Book Journey

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Banned Book – True Crime)

Published on October 1, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

In November of 1959 a family who lived in Holcomb Kansas was brutally attacked, killed and left. The murders of the Clutter family were senseless. The family was well-respected humble farmers and had no enemies as far as anyone knew.

It turned out it was two ex convicts from the Kansas State Penitentiary had heard from another inmate who had worked for the Clutters at one time that the farmer had a safe of money. As it turned out, this was untrue and the convicts left with $43 after they killed the family.

One thing went wrong after another. The foiled crime did not give the two men the money they thought they would have to escape and start new lives. Instead they stayed in hiding, writing out bad checks to survive until they were captured and tried for the murders.

Author Truman Capote heard about the crimes and traveled with his fellow author friend Harper Lee to investigate the crimes. This book is the true account of the murders.

Richard Hitchcock (left) and Perry Smith were executed on April 14th, 1965 for the slaying of a Kansas family.

Initially this book was chosen by our book club to read for our October Classic. To me, it was also a bonus that it is a banned book. While I am not sure how a true crime book will go over in book club (it has been many years since we have read one as a group), I however enjoy a true crime now and then. Enjoy? That sounds awful.

I listened to In Cold Blood on audio mainly because I was not sure when I would get to it in book format. Narrator Scott Brick was a good voice for this style of read. Informative and crisp in his words, he read like a detective novel unfolding its story page by page. I While this is a true crime book, it reads as fiction. Truman Capote wrote this book in a story format where it is easy to slip into a fiction state of mind and forget that you are reading about horrible senseless murders.

I did enjoy (there’s that word again!) the book and learning about the crime novel that made it to a classic. There is a lot of information about the two killers before, during, and after the crime. At 14 hours and 27 minutes on audio, it felt a little drug out.

Over all… happy to say that I have read this one, but will more than likely not be revisiting it.

Why was In Cold Blood Banned?

2012

Some Glendale (CA) Unified School District officials and parents attempted to block a request by a high school English teacher to add the text to the district’s advanced English curriculum because the nonfiction book was “too violent for a young audience;” the school board voted 4-0 to approve the book for Advanced Placement students.

2001

Banned, but reinstated in an English Advanced Placement class in Savannah (GA) after a parent complained that it contained sex, violence, and profanity.

You will hear from the Bookies Book Group in October about their thoughts on the book.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 14 hours and 27 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Random House Audio
Audible.com Release Date: January 3, 2006

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (Banned Book… BUT Was It Real?)

Published on September 30, 2014September 30, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

Being a teenager is not easy now… and it wasn’t then.

Told in the first person perspective of an unnamed teenage girl, who is just trying to fit in. When she is invited to a popular girls party she can not believe her luck! They play a game called “Who’s Got The Button”, which our narrator later learns that several of the cokes they are served at the party are laced with LSD… the question is who will get them? Our narrator of course is one that does, and she experiences her first high.

As time goes on, she becomes more willing to try other drugs to find out what they will feel like. She becomes not only popular in her school, but also a drug dealer to pay for her habits.

Written in diary form, Go Ask Alice walks you through the drug use and the terrible happenings associated with her highs such as sex, leaving home, in with the wrong so-called “friends” and then leads to her trying to come clean and be the girl she knows deep down inside she is.

WOW. I picked up this book at our recent Friends Of The Library sale. I am always on the look out for classics and banned books (often one and the same) when I seen a copy of this book. Go Ask Alice is small, 224 under size pages and written in diary format so is a quick read. My plan was to read this for banned book week, and although I did not finish it during the week I meant to, I did finish it.

Go Ask Alice, written originally in 1971 is still relevant today. I am not sure why it is called Go Ask Alice, there is a small encounter with a girl named Alice… but nothing worthy of naming the book after her (although I did momentarily wonder if the “Alice” she seen in the book, was indeed our narrator thinking of herself as another person…)

The book is sad. You find our narrator trying to break free of the circle of drugs and those involved, but it is a struggle in many ways. Even when she does get clean, she is pursued by the users as well as nightmares and well… read the book. There is more to this story.

