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Currently ReadingRecently Read | Want to know what happens when I combine a lengthy vacation with our “empty nest”? It means I read more books than in any year since I started keeping track in 1976. This year I read 147 books, compared to the prior record of 127 last year. And although the number may be somewhat squishy, [...]            Tim January 2nd, 2012 | Tags: Books, ebooks, reading | Category: A Reading Life | 2 comments - (Comments are closed) |  Print This Post |  Email This PostAs longtime readers likely are aware, I don’t do my “best of” for books until the year has ended. I always fear I am going to read THE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR after I post that if I do so before year-end. This is another year, though, where I can say nothing in the [...] Tim January 1st, 2012 | Tags: Books, reading | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostThis year for the first time I decided to keep track of how many pages were in the books I read. I never did before because I figured it wasn’t fair to include the index and didn’t want to go through the hassle of counting pages, subtracting index-like matter and adding in prefaces and the [...] Tim December 30th, 2011 | Tags: Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAnyone who is thinking about giving a book for a gift is thinking of Christmas. But four months from now is the perfect opportunity to give someone a book as World Book Night premiers in the U.S. on April 23, 2012. And now we know the 30 books that will be given away and the [...] Tim December 15th, 2011 | Tags: Books, reading, World Book Night | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostI’m behind on writing reviews and have not been implementing ideas for other posts. I have several review books lined up ahead of even more books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Still, I find a touch of consolation in the fact the same thing is happening in London. I actually have a [...] Tim October 20th, 2011 | Tags: Books, inertia, life, reading | Category: A Reading Life, Personal/Family | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAs another Banned Books Week comes to an end, I thought I would make mention of a few other items that appeared in the blog world about it this week, along with a news item. Two blogs took rather unique approaches to Banned Books Week. NYRB Classics blog highlighted some of its authors who struggled [...] Tim October 1st, 2011 | Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIt’s too easy to think of book challenges in the abstract. The fact is it is something we confront even here. If you take a look at a map showing documented challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States, you’ll see South Dakota has two push pins. In 2010, “Paul Shaffer’s We’ll [...] Tim September 30th, 2011 | Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAs I’ve noted this week, one of the debates that’s going on is whether “banned” is a misleading word when it comes to what Banned Books Week is about. Cut to the bone, the question is basically whether restricting access to/removing a book a parent believes is age inappropriate is “banning” a book or censorship. [...] Tim September 29th, 2011 | Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostThe issue of challenging books is one that is unlikely to go away. After all, it has come up repeatedly in the 220 years the First Amendment has been part of the Constitution. But where are the challenges coming from, what prompts them and in what settings? That’s something the American Library Association has attempted [...] Tim September 28th, 2011 | Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostGiven the culture wars over the last number of years, it can be relatively easy for a book to gin up more than a bit of angst. Maybe it’s suggestions of homosexuality. Perhaps the book takes a different or skeptical look at religion. Or maybe the story involves an abortion, although Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion [...] Tim September 27th, 2011 | Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, Books | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |         The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.  | ||
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