Library Stuff

Philadelphia Daily News – “YOU WOULD think that in this day and age – when Exxon/Mobil commercials tell us American children are dumber than paste – parents would be happy that their children were reading anything longer than a tweet, but for the second year in a row, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy was among the most “challenged” books, as reported Sunday by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The ALA defines a challenge as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness.”

The Daily Beast – “Meet the Librotraficantes—the “book smugglers” protesting the state’s controversial ban on ethnic-studies classes—and putting Mexican-American works in students’ hands.”

More here, from the NYT

The Atlantic – “John Locke thinks people should read more. So in the past few months, the Columbia architecture grad has slipped around Manhattan with a sack of books and custom-made shelves, converting old pay phones into pop-up libraries.”

AP – ” A military official says Muslim holy books that were burned in a pile of garbage at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan had been removed from a library at a nearby detention center because they contained extremist messages or inscriptions. A military official with knowledge of the incident told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it appeared the Qurans and other Islamic readings were being used to fuel extremism, and that detainees apparently were leaving notes for one another inside them.”

Bloomberg – “Vance Alexander sent 35 query letters to publishers and agents to pitch his book, a historical novel about a young slave in 1801 Connecticut who escapes to Canada. No one bit. So the retired architectural designer decided to publish it himself. He joined more than 100 aspiring authors at the library in Darien, Conn., on a recent Thursday night for a demo of the technology ready to fulfill their literary ambitions: the Espresso Book Machine.”

Houston Chronicle – “A grass-roots caravan from Houston to Tucson – filled with writers, students and activists – will bring prohibited books back to Arizona over spring break. When Tony Diaz heard that Tucson schools had dismantled a popular Mexican-American studies program and yanked Hispanic history books from classrooms, he began organizing a protest. Adding fuel to his fire: Two of the titles now prohibited in Tucson classes were published by the University of Houston’s Arte Público Press. Diaz coined a word to describe his new mission: Librotraficante – or “booktrafficker.”

LA Times – “”Cuckoo’s Nest.” Sure, everyone’s heard of it. But is it worth reading? Before Jack Nicholson won his first Oscar, before there was a bus full of merry pranksters, there was a writing student with a swing-shift job in a mental ward. It’s the Ken Kesey of that era who stares from the jacket flap of the 50th anniversary edition of his debut novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”: His curly hair is cropped short, he wears a cotton work shirt and his gaze is steady.”

PaidContent – “Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Publishing is launching a new series, “Book Lust Rediscoveries,” curated by librarian and NPR commentator Nancy Pearl. Pearl will select a handful of out-of-print books each year to be republished by Amazon in print and digital formats.”

NPR – “Once known for its problem novels and teen melodrama, young adult fiction has developed into one of the most complex and extensive genres in literature. 2011 brought us a wealth of new reads that continue to twist traditional formulas and take risks that are, by and large, paying off with wholly unique reading experiences.”