix, stick it in your queue and bump it to the top. Our friend Chuck gave the first season to Greg as a birthday present, and once we started watching it, we were hooked. I guess if I had to classify it, I’d call it science fiction/comedy, but there’s definitely a serious, darker undertone running through the whole show, which makes it all the more awesome.

The cast is pitch-perfect - I love Zoe Carter and Henry Deacon the very most. The dialogue is excellent, the timing great.

Oh, and you BSG fans? The music (at least in the third season, not sure about the first and second) is done by Bear McCreary.

GO. NOW. WATCH.

What the hell are you still doing here?