Anakalian Whims

Next year, I’m going to read 12 books from 12 very different categories.

The Eclectic Reader Challenge 2013 encourages readers to step out of their comfort zones. I did this a few months ago when I reviewed Secondhand Spirits, and I’d like to expand my reading range even further.

Last year, the challenge brought in 132 participants and 348 shared reviews. You have until December 31 to sign up, and anyone who completes the challenge could win a small prize. Learn more about how you can join in at the Book’d Out blog.

You can still participate even if you don’t have a blog. A Goodreads or LibraryThing account, for example, works just fine.

Every time you post a review, you can share it with other challenge participants. This is a great way to connect with other readers and bloggers and find great recommendations for other books.

Will you join…

Sometimes you just can’t ask why about love…..love is a choice but it’s a choice that doesn’t require  any qualifications, it simply is.

Fans of the novel Anna Karenina know that there are as many kinds of loves as there are hearts. That perhaps is why the novel is so appealing….it is a story about love and love effects us all.

What kind of loves have you known in your life? Forbidden love? Dutiful love? Romantic love? Enduring love? Passionate love? Maternal love? Scandalous love?

In the novel Anna Karenina, we find all kinds of love and on November 30^th (in theaters everywhere) we will see director Joe Wright’s vision of love on the big screen.

I for one have been waiting for the release of this film for months. I have been watching all the Facebook promotions and longing for the release date. The film opened to limited cities on…

It’s Banned Book Week sponsored by the American Library Association and I’ve been seeing a lot of posts with ALA lists of most frequently banned or challenged books (in the U.S.) and so on. I’ve found that I have surprisingly mixed feelings about Banned Books Week.

First off, let me say that I fully support the goals of the ALA in reminding us of the importance of our freedom to read and the need to continue to protect that freedom. I want to look at this from a different perspective though.

Number of books banned by the United States:…

Number of books banned by states within the U.S.:…

The book banning that that ALA is talking about is the removal of books from particular public libraries and school libraries. They publish prominently that there are thousands of challenges  where individuals or groups request removal of a book, but…

According to Peter Stothard, this year’s chair of the Man Booker Prize judges, book bloggers are harming literature.  Well thanks, Peter.  Thanks a lot.  I’m sure there are many people who have come across my blog who might have been indifferent or in strong disagreement with my reviews but I never expected the whole concept of my blog to be accused of being detrimental to literature.  That seems quite extreme to me.

I am not a professional critic.  I enjoy reading books and nobody pays me to write reviews.  I did not study English Literature at university.  I do not work in publishing or journalism.  As a blogger, I don’t have an editor to check my posts and I know my writing isn’t perfect.    However, I completely reject Stothard’s assertion that blogging is drowning out ‘serious criticism’.  He appears to have lumped all bloggers into the category of what…