A Novel Idea

Since putting my running on hold six months ago I have had a little bit of a vacancy in my free time. Yes, most of my time is filled by playing with my son and wife and doing family oriented things. Don't get me wrong, I love doing family stuff but I think everyone needs a hobby or something to call their own. I have gotten into tea and also went to a camera club a learned a lot about my camera and how to take better photographs. Apparently there is more to photography then just self portraits taken on a cell phone while doing a duck-face.....who knew? I enjoy all the new stuff I have learned about aperture, shutter priority/speed, and ISO. I had originally thought all those buttons on my camera were just for show and didn't REALLY do anything.

Along with photography I am now trying to read more...that's right...full actual books. Not choose your own adventure novels like I enjoyed up until grade 11. All kidding aside I have read a few books and go on streaks of reading if I read a few good books in a row. however it seems like whenever I read a bad book I stop reading all together. Maybe its the fact that I will finish the book no matter how terrible it is.

While at Cole Harbour Place library with the family I came across a section of books entitled "BANNED". OOOOH Scandalous. I saw the books 'Of Mice and Men' and 'Cannery Row' by John Steinbeck and thought why not.....They were banned at some point so they must be good or realistic like most banned books are. I grabbed the two novels and figured I would give them a shot. Especially after seeing the creepy picture of Steinbeck on the back of 'Of Mice and Men'. He looks like a cross between Salvador Dali, Hitler, and The MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD. Not to mention I feared if I did not sign out the books he would come out of the book and put his cigarette out on my face.

The power of persuasion , or just sheer intimidation, or  is it the look of  'I really don't care if you read this book or not'.  I guarantee that picture would not fly on the back of a book nowadays.

It only took 2 sittings to read of Mice and Men as it was a very good book. The reason it was banned was clearly because of the use of the 'N-word' or perhaps his portrait on the back of the novel. The writing reminded me of 'Johnny got his gun' in that it was written how people would have actually spoken, not unrealistic pretentious english. Kind of like reading this blog in all of hits horrible grammar glory!! The book is a good quick read and may spark your passion to start reading more or read more books like this. There is something about reading the classics. Maybe its so I can answer some random Jeopardy or trivia questions in the future, but I will continue reading them. Catcher in the Rye is next on the list. Admittedly I once tried reading War and Peace........After 113 pages I had no clue what was going on or who was who. I have since found out that there exists a book to help you read War and Peace that lets you see who the families are and stuff. I figure someone should just rewrite it and use Russian hockey players names and then I am sure I could follow it. Embarassingly I remembered the character Fedorovna for this reason. Come on, a book about the Malkin's, Ovechkin's and Datsyuks would be way better than Bezukhov's, Kuragin's and Rostova's.

Now if you haven't read Johnny got his Gun you should. Its a extremely realistic and unsettling book. Which is why it was banned as it does not glorify war and have everyone come out a hero. 

As a final thought "55% of quotes on the internet are made up" - Abraham Lincoln