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It’s a Virtual Book Club miracle!  Both Ashley and Nikki are on schedule to finish the books!  Now, to see if it actually happens.  Ashley’s rereading, so she gets a pass either way, but Nikki’s finished Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and has all the feelings (especially about that ending) and we still have a week and a half for her to finish  The Testaments  before our meeting NEXT Friday, September 17, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  Register here if you want in on the conversation, or if you just want to say Praise Be for books that get banned lead us to discussing important topics!

First a miracle, and now a confession.  Darling readers, we don’t have many regrets from our first year of blogging, but there is one, that we didn’t properly recognize banned books week in September 2020.  It was the best of times and the worst of times, and I’m still thinking about some of those books.  I mean Station Eleven is getting a show, Chanel Cleeton has a new book out (and I have it on hold, shocking, I know), The River has an unexpected follow up, AND the final book in the Gilded Wolves trilogy is out late THIS MONTH.  SO much fun to consider!  [And y’all, I – Nikki – wrote this and had to check myself because I wanted to use the show to convince Ashley to read Station Eleven, but why was I thinking about it re Sept 2020 if Ashley hasn’t already read it.  Duh because we read a different book by Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel.  My memory, it’s not great, but it loves these books, all thems.]  

But, you know what else is fun?  Back list, older books, and books that are or were controversial!  That’s right, we are righting our wrong last year (even though those titles were oh so right) and spending not a week, but the whole month of September talking about books that were banned.  These might not be the most controversial of titles, but they’re books at least one of us (but mostly neither of us) have read before, and that were on our TBR list.  I’ve already had one child ask to read one of the titles, and I told him in a few years.  More on that when we dig into the book in question, but for now, without further adieu, September’s titles include:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Banned Books Week is traditionally the last week of September, and this year it’s from September 26 until October 2nd. This year’s theme from the American Library Association is Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us. You can find out more on the history of Banned Books Week by visiting the ALA’s website. There are many more resources to be found there, including the Top Ten Banned Books lists for each of the past twenty years.

We challenge you this month, and especially during Banned Books Week, to pick up a book from the list to read, especially one that’s different from the books you usually read, or like us, ones you’ve been meaning to read but haven’t yet. One of our purposes here at Heart.Wants.Books. Is to unite everyone with a love of reading.

~Nikki & Ashley

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