Banned Books Week, Female Writers & Abortion Rights

Banned Books Week begins this morning, it runs September 21st-28th. I saw a nice display for it at our local Half Price Books the other day and even a small display at Barnes & Noble this evening. Since my first job was as a library assistant, this subject is close to my heart. I still can't believe we have a need to even argue the whole point of free speech, but then I don't understand why middle-aged white men stand in picket lines in front of abortion clinics... Actually I do, it's because they're afraid the white race is dying out because of women like me who don't want to accidentally get pregnant and just "have to have it", we actually want to plan life altering events like pregnancy. I've been one of those people who has always known I'm not mother material, I'm finally at the age now where people have pretty much stopped bothering me. The anti-choice people will argue that they want to save lives, but there a million other truly humane things they could do other than harrass (and kill) doctors and patients, like maybe adopt some of the thousands of children who are already in the world and need homes. My brother and I were both adopted, it worked nicely for us.

OK, off the soapbox (for now ;-). I picked up a copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 a few months ago after seeing part of the film on TV. Somehow I was never required to read it in school, and had never seen the movie, but it seems appropriate reading material for this week. Let's see, what other thought provoking selections can I pull from my bookshelves... I have a preference for female writers, so here are some of my favorites:

Shirley Jackson is my all-time favorite author, good ones for this week would be The Road Through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Bird's Nest, and of course, The Haunting of Hill House. Also worth reading is her hilarious novel about raising her own children, Life Among the Savages.

Alice Hoffman is incredible, try Practical Magic (in an entirely different league than the movie "based" on the book), or the disturbing Here On Earth.

Another female writer with a very unique style is Valerie Martin. Mary Reilly, Alexandra, The Great Divorce (look for used or check the link, it's apparently being reprinted in February 2003), and Set In Motion are all excellent (the last two are set in New Orleans, which always adds points to a book for me, it's my favorite city ;-)

Ann Arensberg's Sister Wolf has happily been reprinted because of the release of Incubus (which I own but haven't read yet). Sister Wolf is a terrific book, really hard to describe.

Carol O'Connell has one of the smartest, toughest female detective in literature in her character Kathy Mallory. I've read about half of the series, I discovered it four novels into it and was hooked. Chronologically it's: Mallory's Oracle, The Man Who Cast Two Shadows, Killing Critics, Stone Angel (my favorite), Shell Game and Crime School. She also has another novel that's not part of the series (in my "to read" stack) that's gotten great reviews, Judas Child.

There are many more novels I'm not mentioning (don't flame me for leaving your favorite out!), but I'm just going by what I've read in recent years and what has personally touched me. Most of my reading is actually vampire & horror novels, and lots of non-fiction, but that's for another day.

Posted by Morticia at September 21, 2002 12:13 AM | TrackBack