The Guardian, the best paper to read if you like literature, has published a list of librarians’ must-read books.

Librarians were asked by the Museum, Libraries, and Achives Council, “Which book should every adult read before they die?”

The complete list, with those I’ve read in bold (those I’ve read parts of are marked with a single asterisk):

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
2. The Bible*
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
   
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   
8. All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman*
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14. Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
    
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
    
17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
    
18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
    
19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
    
20. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
    
24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

If we include the two I’ve read parts of, I’m halfway through the list, with a strong emphasis on the classics.

Granted, it’s clear from this list that books originally written in English and those written by Brits themselves get a higher priority than on lists that other groups would create. But that’s still okay. Because it’s fun to see what others recommend.

February was a quiet book-buying month, coming on the heels as it did of the heavy book acquisitions of January (and frankly, the month was filled with Winter and Knitting Olympics — who has time to hit the bookstores properly?). In fact, the only book that came to me was a birthday present from Rudi:

The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde

From the book jacket: “Meet Detective Jack Spratt, family man and head of the Nursery Crimes Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories. Spratt is fresh from a spectacular failure to see convicted three wily pigs for the murder of a certain wolf. the media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him. Now, new trouble is brewing.”
Why this book? Because Rudi knows how much I loved Fforde’s earlier books, the Thursday Next series. Because Rudi and I have both met Fforde. Because Fforde got some of his inspiration for the aforementioned series from a Monty Python skit. Because Fforde is cleverer than almost anyone else out there but not so clever that you groan at his jokes or hate him for flaunting it.

But lest you think I neglected my reading for tv or knitting too much, I am pleased to report on where my bookmarks have been stuck in over the last two months (in no particular order): (more…)

Parents in Williamson County, Tennessee, have been asked to sign an anonymous petition demanding that the classic To Kill a Mockingbird be removed.

The petition cites profanity in the novel as a reason to can it, as well as its “adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, [and] incest.” It also suggests that the book could encourage “racial hatred, racial division, [and] racial separation” and that it “promotes white supremacy.”

Now, I admit that I haven’t read a whole lot of Southern writers. But I have read To Kill a Mockingbird. And while I agree that it has a lot of mature themes in the book, it’s hardly something that a middle schooler is unaware of. And the main character is a child. The book is written from a child’s point of view.

And if whoever wrote the petition feels that this book encourages white supremacy, when the whole crux of the story focuses on a travesty of justice perpetrated against an African American man by a white police and justice system simply because of his race, then they have a severely warped sense of what white supremacy constitutes.

Heaven forbid we ask our children to think about big issues. They already think about big issues. They just don’t necessarily share them with adults.

And shame on the Board of Education if they even consider a ban.

Via Bookslut.

I thought I’d add a new end-of-the-month feature where I share my recent book acquisitions. Some months that will be very light. Other months — particularly months when I attend book-related conferences — will be heavier.

January is a “heavy” book month because I attend the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting during it. Somehow I managed to acquire 11 books this month. Now I just need to come up with someplace to put them… (more…)

I know, I know. You’ve been sitting around for days reading other people’s lists of what they consider to have been the best things they read over the last year. You’ve even come up with your own winners. But where, you’ve asked, is soe’s list?

Wonder no more. I offer here for your review, my own thoughts on the best books I read over the last year: (more…)

Last week was Children’s Book Week, but I was a little slow in finishing this post, so I’m officially extending it to make it Children’s Book Fortnight.

As such, I encourage you to check out what’s out there in children’s publishing, particularly if you haven’t looked recently. Some of it is pap and some of it is overly moralistic, but some of it is amazing. And you just won’t know which it is until you start thumbing through…

Here are some children’s books (appearing in no particular order) I’ve enjoyed through the years:

1. Horton Hears a Who!, by Dr. Seuss
2. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3. The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
4. The Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
5. Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
6. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer
7. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
8. Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type, by Doreen Cronin
9. The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper
10. Homecoming, by Cynthia Voigt
11. The Chronicles of Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis
12. The Great Good Thing, by Roderick Townley
13. The Please and Thank You Book, by Richard Scarry
14. Summerland, by Michael Chabon
15. Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
16. The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot
17. The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg
18. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
19. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares
20. The Conch Bearer, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

So I’ve given you my twenty. Who wants to contribute some of their favorites?