Songs and Sonnets by John Donne

Source of book: I own this.

The particular selection is somewhat misnamed. Songs there are many, but nary a true sonnet. There is one poem with two fourteen line stanzas, but it is not even close to a sonnet rhyme scheme. The one poem with “sonnet” in the title is not a true sonnet. This is particularly odd since Donne wrote a number of marvelous sonnets, including the “Holy Sonnets,” of which “Death be Not Proud” is probably the most famous. Despite this omission, this collection of poems on the theme of Love is some of Donne’s best and most human work.

I have noted before that I am a hopeless romantic, and mushy to the core. Contrary to popular gender stereotypes, I have always valued long-term commitment, I love to snuggle, and I can talk into the wee hours of the night with my beloved. Donne likewise felt things deeply. His poetry is a mixture of the sacred and profane, his devotion to God matched by passion for his wife, his doubt and questioning applying equally to the ways of God and the ways of Love. He could write transcendent musings on the nature of death and the resurrection, and also some of the most creative and memorable poems on sex and bodily fluids.

Some school curriculum, particularly the conservative Christian one that I used in high school, try to divide Donne’s writings into “before” and “after” periods. The historical fact, however, is that he wrote both types of poems throughout his life. He felt deeply, loved passionately, and sought divine perfection with the same fervor. While Donne’s writings have always resonated with me, I think I understand this paradox more now that I am in my thirties and have been married for over a decade.

I was struck by the range of Donne’s emotions and his completely contrasting views expressed throughout this collection. He praises love, then turns against it in the next poem. He rails against women and their inconstancy, but then praises the purity of the one he loves. He is tormented by love, he dismisses it as a trifle, he tries to escape it, but he is captured by it, and its grip on him is relentless.

The story of Donne’s life sheds and interesting light on his works. Donne was a young rising diplomat, educated and brilliant, if a bit profligate and quick to chase women. He appeared to have his future before him, when love stepped in to wreak havoc. He fell in love with the niece of his employer. They married against her family’s wishes, which resulted in Donne, the minister, and the witness at the wedding spending time in Fleet Prison until the marriage was proved valid. Donne lost his job, and Anne was not reconciled to her father until eight years later. The Donnes suffered from poverty, exacerbated by the fact that they had twelve children in sixteen years, only seven of which lived past age ten. (Donne, in a state of despair after one of the deaths remarked that although it was one less mouth to feed, he couldn’t afford to bury the child.) Anne died soon after the birth of the last child. Donne lived another fifteen years after this, but he never completely recovered emotionally from the loss of his true love, although his material fortunes improved.

The passion and pain run through the course of the poems, particularly the more personal ones. Donne also demonstrates his mastery of the “conceit,” an exaggerated and unusual metaphor wherein two unlike things are likened to each other in a striking and sometimes uncomfortable way. It is difficult to pick just a few to quote from the collection, as there are so many good ones.

The Cannonization

                                        

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

        Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,

        With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

               Take you a course, get you a place,

               Observe his honor, or his grace,

Or the king's real, or his stampèd face

        Contemplate; what you will, approve,

        So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?

        What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

        When did my colds a forward spring remove?

               When did the heats which my veins fill

               Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

        Litigious men, which quarrels move,

        Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

        Call her one, me another fly,

We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,

        And we in us find the eagle and the dove.

               The phœnix riddle hath more wit

               By us; we two being one, are it.

So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.

        We die and rise the same, and prove

        Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,

        And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

        And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

               We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

               As well a well-wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

        And by these hymns, all shall approve

        Us canonized for Love.

And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love

        Made one another's hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

        Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove

               Into the glasses of your eyes

               (So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize)

        Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

        A pattern of your love!"

               
I love the reference to the “five gray hairs,” and, of course, to lawyers. This is Donne in his triumphant mood. He can laugh at the world, content in his experience of love. This next one is a complete contrast, and uses the poet’s dilemma to exaggerated effect.

The Triple Fool

I am two fools, I know,

     For loving, and for saying so

         In whining poetry;

But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,

         If she would not deny?

Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes

    Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my pains

    Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.

Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

     But when I have done so,

     Some man, his art and voice to show,

         Doth set and sing my pain;

And, by delighting many, frees again

         Grief, which verse did restrain.

To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,

    But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.

Both are increased by such songs,

    For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

The bitterest poem, I think, is this one. Bonus points for using legal language, and getting a dig in at, well, just about everyone.

