Kim’s Comments (group member since Sep 17, 2008)

Kim’s comments from the Runs with scissors group.

Of course it was banned. It deals with a selected (by gentetics) society. Creationists don't like that kind of thought being out there, and it scares a lot of people. Remember, censorship is designed to keep you from having a free thought of your own. (See censorship discssion elsewhere in this group.)

"choose you censored book" would mean that you can read whatever book you choose. That way, you don't have to buy one. :)

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"It is humor, irony, ribaldry, pathos and loveliness...A curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today." - The New York Times


1984
George Orwell
"[T:]he most contemporary novel of the year and who knows of how many past and to come." - The New York Times


Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
"[A:]n unusually brilliant novel...the unconscious humor, the repetitions, the slang and profanity, the emphasis, all are just right." - The New York Times


The Lord of the Flies
William Golding
"This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return ... to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge....Superbly written." - The New York Times


The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
"Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equaled." - The New York Times


Beloved
Toni Morrison
"A masterwork... Wonderful... I can't imagine American literature without it." - Los Angeles Times


The Color Purple
Alice Walker
"[A:] work to stand beside literature of any time and place." - The San Francisco Chronicle

Ulysses
James Joyce
"[O:]ne of the most significant and beautiful books of our time." - The Nation


Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
"[A:] thriller, a gripping tale running to novelette length that you will not set down until it is finished. It is more than that; but it is that... .Steinbeck has touched the quick in his little story." - The New York Times


Catch-22
Joseph Heller
"A monumental artifact of contemporary American literature, almost as assured of longevity as the statues on Easter Island." - The New York Times


Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
"Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an artist's faith in man, and it is his eloquence, bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when one has closed the book, one remembers." - Saturday Review


The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
"No amount of analysis can convey the quality of The Sun Also Rises. It is a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame." - The New York Times


As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner
"For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner's works:] are without equal in our time and country." - Robert Penn Warren


Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison
"It places Toni Morrison in the front rank of contemporary American writers. She has written a novel that will endure." - The Washington Post

Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad
"Heart of Darkness has had an influence that goes beyond the specifically literary... one of the great, if troubling, visionary works of western civilization." - Joyce Carol Oates

Their Eyes were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
"Their Eyes belongs in the same categorywith that of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingwayof enduring American literature." - Saturday Review

A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
"I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr. Burgess has done here." - William S. Burroughs

A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway
"[S:]eldom has a literary style so precisely jumped with the time... a moving and beautiful book." - The New York Times
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Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
"This is beyond a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best." - The New York Times

Go tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin
"Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form... beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey
"A work of genuine literary merit. What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental institution into a glittering parable of good and evil." - The New York Times

Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut
"Highly imaginative, nearly psychedelic...It is very tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; it is very Vonnegut; and it works." - The New York Times

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
"This is the best book Ernest Hemingway has written, the fullest, the deepest, the truest. It will, I think, be one of the major novels in American literature." - The New York Times

The Call of the Wild
Jack London
"No other popular writer of his time did any better writing than you will find in The Call of the Wild...Here, indeed, are all the elements of sound fiction." - H. L. Mencken

All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren
"Mr. Warren has employed vivid characterization and strong language combined with subtle overtones to write a vital, compelling narrative." - Booklist

The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
“When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to [Sinclair's:] novels.” - George Bernard Shaw

Lady Chatterley's Lover
DH Lawrence
"Nobody concerned with the novel in our century can afford not to read it." - Lawrence Durrell


Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
"It is a resolutely honest, tormented, profoundly American book." - The New York Times

In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
"The best documentary account of an American crime ever written... The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence... harrowing." - The New York Review of Books

Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdie
"Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Voltaire's Candide, Sterne's Tristram Shandy... Salman Rushdie, it seems to me, is very much a latter-day member of their company." - The New York Times

Sons and Lovers
DH Lawrence
"There is probably no phrase much more hackneyed than that of 'human document,' yet it is the only one which at all describes this very unusual book." - The New York Times


Naked Lunch
William S. Burroughs
"A masterpiece. A cry from hell, a brutal, terrifying, and savagely funny book that swings between uncontrolled hallucination and fierce, exact satire." - Newsweek

