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We have just under three hours until midnight here in Central Time, but already my eyes are getting blinky. It's been a busy day, an incredible month, and an undescribable year. My husband is making progress on his recovery from knee replacement, but I think he thought having a minimally invasive procedure meant he'd be doing the cha-cha after 11 days. 

The most amazing part of this week has been my mother-in-law's insistence that she's bringing my husband black-eyed peas tomorrow. Now my mother-in-law is a very good cook and we get along, but I had to get an att'tude that she thought she should bring peas up into my house on New Year's Day. I did hear my husband on the phone saying, "You know, Gail wrote a book about black-eyed peas." In fact, at this moment, I have frozen black-eyed peas, canned black-eyed peas, and refrigerated black-eyed peas. I think I'm up to the task. Now don't YOU forget to eat those peas!

So I look forward to the new year, making black-eyed peas for my family, and the new challenges a new year will bring. So Happy New Year, all! May January 1st be just the beginning of a year full of good luck and incredible love for everyone!

Oh, and GO, ILLINI!

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This is Banned Book Week in the U.S.

Novel Journey presents an interview with Rebecca Zeidel, Program Director for American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. The web log is part of Christian Women Online.

Zeidel responds to the following questions:
What is Banned Book Week?
What is the goal of Banned Book Week?
What percentage of books are challenged or banned because of moral content? Political content? Racial content? Violence? Other (please explain)?
Who suffers the most if a book is challenged?
How can novelists support Banned Book Week?
Which states or regions are more likely to jump on the banning band wagon?

Zeidel identifies the Howell, MI banning of 5 titles in a response to this question: What is the most appalling situation you've seen or heard of regarding a challenged book?

In February, five books were challenged in Howell, MI for sexual themes and profanity: Black Boy by Richard Wright, Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell. The books were challenged in Howell High School in by members of the Livingston Organization for Values in Education (LOVE) with assistance from the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association.

According to its web site,

The American Family Association represents and stands for traditional family values, focusing primarily on the influence of television and other media – including pornography – on our society.

Of great interest, since a number of challenges come from the religious sector is Zeidel's answer to this question: "How can novelists who write from a JudeoChristian worldview support free speech?"

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Newspapers around the world yesterday reported the death of writer Kurt Vonnegut at the age of 84.

His books such as Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse-Five faced many challenges over the years, likely for their dark, satiric humour.

The Columbus Dispatch describes his novels as "classics of the American counterculture" and go on to compare his humour to that of Mark Twain.

Like Mark Twain, Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well?
He also shared with Twain a profound pessimism.

He was the author of 14 novels and wrote in other genres as well.

His experience of the fire bombing of Dresden during the war was the basis of Slaughterhouse-Five, which was published in 1969, just as America was experiencing the war in Vietnam, racial unrest, and other social upheaval. It struck a chord with American society. The author became a cult hero when Slaughterhouse-Five became a best seller. It was challenged in schools and public libraries for its violence, sexual content and rough language. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Boing Boing offers a podcast of the very first reading of Breakfast of Champions by the author.

A number of people who are signed up for the "Banned Book Challenge" are moving the order of their books or adding a Kurt Vonnegut book to their list, in honour of his passing.

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