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

   Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath

   Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;

   If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;

   My tongue to Fame ; to ambassadors mine ears ;

           To women, or the sea, my tears ;

       Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore

   By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

   My constancy I to the planets give ;

   My truth to them who at the court do live ;

   My ingenuity and openness,

   To Jesuits ; to buffoons my pensiveness ;

   My silence to any, who abroad hath been ;

           My money to a Capuchin :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me

   To love there, where no love received can be,

Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

   My faith I give to Roman Catholics ;

   All my good works unto the Schismatics

   Of Amsterdam ; my best civility

   And courtship to an University ;

   My modesty I give to soldiers bare ;

           My patience let gamesters share :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

   Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

   I give my reputation to those

   Which were my friends ; mine industry to foes ;

   To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness ;

   My sickness to physicians, or excess ;

   To nature all that I in rhyme have writ ;

           And to my company my wit :

       Thou, Love, by making me adore

   Her, who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

   To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,

   I give my physic books ; my written rolls

   Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give ;

   My brazen medals unto them which live

   In want of bread ; to them which pass among

           All foreigners, mine English tongue :

       Though, Love, by making me love one

   Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

   Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

   The world by dying, because love dies too.

   Then all your beauties will be no more worth

   Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth ;

   And all your graces no more use shall have,

           Than a sun-dial in a grave :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me

   Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

There are a number of quotable lines from several of the poems, although the entire poems are worthwhile as well. The first stanza from “Break of Day” is memorable:

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because ‘tis light?

Did we lie down because ‘twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Also, the closing lines of “Love’s Growth,” a mediation on the evolution of a relationship, show that some things never change.

And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in time of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

This is one example of a conceit. After all, love isn’t much like ever-increasing taxation. But one one level, perhaps it is, and Donne leaves a memorable image.

Perhaps Donne’s best-known conceit, however, is his poem on attempted seduction, “The Flea.”

                                        

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

    Yet this enjoys before it woo,

    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

    And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.   

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;   

Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,   

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

    Though use make you apt to kill me,

    Let not to that, self-murder added be,

    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?   

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?   

Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou   

Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

    ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:

    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

               
Others that I wish I had space to quote are “Lovers' Infiniteness,” which seems to reveal further layers of meaning each time I read it; and “The Broken Heart,” lacerating and raw. “The Anniversary” is also excellent, with its simultaneous celebration of a milestone, and premonitions of separation by death.

My personal favorite of the poems Donne wrote regarding the death of his wife is this one, which captures more of the grief, if less of the hope, than the more famous sonnet, “Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt.”

The Dissolution

She's dead; and all which die

To their first elements resolve;

And we were mutual elements to us,

And made of one another.

My body then doth hers involve,

And those things whereof I consist hereby

In me abundant grow, and burdenous,

And nourish not, but smother.

My fire of passion, sighs of air,

Water of tears, and earthly sad despair,

Which my materials be,

But near worn out by love's security,

She, to my loss, doth by her death repair.

And I might live long wretched so,

But that my fire doth with my fuel grow.

Now, as those active kings

Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,

Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break,

This —which I am amazed that I can speak—

This death, hath with my store

My use increased.

And so my soul, more earnestly released,

Will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before

A latter bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.

Finally, and on a lighter note, this next poem speaks to my ongoing and evolving conviction that the mystery of love has been supplanted in many with a veneration of commitment. Surely true love requires commitment, but commitment isn’t love, and can never replace it. (I discussed this in more depth in my review of Sonnets from the Portuguese.)

The Token

Send me some token, that my hope may live,

Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest;

Send me some honey to make sweet my hive,

That in my passions I may hope the best.

I beg no ribbon wrought with thine own hands,

To knit our loves in the fantastic strain

Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands

Of our affection, that as that's round and plain,

So should our loves meet in simplicity;

No, nor the corals which thy wrist enfold,

Laced up together in congruity,

To show our thoughts should rest in the same hold;

No, nor thy picture, though most gracious,

And most desired, because best like the best;

Nor witty lines, which are most copious,

Within the writings which thou hast addressed.

Send me nor this, nor that, to increase my store,

But swear thou think'st 'I love thee,' and no more.

Just My Type by Simon Garfield

Source of Book: I own this.

This book was a gift from my brother, who said that it would either turn out to be really good, or really boring. Since this is a book about fonts and typography, this proves that he is almost as much of a nerd as I am.

I will assume that any reader of this blog has at least a passing knowledge of fonts, since he or she owns or has access to a computer. It was the computer, of course, that made fonts known to the average person, rather than just those in the printing business.