Go Ask Alice is said in the front of the book that is the actual diary of a teenage girl. If you look on-line, you will find there is much discrepancy about this claim. Snopes.com calls it out as fiction. Merely a cautionary tale. It also calls out that the book is not really anonymous, although this is pretty common knowledge now – the author is actually Beatrice Sparks who had written a number of teen books dealing with topics such as AIDS, teen pregnancy, cults, drugs, and eating disorders.

True story or not, it made for an interesting read and truly can put the fear of drugs and the dangers of hanging with the wrong people in you.

Recommended. So you too can say you read it.

Go Ask Alice… WHY Was It Banned?

Since it’s publishing in 1971, Go Ask Alice has become one of the most challenged and banned books of all time. Due to its frequent and strong references to sex, heavy drug usage, and teen pregnancy, libraries and schools across the country have banned the novel as it sits at number 23 on the American Library Association (ALA) “100 Most Frequently Challenged Books” from 1990-2001. In Charleston, South Carolina, Dr.Chester Floyd, Berkeley County school district’s superintendent, pulled the novel off the shelves of all public schools within the district.

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse; Reprint edition (January 1, 2006)

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?

Morning Meanderings… Lots Of Winners To Announce!

Published on September 30, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)7 Comments

Good morning! Tuesday already! It is a dreary overcast day here and I would like nothing more than to sit here and work on my deadline and later curl up with a good book…

but…

I do have to go out there.

Anyhoo…

Winners. I have some winners to catch up on from the This Is Where I Leave You Contest to Banned Book Winners. SO let’s do this!

This is where I Leave You was a contest for a $25 Visa gift card to see the film in theaters & copy of the book (movie tie-in cover) . Our winner using random.org is:

Vicki from I’d Rather Be At The Beach

Banned Book Week Giveaways:

A copy of Mice and Men by Steinbeck goes to:

Hannah at Wordlily!

A copy of Lord Of The Flies by Golding goes to:

Brooke from Brooke Blogs

And my big Banned Book Week winner who will win choice of the Banned Book Cup, The Banned book socks, or the $10 gift card goes to……

Lois from You, Me, and a Cup Of Tea

Yippy! Thanks all! If winners see this post before I get a chance to email them later today, please send me your address (email it to: journeythroughbooks@gmail.com) for shipping (and Lois I would need what you choose as well!) and I will get the items out to you 🙂

Ok all… off for more coffee! Have a SUPER Tuesday!

Hatching Twitter … by Nick Bolton

Published on September 29, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

Out of a failing companies ashes, a few employees took on a project that seemed at the time just a little fun on the side. That project, was a site that allowed you to give a brief update to your life in 140 characters or less…

this “project” became known as Twitter, and through much the same sort of anguish Facebook went through… fought its was to an 11.5 billion dollar company by 2013, and attempted to be bought out by such as Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, Al Gore, and Google.

Now with over 300 million active users, the story is shared about the hard making of Twitter… the firing of CEO’s.. and the making of Twitter with the same guy who created Blogger….

this is quite the story.

I adored the movie Social Network. I did. It is the story of the making of Facebook and I ate up every minute of the story of the young creator who took an idea that was meant to be a college meet up site to a place where people f all ages share their lives, relationships… and yes, even whats for dinner. *Guilty*

When I came across this audio of Twitter I was excited to learn of its climb to status and the audio was every bit as interesting as I hoped it would be.

With information of the start-up of Blogger and the popularity of “blogging” being at the core of Twitter, it was interesting to learn of how a team of hackers came to hind these brief 140 character updates to be as big a deal as it is. What I found even more interesting was how Twitter changed the face of social media by being able to report major events as soon as they happened in such detail – that this site is used by many agencies to capture time lines of events and accuracy.

Really… it is mind-boggling how much Twitter has changed our society.