A Separate Peace
John Knowles
"[An:] engrossing tale of love, hate, war, and peace...Intense, mesmerizing, and complelling." - School Library Journal

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut
"A free-wheeling vehicle...An unforgettable ride!" - The New York Times

Women in Love
DH Lawrence
"No other writer of [Lawrence's:] imaginative standing has in our time written books that are so open to life." - Alfred Kazin

The Naked and the Dead
Norman Mailer
"The best novel to come out of the... war, perhaps the best book to come out of any war." - San Francisco Chronicle

An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser
"Mr. Dreiser is not imitative and belongs to no school. He is at heart a mysticist and a fatalist, though using the realistic method. He is, on the evidence of this novel alone, a power." - The New York Times

Rabbit, Run
John Updike
"Brilliant and poignant....By his compassion, clarity of insight and crystal-bright prose, [Updike:] makes Rabbit's sorrow his and our own." - The Washington Post

Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
"One of the most remarkable, most truly original authors of this or any age." - Saturday Review

Native Son
Richard Wright
"Certainly, Native Son declares Richard Wright's importance... as an American author as distinctive as any of those now writing." - The New York Times



This list was pulled from http://www.google.com

Please visit http://wwww.deletecensorship.org, http://www.ala.org and http://www.banned-books.com for more ideas.

I am thinking of making it a "choose your censored book" group read. I am working on gathering a list of books for those of you are not sure what you want to read. Every book we have read so far as group read has been banned at one time or another.

I did my 1/4 mile and my class on Friday. I was tired, but pleased. Starting today until September 7, the pool is closed for regular cleaning and repair. I plan on doing 2 days of strength training each week until I can go back to swimming, then it will be on to attempting a 3/4 mile be the middle of October. ( I will have to make up for not swimming during my injury)

I have read all of those (and we just read "Catcher" as group read), but I know one I do not want to re-read and that is "Lord of the Flies". For my suggestions: "Tom Sawyer", "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut),"Gone with the wind", "Grapes of Wrath", and "Cannery Row"....

Since it seems that only about 4-5 of us participate at any given time, I don't think there will much fuss if we suspend it.

O.K. let's get September settled first! I need suggestions for a single book discussion for those of you who want one. Also, those of you who are reading whatever, I need to know what you are reading to that I can put it on the shelf and list it as what we are reading in case any newbies want to know what we are reading.

I got back in the pool yesterday (8/18) and did 5 laps (10 lengths) and my Tai Chi class as well. I swam slowly and I did feel a few tinges during class. When those happened, I did not breathe in as deeply or reach as high as I normally do. I plan on going on Friday and doing it again! I am going to try for a quarter mile, but I will do what I can.

All right folks, we have a bit of a squidge here. We have a tie right now regarding our next group read for September. 3 wish to read whatever and 3 want 1 book. So, those who want 1 book give me suggestions! We will pick 1 for you and the others can read whatever unless the tie gets broken by let's say, August 25, 2010.

As for October, start making suggestions now, so we can have plenty of time to vote!

I have taken it under suggestion to suspend a group read for Nov.-Dec. I am considering it. Please let me know what y'all think.

*Disclaimer: The following discussion is NOT about religion or the ideals of any one faith. It is about the IDEA of what is happening.*

I am not Catholic. I have 3 best friends who were born Catholic, 1 who still is, 1 who is does not practice, and 1 who became a Baptist. I was raised U.C.C. and went to a Lutheran run school. Growing up, my best friend was Catholic and went to the Catholic school in our neighborhood that has been there for over a 100 years.

In the last 2 years or so, the local diocese has decided to close and merge several parishes in our area, under the leadership of a bishop from Boston. Now, what I understand from my 1 friend who is still a Catholic and goes to mass every week, there is a lot of people who do not like this bishop. Not just because he is closing parrishes, but because they don't like him.

I know nobody wants to lose their place of worship, as they are usually places we are born to and grow up in. I understand the protests and even I have to say as a non-Catholic, I have been shocked and upset by some the announced closings. One local parish has decided, even though they are facing ex-communication, to hold mass in a warehouse they are renting. This past Sunday, against everything they have been taught, they flew in the face of the bishop and the Pope and held what they felt was important for the community. Their priest even served communion.