My family’s first computer was a Commodore 128, purchased when I was probably around ten years old. I had played on a friend’s computer on a few occasions previously; and, while I found a few adventure-type games interesting, I was primarily interested in the programs that made publishing possible. I was fascinated by anything that allowed me to print stuff. Nothing was quite as interesting, however, as two particular programs. I believe they were entitled “Printshop” and “Newsroom,” and allowed the printing of greeting cards and banners for the first, and basic newsletters by the second. It was through these programs, eventually purchased for our own computer, that the young version of myself gained a knowledge of fonts. And, it goes without saying, did my best to bankrupt my parents through excessive use of ink and paper.

I recall that there were around a half dozen fonts available for Printshop, mostly decorative rather than readable at small sizes. None were particularly memorable, other than a “tech” style font that looked something like this:

 
While I loved printing those ten page banners and greeting cards for every occasion, I enjoyed Newsroom even more. There was something fun about setting writing imaginary stories (and a few that were true) and “selling” my creations to family and friends (for the cost of making copies). Eventually, I did the editing and design for a home school group we were part of during my high school years. I suppose it was natural that I would eventually end up on the editorial committee for our County Bar Association.

Newsroom had a total of three fonts. One was a basic “serif” font like Times New Roman, which I use for the vast majority of my writing, including this blog. (I know, it’s boring, but it is available on everyone’s computer, is easily readable at small sizes, and is acceptable for use in legal documents filed with every court in the nation.) For those uninitiated into basic typography terms, “serifs” are the little protruding details at the ends of some strokes. If you look closely at the letters in this sentence, you can see them at the bottoms of most of the letters. In contrast, a “sans serif” font, such as Arial, lacks these additional details. In addition to a single serif and sans serif font, Newsroom had a Gothic Style font, which imitates the original hand lettering of the middle ages, and was widely imitated by early printers. It is also pretty much unreadable to our modern eyes, except at the larger sizes used for headers. Needless to say, I used all three fonts in various combinations for fun, until I eventually decided that, at least at the terrible screen resolutions of my old Commodore, serif fonts were the way to go - unless I wanted to go blind. This is probably the reason I still prefer good old Times to Arial or Helvetica.

This book is not a boring treatise on typography - although it has plenty of useful information. It is written in the form of a series of stories about the history of typography from Gutenberg to modern times, with a focus on the stories of the development of the most influential and popular fonts.

Some of the fun tales include the famous “San Serrife” hoax of 1977 (see below), and the history of interesting fonts used for movies and albums. (The beautiful font, “Albertus” used on such works as Coldplay’s Parachutes, for example.)

I also found much of the history to be fascinating. We take for granted the use of serif fonts derived from Roman and Italian sources in our printed materials. However, Gutenberg and his successors originally preferred the Gothic style fonts, and it was a hundred years before the new “Venetian” style printing became popular. (Much to the disgust of the traditionalists, too!) The Gothic was not content to fade away, however, and lingered on with a few enthusiastic partisans. Newspapers have often used the Gothic script for their mastheads, of course. The Nazis considered modern sans serif fonts to be “degenerate,” meaning Jewish, for some reason not particularly historical, leading to a revival of the Gothic blackletter. In our times, heavy metal bands and tattoos still utilize these fonts, probably for their association with the Nazis as well as their inherent heaviness and emotional impact.

Another fun association is that of “Trajan,” which has become the font of choice for historical movies. The stereotypical “voice-over” artist for movie trailers presumably uses Trajan for his business cards.



One of the most familiar fonts is Garamond, which is used for the United States editions of Harry Potter, and also for those formative books by Dr. Seuss.

My new hero, after reading this book, is Aldus Manutius, who invented my favorite form of punctuation, the semi-colon - and is also credited with establishing the modern book trade with his affordable editions of the great Greek and Latin classics.

A few other fun discussions include the timeless “serif” versus “sans serif” debate. Which is more legible? There is yet to appear a definitive answer, although there is some slight indication that serif might be less tiring to the eyes on paper, at least in long works. Also, is type better designed digitally, or on paper in an old fashioned analogue style? Can a better sentence than “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” be invented to show all twenty-six letters? Finally, is Helvetica (used by Apple - and everywhere else) the typographical equivalent of the Borg?

Whatever your opinions on these important questions, if you care about typography and printing - or even about the display on your smart phone - you will likely find this book to be a fun and informative read.

Sweetness and Power by Sidney W. Mintz

Source of book: Borrowed from the Library

Date originally published on Facebook: June 24, 2011

“Honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.” ~Touchstone in Shakespeare’s As You Like It

Shakespeare wrote these lines at a time when sugar and honey were still vying for dominance in their uses as sweetener and preservative. Both were primarily used by the upper class due to their expense. How and why did this change?

