Welcome to Banned Books Week 2008 on The Thin Red Line!   Continuing today with the top ten "most challenged" books of 2007,  today I am featuring Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (number 8 ) and Lauren Myracle’s ttyl (number 7).   I believe that I first read Caged Bird when I worked [...]

Welcome to Banned Books Week 2008 on The Thin Red Line!    Each fall the American Library Association leads the observance of Banned Books Week, celebrating Americans’ freedom to read by reminding people of the importance of this basic right.    Each year,  the ALA publishes a list of the previous calendar year’s most "challenged" books.   (A [...]

Some combination of visiting Mt. Rainier National Park last week and reading about all the devastation and destruction flowing from Hurricane Ike down in the Gulf Coast got me to thinking about the fact that I live pretty close to an old volcano that may well one day go all Vesuvius on us.    Which is [...]

So I have been really busy with Staci and Sam both here visiting but wanted to pop in here and post about a really neat book I happened upon today.   America’s Best Zoos–A Travel Guide For Fans and Families is a newly published trade paperback that is a great guide to zoos all over the [...]

Perhaps it’s a matter of having watch ER for too long or having read too many other books about the rigors of becoming a doctor, but for me at least Sandeep Jahur’s Intern was a rather un-satisfying read.   A memoir of his "Intern" or first year of residency, Jahur writes a lot about his reasons [...]