Now the bishop is sending letters to all the members saying that he is "concerned for their salvation". (Insert cough hiding *bull----*) As one radio personality so eloquently pointed out, the bishop is mad because now the diocese is not getting their money.

My whole perspective on this is that I think it's wonderful. I think it is great that these people are doing what they think is right. It is a form of civil disobedience and love it. I think this kind of free thinking should be encouraged. Martin Luther did, so did John Knox and Brigham Young.

They are not harming anyone, they are supporting a wounded community. I applaud that and I hope they succeed.

It insults the "army's intelligence" (like that's hard) and it makes you think, therefore it is offensive to those who don't.

I am very hyper about censorship. A lot of great ideas were destroyed by the Spanish Inquisition and other groups over the years. I do not like it when I am told to what to do, when I do not agree with it. I feel that every idea, whether I agree with it or not, is the person who thought of it's right to think what they wish to think. I only have a problem with ideas that are used to harm or are used to encourage others to do harm.

I feel that censorship, like other things in life, are about taking away choices that you alone can make for yourself. If you are a parent, then you have the right to filter what you wish your children to be exposed to, but I think if you are a good parent, you expose your child to all aspects of an idea and discuss them.

Ideas have been suppressed by various means and religious groups for thousands of years. (If you can think for yourself, you won't listen to them, and that means they won't get your money.) Fear is a common idea that keeps people from doing things for themselves. Urban legends, fairy tales, etc. have been used as control devices all along.

The question is, do you wish to be controlled,or are you doing the controlling?

http://www.banned-books.com It has lists of all banned and a books that have caused controversy.


Banned book week is September 25-October 2.

I'm sure there is, if you find one,suggest it. We will put it to a vote in September. Remember, the banned books will be Octobers discussion. Be sure to vote in our new poll regarding our group read choices for September.

Just about all of the books we have selected are banned books, but I would like to select a book because it was banned. I think October is a good choice for this since banned book week occurs during this month.

That is exactly what I think that this play is about (if you don't want to read the play, try the movie, it is just as good at getting across the point). Rules are important, when they make sense, like no diving in the shallow end, and some that don't, like we have banned smoking in the work place so you can't even smoke at home. Rules need to be followed, but they do need to be questioned from time to time when they no longer have bearing on our lives now.

Things should not be blindly done because they have always been done this or that way. They should be done with thought and care.

Thank you.

That too is a worthy idea. It will be kept in mind.

Growing up, I was made to feel,either by others or by my own mind,guilty for everything. I was told more than once that if I hadn't done/said/whatever that, my father wouldn't have had to lose his temper,I wouldn't have been punished, etc. This lead to my own mind creating the idea that everything is my fault,no matter what. At one point in my life, when I was in 7th grade or so, I was convinced that world hunger was my fault because I was fat and that I took up too much space.

I am working on the whole guilt thing. My boy friend will tell you how hard it is sometimes to get me to not fell guilty over everything. Old habits and all that. I am feeling a lot of guilt now from not working. I lost my job through no fault of my own going on 4 years ago, right before the ecconomy tanked. It has been hard trying to find a job of any kind. My job requires others to be working or I don't. I have applied for other jobs not in my field, just to have a job. Too many places are overwhelmed by applicants these days, and people with no experience vs. some or a lot, don't stand much of a chance, as I can attest.

My guilt comes from the fact that my mom has taken over paying some of my bills (like car insurance) and my boyfriend, who can really not afford to do too much,has been stuck with having to pay for everything date related. (When we first met, we went dutch a lot or we would take turns.) I feel that I should be able to take care of myself but I am not able to right now.


I don't know if all of this guilt is brought on by my own mind, by society, or if I should feel guilty. Lately, I have been feeling like I should be hidden away as the failure I am. The fat, ugly, useless failure I have become. Others should not have to look at me, or have to deal with me. I have screwed up my life and I don't see a way out. Sad, but true, this is how I am feeling lately.

I have been working since I was 10. I started out babysitting and never looked back. I don't know how not to work. I miss my job. I love my job. I want to work, but I can't find anything. So to my mind, that is where I have failed. I have let everyone in my life down, and I don't know what to do.


Any suggestions?

Good suggestion. That is why I have offered to suspend the group read for the holliday times. Summer around here usualy means more time to read for most, but you never know. We will put it to a vote shortly.