Book Marks: More Book Ban Absurdity, Etc.

In the rush to codify laws to win the culture wars, some lawmakers seemed to have overlooked how those laws could be turned on books they probably don't want to ban. CBS News reports that...

A suburban school district in Utah has banned the Bible in elementary and middle schools after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools argued that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children. And the Book of Mormon could be next.

Online, some have argued that the Bible would be ensnared by the book-blocking rules because of the "vulgar or violent" content. After all, according to CBS, "The Bible has long found itself on the American Library Association's list of most challenged books and was temporarily pulled off shelves last year in school districts in Texas and Missouri."

What's funny about this is laid out in the CBS report, which adds that "...the district doesn't differentiate between requests to review books and doesn't consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire."

It's probably safe to say that many of the rationales for banning the targeted titles rest on shaky ground. And what happens when stories about minorities, by minorities, are hushed up by book bans and possibly racist gatekeeping? Awful things written and said about them – by people from a newly anointed anti-government extremist organisation, for instance – invariably ooze into the gaps left behind.

"Books are windows into the ordinary," writes Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman in TIME. "We read them to see ourselves, to comprehend our lived reality, and sometimes to envision something better. But, as has always been the case, imagination is a privilege, popular narratives often only reflect the few, and any increase in representation is, more often than not, met with backlash."

Citing the targeting of The Hill We Climb by the book-ban horde and the backlash against this year's The Little Mermaid, Opoku-Agyeman's article is a rallying cry for those championing for more minority representation in publishing.

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Never thought I'd read about books being classified as an "affordable diversion". Of course, this is happening in Britain, where Brexit continues to reap its toll on the economy, and only cites annual sales data from only one publisher, Bloomsbury. But "affordable" as compared to what? Streaming services, apparently. From Yahoo! Finance...

“A paperback is much cheaper than even a one-month subscription to many services,” Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton said, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, comparing the price of a book to a Netflix Premium subscription worth $19.99 a month.

Sounds like good news for book publishing, but over here, thanks to a weak ringgit and hikes in prices all along the book supply chain, books are becoming less affordable. The price range for some new trade paperbacks are now in the RM80s and RM90s. And prices might still go up. In other news:

• After reading this article on award-winning Bangladeshi-Irish YA author Adiba Jaigirdar, I'm a) at a loss for words for a preamble, and b) very curious about her books. To think, her writing career apparently started with a henna tube.
• What's bad? Plagiarising an award-winning cookbook. Even worse? When the author is a lawyer. "Rachael Issy", or whoever they really are, had better buckle up for a bumpy ride.
• Another day, another example of why it's a bad idea for authors to go after book reviewers. I mean, grief over a four-star review because they said the ending was "kind of predictable"? Maybe the word rubbed them a bit raw because the book was based on their life story, but still.
• The war in Ukraine is arguably affecting shipping, food prices, etc., but demand for "escapist literature"? English-language authors of crime, romance and fantasy novels are getting offers from Russia to translate and distribute their works there, but the issue is a bit more complicated than simply not making Russian money. Not all Russians support the war and they need to make a living. But in Russia, apart from "foreign-authored escapism", the Guardian also reports "there was also a big appetite for self-help books and for historical works about fascist Germany." Hmm.
• "We all know the feeling of reading a book that touches us at our core. A book that somehow knows us intimately and takes us on a journey to understand ourselves more deeply. Especially for queer people, books can not only show us what’s possible, but they can also lead to revelations." At Literary Hub, Samantha Paige Rosen asks ten queer debut authors "to highlight a book that enhanced their understanding of their queerness, writing craft, or both."
• The Edge Media Group chairman, Tan Sri Tong Kooi Ong, defamed by the author of Daim Zainuddin: Malaysia’s Revolutionary and Troubleshooter? No mention of what the defamatory statements were, but the High Court has ordered the author, Michael Backman, to pay a total of RM1.2 million in damages.
• "Publishing a book is often a cathartic experience for writers. It allows them to share their deepest and most heartfelt thoughts with the world. It's a chance to prove their critics wrong and create something meaningful too. ... However, for some writers, that initial euphoria can sour." Here are ten books that were written and later renounced by their authors.
• A profile of Richard Scarry, children’s book author and illustrator. Reminded of my old, old copy of his Busy, Busy World, which I defaced in my childish ignorance and is now lost to time.