For myself, I find it had to find time to use Twitter. I am an occasional sporadic user, not able to keep up with the day-to-day use and solely use it for bookish conversations. However, after listening to this audio, I know I need to give Twitter more credit than I do.

Fascinating stuff. Really.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 9 hours and 35 minutes
Narrator: Daniel May
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Audible.com Release Date: November 5, 2013

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on September 28, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)38 Comments

Hey there! Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list! 😉

Banned Book week was last week and I started out here AMAZING… and then puttered out by Tuesday with just too much life stuff going on both day and night. Thanks goodness to the wonderful bloggers who linked to me to also chat up banned books. They carried me this year:

Posts that did make it up:

A link to all the banned book posts and giveaways that linked to Book Journey this week

Lord Of The Flies review and giveway

The Great Gatsby Movie thoughts – a banned book made into a movie

Good Bye Harry Potter – a book that is banned… and a song

Attempted Book Banning – In MY Home Town

I did THIS At Our Fall Book Sale… Oh Yes I really Did

YOU Choose My Next Read and YOU win that book!

I am still finishing up banned books this week.. in the middle of three… yup three. As I am tired, I am going to leave it at that and ask you to link your Its Monday What Are You Reading to where it says click here below 😉

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

For those of you who read mainly children and middle grade books, please also feel free to add your link here:

You Choose My Next Read and You Win the Book!

Published on September 28, 2014September 28, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)71 Comments

Fall book sale is over so it is that time again! Here I will show you the books that I picked up at the sale. In the comments – tell me which of these books you would love to read. On Friday I will choose a winner using random.org and that is the book I will read this weekend and mail it out next week to the winner.

It’s fun… and two of us get to read something good! 🙂

1a2 — Click to see a larger picture and the titles of the first few on the left

*Note the only ones not up for grab is the one standing to the left of the top pic, hat is a copy of Little Women and I wish to keep that one and The Great Gatsby book to be added to my classic collection.

Morning Meanderings… Book Hangover

Published on September 28, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Egads. Sunday. Survivor of the fall book sale for the library. Yesterday was our bag sale… $2 for as many books as you can put in a bag. We were a little nervous because we found out on Friday that the Homecoming parade would shut down our sale for a little over an hour as they passed by our road.

Never fear – we made a little square flyer and went and handed them out to participants… you know… like people do in parades… it was… well…

look for yourself:

There was a good 30 to 40 in the room for most of the day. Our sales went over $6,000. I am so excited about that but OH SO TIRED! Even my arms ache!

That all said… as you can imagine this craziness going on this past week really put a damper on my Banned Book Week plans. Thank goodness for all of you who linked your own banned book posts up to the week plans. Not only did I read each of your posts, you inspired me to look for a couple more titles that I was unaware of.

If you have not had a chance to look at the banned book posts, please do. There are some amazing posts and giveaways… and you may learn something new about a book that you love! 🙂

As for me… I was just too tired to read. I am in the middle of two banned books that I should be able to finish up today, and an audio book which is not only a banned book but also our book club read for October.

Here are the books that came into my home this week (not including book sale books – those I will post later)

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare – audio (ooh right???? Two amazing authors!)

Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer– audio (oh this is one I am so looking forward to!)

Somewhere Safe with Someone Good by Jan Karon – audio (new Mitford Series!)

ASTRAY by Amy Christine Parker – audio

The Vineyard by Michael Hurley

Dr. Mutters Marvels by Christin O Keefe Aptowicz

Nightmares! by Jason Segal – audio

On A Clear Day by Walter Dean Meyers – audio

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beuke – audio

BURN by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge -audio (I LOVE this series!)

Get Even by Gretchen McNeil – purchased after reading about this on another blog.