This is a fascinating book on the sociology history of sugar. In this case, sugar means sucrose, derived primarily from sugar cane. There is only a brief mention of sugar beets and corn syrup – sources which now dominate our diet. This is perhaps natural considering the book was published in 1986 after a decade’s worth of research. At that time, the transition from sugar to corn syrup in soft drinks had just begun, and beet sugar was less discussed than cane sugar.

How exactly did sugar go from an extravagant luxury the source of one-sixth of the calories consumed by the English speaking world? This book attempts to answer the question by looking at three facets of the history of sugar.

The first facet is the production side of the sugar industry. Originally, sugar cane was grown in South Asia, and became popular among the wealthiest of the Islamic world. At the time, the production of usable sugar from the cane was a labor intensive and inefficient process, making sugar costly on the scale of pepper and other spices. Unsurprisingly, this made sugar an easy representation of wealth and power.

Sugar was initially used at this time as a spice and medicine, not as a source of food. Things changed, first gradually, and then rapidly, with the development of the slave colonies in the Caribbean in the 1500s and 1600s. Mintz makes a convincing argument that the sugar plantation was the forerunner of what we now call factory capitalism. (Not to be confused with free enterprise, as so many do today.) Keep in mind that this pre-dated the industrial revolution by a few hundred years. A successful plantation required the infusion of capital to build the infrastructure necessary: irrigation, cane presses, refining equipment. It also required a labor force. In the factory capitalism model, the workers are free, if not exactly powerful. On a plantation, of course, the slaves were held by force. However, with that major exception, many of the mechanics are the same.

The increasing industrialization of the production of sugar lead to drops in price, eventually making it affordable for the masses. Mintz, however, questions whether this could have happened had the demand not kept pace with the supply.

This leads to the second part of the equation. Sugar once represented wealth in the same way that gold and silver did. This lead to some interesting medical remedies from the era, including the use of crushed pearls and gems to “treat” disease. Likewise, sugar was then thought of as a panacea. It could cure everything! A quick view of the advertisements for snake oil products today shows that nothing has changed: find a rare food product from a tropical country, make claims, and get rich.

As sugar became affordable to the upper middle class, it took on a broader role in diet. It was during this period that elaborate desserts became fashionable. The use of sugar in this way trickled down the economic ladder as prices fell.

In Mintz’ view, the change that brought sugar from a luxury to a necessity was its use in tea. The sweetening of a bitter, stimulating beverage came to be part of the very identity of the English – something the poorest citizen could afford as a luxury. The history of sugar’s uses is a fascinating topic which Mintz approaches a bit more academically than I would have preferred.

The third part of the picture is the sociological changes that led to sugar being used as a significant source of calories. I will not attempt to go through the whole history here, but give a little idea.

In general, the factory system removed women from the home and their role as primary preparers of food. Sugar helped this process by making possible condiments such as jam and treacle, which, when added to bread, saved preparation time. A slice of bread by itself was cold comfort, not a meal. The use of sugar could make it pass for a meal. The need here was to save preparation time. Previously, porridge and broths would be a significant part of the diet. These could even be obtained at the same or lower cost, but they required time – a dwindling resource.

It was striking to me that many of the sugar related ills we see in our current society have their roots back 250 years. Sugared beverages contributing too many calories? Check. Lack of time to prepare food leading to increased use of sugar and fats? Check. Women, children, and the poor consuming higher percentages of sugar? Check. Obesity itself only started its climb with the disappearance of hard manual labor and generally insufficient caloric intake. Still, the causes go back a long time in history.

This book does raise an interesting question, however. Can we as a society roll back the advance of obesity without addressing the issue of how to make time to prepare healthy food? It is chiefly the shortage of time, not of money, that leads to poor choices in food. A quick survey of the grocery store is sufficient to see that pre-prepared food is expensive. It also contains plenty of hidden sugar. As in 1750, the reason the sugary, more expensive food is chosen is that it is quick. Who will cook the healthy food?

In my own family, the answer is that we split the job. Our children, regardless of gender, will learn to cook. It is worrisome to note, however, that a significant portion of the population has never cooked something that didn’t come out of a box. I fear we will continue to just keep adding more and more sugar as an easy and relatively cheap source of calories. I’m not sure what the cure is here. A wholesale return to the middle ages with most of the population growing its own food seems extreme. A return to the 1950s, as some propose, would not go back far enough to a time when sugar was a spice rather than a major source of calories.

