01 October 2006

Book list - Sep 06

Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - WW II (naval), by James D Hornfischer
Missee Lee - children's, by Arthur Ransome
A Meeting at Corvallis - AH, by S M Stirling
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet - children's SF, by Eleanor Cameron
The Picts and the Martyrs - children's, by Arthur Ransome
The Medieval Castle - history, by Philip Warner
The Man from Waukegan - memoirs, by J P Zabolski
Great Northern? - children's, by Arthur Ransome
Looking for Alaska - young adult, by John Green
Fur Magic - children's fantasy, by Andre Norton

I'd read the Cameron, the second and third Ransomes (PM and GN), and the Norton before, but the others were all new to me. (I bought ML quite a while ago, but didn't get around to reading it before packing it up for a move.)

Looking for Alaska was my book for Banned Books Week. It's about a boy who goes off to boarding school for the first time in 11th grade, and about the friends he meets there, one of whom apparently commits suicide in the middle of the school year. It's fairly obvious why certain narrow-minded individuals might not want this book to be available in libraries - the description of the narrator's first experience with oral sex takes up two whole pages. (It's also quite funny, as it's also the girl's first experience; halfway through the proceedings they stop, get dressed, and run over to a friend's room to ask for advice.)

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