The Lodger by Louisa Treger

Tracks Count by Steve Engel

Cocktails for Book Lovers by Tessa Smith McGovern – purchased

Yeah… I think I am going to need another cabin weekend by myself to have a reading BLITZ. 🙂 Now off to finish the Weekend Cooking post I started yesterday and never was able to get back to 🙂

Morning Meanderings… Bringing It To A Close

Published on September 27, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

Saturday! The final day of the Official Banned Book Week and for myself, I am a little bummed. My week could not have been busier. I worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and had something each of those evenings I was committed to. Thursday, Friday, and Today have been the fall book sale and I have been there at least 12 hours a day. My reading time has been close to not. I am however in the middle of: Go Ask Alice, Brave New World, and In Cold Blood (audio for book club). My banned book week apparently will trickle over into next week a bit.

We have a couple more blogs connecting their banned book posts today:

Guy Vestal from Counter Culture Critic writes a passionate post of where censorship starts.

Heather at Based On a True Story writes about “Is Book Banning Ever Ok?”

All the other amazing posts that went up this week on banned books, banned book reviews, and giveaways are found here.

Note: Commenting on any of my banned book related posts this week will enter you into my giveaway. (one entry per relevant comment)

I hope you enjoyed Banned Book Week and I really hope that you read some of these great posts that went up this week. I have read every one and added a couple “must reads” to my list by seeing what they are talking about.

As for me – I am back to the book sale this morning. It is the last day and it is the bag sale – $2 for a brown paper bag that you fill with books. Always a good time 🙂

Morning Meanderings…. More About The Banned!

Published on September 26, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

Coming in a little late today – my shenanigans of yesterday morning (up at 3:30 am to be the first one at the library books sale and then working the sale until 8:00 pm last night took its tole.) Holy smoked was I TIRED.

If you missed yesterdays pic – I actually set up a tent at the sale as a joke:

Today – I am back working the sale now until 8 pm tonight.. I feel a little more rested and ready to roll, but quickly taking a break to write this post.

We have more awesome peeps writing about banned books today!

Jennifer at The Relentless Reader reviewed Fun Home by Alison Bechdel a book I had never read (or heard of!) but now want to!

Elle at The Erratic Project Junkie talks about when censorship backfires – right there in her own corner of the world. It is a great post!

Wesley at Library Educated (love that name!) rants about Why The Caged Bird Sings in a passionate way that will make you want to read the book!

Julia at Diary Of Word Nerd talks about Perks Of Being a Wallflower and a chance to win a gift card!

Kimberly at Truly Simply Pink talk about her favorite banned book and what The Huffington Post is saying this week.

Thats whats new. Please check out these great posts Banned book awareness is so important! I am off.. .I had better get back to that book sale 🙂

Morning Meanderings… by the time you read this I will be gone…

Published on September 25, 2014September 25, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)28 Comments

Good morning! Welcome to the Thursday of Banned Books week. But wait… where am I??? I have left at 4 am this morning for the book sale at the Library.

Why so early?

Because I am in competition to be first in line. I know.. I know… ridiculous for sure… but honestly… it is fun. In the spring I missed my number one spot by 5 minutes because this girl *finger pointing at me* stopped to get coffee. I know! I really need to control my caffeine urges!

But now…

I have a strategic plan… I have joked for years about camping out the night of the sale… and this time. I am doing it.

Mmmmm hmmmm….. that’s the way we I roll.

SO thats what I am doing.. more on the sale and all that later…. for now.. lets add our newest contributors to Banned Book Week:

Kym at My Book Nook shares her thoughts on the banned book, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Erin at Quixotic Magpie talks about the banning of Judy Blume’s Blubber. (She has a great quote about bullying on this post!)

Over at Eclectic Alli there is talk about Favorite Banned Books!

Kelly from the Well-Read Redhead brings us information on Go Ask Alice -who the author is not so anonymous after all… AND she has a giveaway!

Bex from An Armchair By The Sea writes about why Banned Books Week is not to be celebrated – great post and GIVEAWAY!!!

My close encounter with Of Mice and Men and a Giveaway too!

And of course do not forget the posts and giveaways from earlier this week… they are still going on!

That’s it… because really… I am not here anyway! 😀 Banned book post later today!