This book is a bit dry in spots, mostly due to its scholarly intent. Mintz has a story to tell, but he also has to support it with source material. This leads to some repetition and redundancy as he makes sure that each fact he presents is shown by evidence, not just by assertion. As a lawyer, this is a familiar process. Presumably it will be as well to most who have studied the sciences. However, if you stick with it through the academic sections, Mintz tells a compelling story – one that is by turns fascinating, intriguing, and cautionary.

Thoughts on Banned Books Week

Banned books week is September 30 through October 6 this year (2012). I have decided to observe this literary holiday each year by reading a banned book. There appear to be enough to keep me occupied for some time.

Banned Books Week selections (updated yearly).

First, a distinction needs to be made between banned books and “challenged” books. In order to qualify as a banned book, the book must have been forbidden publication or possession by a government. In contrast, a book that parents or others seek to remove from a library or school curriculum is merely “challenged”, even if the book is in fact removed.

In my opinion, there is a difference between the two. Not all books are appropriate for children or teens, and those who wish to read a challenged book anyway can presumably locate a library or bookstore. Those books actually banned were denied to all unless they were willing and able to break the law. On a related note, much of what we call “censorship” isn’t really censorship. The original definition of censorship was “The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.” Censorship requires actual power to suppress, not merely disapproval. Libraries have a limited budget, and must choose which books to buy. (For reasons which escape me, the library system for the San Joaquin Valley - serving roughly four million people - has 37 copies of Eat, Pray, Love, but only ONE of Listen to This, which is backordered for weeks. Not a choice I would have made.) Similarly, students cannot read every important book, much less the unimportant ones, so choices must be made.

While I have thus limited my list to truly banned books, I include books that have been banned by any government, at any time in history.

I believe that there is value in reading banned books. As an inquiring mind, one often wonders what was believed so unacceptable as to provoke a violent reaction. The answer in many cases throws an unflattering light on the persons and institutions that banned the book.

Generally speaking, there are two reasons books have been banned. The first is the presence of material deemed morally unacceptable by the authorities. Interestingly, the application of this standard is inconsistent at best. Certain nations at certain time periods have shown more interest in suppressing smut than others. Thus, France was the source of much scandalous material during the Victorian age, while England and the United States attempted to ban the same books. Also, exactly what is deemed objectionable has varied considerably.

A couple of examples come to mind on this point. The Grapes of Wrath was banned in many states because of a scene involving a bare breast. Never mind that this was perhaps the least titillating scene of all time. (Pardon the bad pun.) On the other hand, the scene in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was allowed, despite a humorous and ribald reference to the same anatomy.

I also noted a modern version of this listening to the radio on the way home from work today. Nickelback’s song, Rockstar, has several drug references, some of which are bleeped on the radio version. I am not quite sure exactly it is bad to hear “drugs come cheap” or “drug dealer on speed dial” but is fine to say “pop my pills from a pez dispenser.”

The second reason for censorship never goes out of style. The ruling powers throughout history take a serious dislike to criticism, and have used their powers to suppress it. The majority of the books on any banned book list, therefore, will have political content that was in some way offensive to those who wished to cling to their power and avoid dissent.

Thus, one of the satisfactions of reading a banned book is to defy autocratic despots, past and present.

Last year’s selection was Areopagitica, by John Milton. To read it was to stick it to both Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell’s Parliament. Another favorite read of the past was The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie - a particular un-favorite of Mullahs everywhere. 

 

***

 2025 Update: 

My comments on the distinction between challenged and banned haven't aged well. Back in the Obama era, a few challenges here and there seemed more like nuisances, rather than a legitimate threat. Now, with astroturfed groups like "Moms For Liberty" joining with the modern fascist movement in places like Texas and Florida, access to books that challenge white supremacy, heteronormativity, and misogyny are increasingly successfully targeted for removal from public libraries and schools. It is no accident that most of the targeted authors are female, non-white, LGBTQ, disabled, or some combination thereof. It is a concerted effort to silence voices that would challenge the power of the bigoted ruling minority. 

I haven't yet decided if I will consider adding "challenged" books to my official reading - I already read them, of course, and blog about them - because I am nowhere close to running out of banned books to read. 

I do encourage my readers to seek out books by women, people of color, LGBTQ, and disabled authors - there are some real gems there, which will expand your minds and hearts if you let them. My hope is that this blog will introduce people to the books that the bigots don't want you to read.  

And, because I cannot resist linking a little a propos music. Nobody can invoke Balzac like Hermione Gingold.