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And with it, spring cleaning here at Paul’s Thing. Although I won’t rule out minor tinkering with site design in the days ahead, I’m happy with the blog’s new look and hope you are too. I was going to say spring has brought us a fresh new war as well, but I see now Trump’s strike […]
“I said nothing. I’m good at saying nothing. I don’t like talking. I could go the rest of my life without saying another word, if I had to.” —Lee Child, The Affair Raylan Givens 3-Book Collection: Pronto, Riding the Rap, Fire in the Hole (Raylan Givens #1-3) by Elmore Leonard Rayland Givins was a memorable […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic column featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News The N-word strikes again: Harper Lee and Mark Twain pulled from Minnesota classrooms. Does this mean Duluth students will be left to read lesser literature? In Missouri, “… a significant uptick in efforts to outlaw books following the 2016 […]
“One thing was certain: Rose had been wrong about the world becoming small again. Or at least it would not be the same small world it had been. Too much had changed. And amid those shifts and realignments, Anna had slipped through a crack and escaped.” — Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach Manhattan Beach by Jennifer […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic column featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Roundup This news roundup leads off with prison book banning: The draconian New York state prison book ban I described in the previous YCRT! turns out to have been a limited test program, shut down the minute controversy erupted. […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic column featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News A federal judge has ruled that Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies classes (and the associated wholesale banning of books in the Tucson Unified School District) was motivated by racial discrimination, a potentially lethal blow to the ban. I say “potentially” because as […]
Then it started to rain, so she went inside and made some coffee and did what she had never done in her life: tried the newspaper crossword. “What a stupid exercise,” said her dæmon after five minutes. “Words belong in contexts, not pegged out like biological specimens.” — Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage La Belle […]
This is collection of reviews previously posted on Paul’s Thing: these are the books, old and new, that I most enjoyed reading this year. I’m about to embark on Philip Pullman’s “The Book of Dust,” a potential contender, but doubt I’ll finish it before the end of the year (also, I’m sometimes disappointed with long-delayed […]