Fahrenheit 451....

As the trees burn around our neighbors in Big Sur.....trees that in other venues are turned into paper....and then into books.

This weekend we had the Authors and Ideas conference in Carmel. All kinds of great authors. I was ashamed to admit that I had read many of the books on offer.

Left alone in a tacqueria with nothing to read in English or Spanish.....I will read the backs of my credit cards.

Really.

Reading is the central river that defines my life. I was the kid that would start research for my sixth grade class on a project in the Encyclopaedia Britannica about "Washington" and wind up reading about "Waugh, Evelyn" and learning about wacky English families and the Amazon.lk

My brother was an author.....and Editor in Chief of Harper Collins. He started Anne Coulter on her nightmare road to hell.

My mom is a librarian.....and still teaches literacy classes.....in English and Spanish....at age 81.

Sarah Palin, besides being complete fucking dipshit.....was once mayor of East Bearshit, Alaska. In her role as mayor and as a parent, she attempted to intervene in the schools and library of East Bearshit.

Her group, PABBIS.....is clamoring to have the following small list of books banned from public discourse.

I am gonna post the after my comments.......but one of the names that popped out was: "Tim O'Brien......The Things They Carried."

This book was the quintessential Vietnam book. Well, there were others.....but Tim nailed it.

Beyond that, this book was the only book my oldest son read on his own in elementary school. Hounded and pursued at every corner by test-wielding demons who sought to prove that he was an ADD, ADHD, dyslexic retard.....the kid loved this book, for its reality, its humanity, its irony, its sense of history. Half his godfather's were Vietnam vets.....and his connection with them now is not unrelated to his experience of Tim O'Brien's book. Bennie, Horace, Peyton.....even Edward at The Store.

This book should be banned because.......?

We have the broadsheet from Powell's Books framed and mounted in his room. Along side his Uncle Rob's Powell's broadsheet.

Another book on the list is "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".....Ken Kesey.

Are you kidding?

The common thread is not indecency....but questioning authority. Recognizing diversity and struggle.

Check it out.

I know I am preaching to the choir....but as Uncle Bill Clinton said on the Daily Show the other night: "We all know who is on the side of the Angels.......we all need to reach out to those folks who don't get it yet."

Check out this list.....I promise there is not just fear waiting for you.....but motivation to engage those idiot friend of yours who still don't get that Sarah Palin and her ilk are the death knell of civilization itself.

