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.

Kindness At Work

In difficult times, recordings of Ajahn Brahm's talks have been a source of comfort. As he tends to repeat his stories, the trick is to not listen to too many a week, and block off other major distractions while tuning in. He was my drive-home listening for a spell.

One of his tales was about a monk(?) who was "kind" to an automated teller machine, wishing it "good day", and such. Apparently, the ATM "repaid" the kindness by spitting out a twenty-euro bill when the monk passed by.

Of course machines can't reciprocate human gestures. The monk's daily exercises in kindness were more of a reminder to himself to be kind, that even if one's day had been heck, there are things to be grateful for and be kind about.

But stories like this feed into the myth of Buddhism being more than just a philosophy about suffering and the end of suffering, fodder for adherents of the law of attraction and all that.

Nevertheless, I started practising that form of kindness with the car. Nothing special, just a few pats on a headlight when arriving at work or arriving home. On occasion, I do talk to it when nobody's looking, so don't call a shrink on me. I'm already seeing one.

I've been "kind" to the car for a few months and didn't expect anything to happen. But something did, yesterday evening, when I stopped to pump petrol and inflate my tyres. One of them had been repeatedly punctured over a few months and the others weren't looking well either, even though the treads seemed okay.

The problem tyre, located on the driver side up front, sported a cavity that wouldn't look out of place in a bad tooth. Something seemed to have punctured it (again) and a crack had expanded from the entry point.

Going to sleep that night was a little harder than usual. Imagine the catastrophe if that cavity had widened, weakening the tyre till breaking point. I've seen a tyre blow out of a lorry and it was terrifying.

So I have a lot to be grateful for today, even though it kind of sucked: more work poured in, and I already have a near-full plate. For one, the errant tyre, plus its friends, held out until I reached a nearby tyre shop this morning.

"Ye g*ds, how long has it been since you changed your tyres?" the tyre shop foreman exclaimed. "These guys are way past their expiry dates."

So it seems the date of expiry or manufacture was stamped on each tyre, though I couldn't read where. The foreman said something about "2014", so I assumed it was the manufacture date. Going by that, my last tyre change should have been in 2019, yet here I was.

I had been driving up and down highways with potentially explosive tyres for about four years.

I had all the tyres replaced, as the foreman recommended. I went for the cheaper ones they had but if they were substandard the shop wouldn't stock them – not when lives and property are on the line, right? They offered to do the tyre alignment next time, as I was in a bit of a hurry. The bill felt hot and heavy in my wallet but they were nice, so I agreed.

Tyre problems can remain hidden, especially parts that touch the ground where you can't see. What were the chances of that errant tyre showing off that cavity on that day, at that time, when I wanted to pump air into it?

So, yes, for the law-of-attraction crowd and Ajahn Brahm listeners, maybe the car was trying to warn me. PROBLEM. FIX. NOW.

What it's really about is not stressing (too much) about things that have already happened and work on the issue at hand when you can. Worrying about the hole in my tyre wasn't going to help, so I chilled and waited till morning when the tyre shops opened. Be grateful things got fixed.

I've heard many stories from the British-born Buddhist abbot, some of which were told to him, but never have I imagined I'd be living an episode of his tales.