The file is large so BE PATIENT if you don't have a high speed connection

The books in the Excerpts section are listed below

33 Snowfish - Rapp, Adam
A Seahorse Year - D'Erasmo, Stacey
Alice Alone - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Alice in Rapture, Sort Of - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Alice on Her Way - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Alice on the Outside - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
All Over But the Shoutin' - Bragg, Rick
All the Pretty Horses - McCarthy, Cormac
Alt Ed - Atkins, Catherine
Always Outnumbered Always Outgunned - Mosley, Walter
Always Running La Vida Loca: Gang Days In L.A. - Rodriguez, Luis T.
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging - Rennison, Louise
Animal Dreams - Kingsolver, Barbara
Annie On My Mind - Garden, Nancy
Are You in the House Alone? - Peck, Richard
Athletic Shorts - Crutcher, Chris
Baby Be-Bop - Block, Francesca Lia
Bastard Out of Carolina - Alison, Dorothy
Be True to Your School: A Diary of 1964 - Greene, Bob
Beloved - Morrison, Toni
Black Boy - Wright, Richard
Bless Me Ultima - Anaya, Rudolfo A.
Boy's Life - McCammon, Robert
B-More Careful - Holmes, Shannon
Breaking Boxes - Jenkins, A. M.
Chinese Handcuffs - Crutcher, Chris
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Dance on My Grave - Chambers, Aidan
Deal With It! A whole new approach.. - Drill, Esther & McDonald, Heather & Odes, Rebecca
Desire Lines - Gantos, Jack
Dreamland - Dessen, Sarah
Druids - Llywelyn, Morgan
Eight Seconds - Ferris, Jean
Ellen Foster - Gibbons, Kaye
Empress of the World - Ryan, Sara
Exodus - Uris, Leon
Fade - Cormier, Robert
Fair Game - Tamar, Erika
Fallen Angels - Myers, Walter Dean
Families - Jannes, Aylette
Fat Kid Rules The World - Going, K. L.
Fools Crow - Welch, James
From The Notebooks Of Melanin Sun - Woodson, Jacqueline
Gates of Fire - Pressfield, Steven
Geography Club - Hartinger, Brent
Girl Goddess #9 - Block, Francesca Lia
Go Ask Alice - Anonymous
Going After Cacciato - O'Brien, Tim
Growing Up Chicana/o - Lopez, Tiffany Ana
Happy Endings Are All Alike - Scoppettone, Sandra
Heroes - Cormier, Robert
Holly's Secret - Garden, Nancy
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Alvarez, Julia
I am the Cheese - Cormier, Robert
I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and licked out all the Pots - Straight, Susan
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Angelou, Maya
I Was a Teenage Fairy - Block, Francesca Lia
If it doesn’t kill you - Bechard, Margaret
In Cold Blood - Capote, Truman
It's Perfectly Normal - Harris, Robie
Kaffir Boy - Mathabane, Mark
Keesha’s House - Frost, Helen
Kindred - Butler, Octavia B.
King & King - Haan, Linda de and Nijland, Stern
Kissing Tennessee - Appelt, Kathi
Less Than Zero - Ellis, Bret Easton
Like Water for Chocolate - Esquivel, Laura
Living by the Word - Walker, Alice
Looking for Alaska - Green, John
Love & Sex: Ten Stories of Truth - Cart, Michael
Love in the Time of Cholera - Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Lucky - Sebold, Alice
My Father's Scar - Cart, Michael
My Heartbeat - Garret Freymann-Weyr
My Losing Season - Conroy, Pat
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Kesey, Ken
One Hot Second: Stories About Desire - Young, Cathy [editor]
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Outrageously Alice - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Patiently Alice - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Paula - Allende, Isabel
Peter - Walker, Kate
Push - Sapphire
Ragtime - Doctorow, E.L.
Rainbow Boys - Sanchez, Alex
Rape Fantasies from The Norton Anthology - Atwood, Margaret
Rats Saw God - Thomas, Rob
River God - Smith, Wilbur
Running Loose - Crutcher, Chris
Sari Says, The REAL DIRT on Everything from Sex to School
Shattering Glass - Giles, Gail
Shogun - Clavell, James
Silver Pigs - Lindsey, Davis
Simply Alice - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut, Kurt
Slave Day - Thomas, Rob
Smack - Burgess, Melvin
Snow falling on cedars - Guterson, David
Song of Solomon - Morrison, Toni
Sophie’s World - Gaarder, Jostein
Speak - Anderson, Laurie Halse
Stones from the River - Hegi, Ursula
Stotan - Crutcher, Chris
Stuck Rubber Baby - Cruse, Howard
Tenderness - Cormier, Robert
The Antagonists - Gann, Ernest K.
The Awakening - Chopin, Kate
The Bean Trees - Kingsolver, Barbara
The Bluest Eye - Morrison, Toni
The Book Of Phoebe - Tirone, Mary-Ann
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger, J.D.
The Chocolate War - Cormier, Robert
The Clan of the Cave Bear - Auel, Jean M.
The Color Purple - Walker, Alice
The Confessions of Nat Turner - Styron, William
The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind - Guterson, David
The Dear One - Woodson, Jacqueline
The Family Book - Parr, Todd
The First Man of Rome - McCullough, Colleen
The Giver - Lowry, Lois
The Grooming of Alice - Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
The Handmaid’s Tale - Atwood, Margaret
The Hot Zone - Preston, Richard
The House of Spirits - Allende, Isabel
The House on Mango Street - Cisneros, Sandra
The Joy Luck Club - Tan, Amy
The King Must Die - Renault, Mary
The Lords of Discipline - Conroy, Pat
The Moves Make the Man - Brooks, Bruce
The Name of the Rose - Eco, Umberto
The Natural - Malamud, Bernard
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Chbosky, Stephen
The Pillars of the Earth - Follet, Ken
The Power of One - Courtenay, Bryce
The Prince of Tides - Conroy, Pat
The Rainbow Kite - Fanta Shyer, Marlene
The Rose and the Beast; Fairy Tales Retold - Block, Francesca, Lia
The sailor who fell from grace with the sea - Mishima, Yukio
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - Townsend, Sue
The Sissy Duckling - Fierstein, Harvey
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Brashares, Ann
The Source - Michener, James
The things they carried - O’Brien, Tim
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t - Blume, Judy
Things Fall Apart - Achebe, Chinua
This Boy's Life - Wolff, Tobias
Thousand Pieces of Gold - McCunn, Ruthanne Lum
A Time for Dancing - Hurwin, Davida Wills
True to the Game - Woods, Teri
Twelve Days in August - Ketchum Murrow, Liza
Uncle Vampire - Grant, Cynthia D.
Violet & Claire - Block, Francesca Lia
Weetzie Bat - Block, Francesca Lia
Whale Talk - Crutcher, Chris
What I Know Now - Larson, Roger
When I was Puerto Rican - Santiago, Esmeralda
Where the Kissing Never Stops - Koertge, Ron
Whistle Me Home - Wersba, Barbara
The Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

Witch Baby - Block, Francesca Lia

Woman Warrior - Kingston, Maxine
Zack's Story - Greenberg, Keith Elliot