It’s Banned Books Week. What Banned Books have you read? What book or books is surprising that it still on this list?

1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey
3. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green
5. George by Alex Gino
6. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
7. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
8. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
9. Internet Girls (series) by Lauren Myracle
10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
12. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
13. I Am Jazz by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel
14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
16. Bone (series) by Jeff Smith
17. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
18. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
19. A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss
20. Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg
21. Alice McKinley (series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
22. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris
23. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
24. Scary Stories (series) by Alvin Schwartz
25. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
26. A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
27. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
28. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
29. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
30. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
31. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
32. It’s a Book by Lane Smith
33. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
34. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
35. What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones
36. A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer
37. Bad Kitty (series) by Nick Bruel
38. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
39. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
40. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
41. The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby by Dav Pilkey
42. This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman
43. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
44. A Bad Boy Can Be Good For A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone
45. Beloved by Toni Morrison
46. Goosebumps (series) by R.L. Stine
47. In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco
48. Lush by Natasha Friend
49. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
50. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
51. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
52. The Holy Bible
53. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
54. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
55. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
56. Gossip Girl (series) by Cecily von Ziegesar
57. House of Night (series) by P.C. Cast
58. My Mom’s Having A Baby by Dori Hillestad Butler
59. Neonomicon by Alan Moore
60. The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake
61. The Giver by Lois Lowry
62. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
63. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
64. Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle
65. Dreaming In Cuban by Cristina Garcia
66. Fade by Lisa McMann
67. The Family Book by Todd Parr
68. Feed by M.T. Anderson
69. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
70. Habibi by Craig Thompson
71. House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
72. Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah Hoffman
73. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
74. Monster by Walter Dean Myers
75. Nasreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winter
76. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
77. Stuck in the Middle by Ariel Schrag
78. The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal
79. 1984 by George Orwell
80. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
81. Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher
82. Awakening by Kate Chopin
83. Burned by Ellen Hopkins
84. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
85. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
86. Glass by Ellen Hopkins
87. Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesle´a Newman
88. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
89. Madeline and the Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans
90. My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis
91. Prince and Knight by Daniel Haack
92. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology by Amy Sonnie
93. Skippyjon Jones (series) by Judith Schachner
94. So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
95. The Color of Earth (series) by Tong-hwa Kim
96. The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter
97. The Walking Dead (series) by Robert Kirkman
98. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
99. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding by Sarah S Brannen
100. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? by Jodi Taylor

Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)

This is the sixth in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series.  St Mary’s “investigates major historical events in contemporary time”, aka time travel, but they must never call it that. It’s best for a new reader to start with the first book, JUST ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER, which I reviewed previously (link).  There are going to be minor spoilers in this review for previous books – you have been warned.

Our heroine Max is now the temporary Chief Training Officer, with six new potential historians to train.  This entry in the series will take us to the Paleolithic period,  Joan of Arc, the Greek historian Herodotus, and a few other adventures. The Time Police make another appearance. As usual, not every character is going to live through the book.

Finally someone has asked the question of how villains are finding the teams when they travel into the past.  The answer is forthcoming, although I think Taylor made that much too easy, and I didn’t think explained everything. But no matter, this is not a series where you should be applying a lot of logic to the plot.  We are not done with villains though as a slightly different nefarious plot surfaces towards the end, and while it seems to be foiled for the moment, we don’t know who instigated it.

I  would have liked a bit more of Leon. We barely see him, and after the ending of the last book plus a throwaway comment from Max in the beginning of this one, I really expected more interaction.  But with 14 books (so far) in the series, there seems to be plenty of time for Taylor to take it up.

While it’s still a nice quick read, I found the pacing a lot slower.  After the momentous events of the last couple books, it’s like the series is taking a little breather, which I think is a good thing. This is not to say that there isn’t action going on.  I can’t decide if there is a even balance between the amusing scenes (the baby mammoth) and the horribly gruesome (Joan of Arc), but I think it spends more time on the amusing. Although the gruesome certainly sticks out – that was worthy of a horror novel.

Bottom line, I’m still enjoying it all although I’m not as anxious to grab the next book as I was when I started the series. But I do plan on reading #7 before too much time goes by.

Homicide Is My Business: Luigi the Zip: A Hitman’s Quest for Honor by Jerry Schmetterer and Michael Vecchione

Review by jjares

This is the fascinating and highly readable story of Luigi Ronsisvalle, a professional New York Bonano family hitman. We hear Luigi’s story because he never reached his goal of becoming a Mafia “made man.” Disappointed, Luigi did everything his bosses asked of him (including killing thirteen men), yet they never deemed him good enough to be a made man.* Short, balding, and with broken English, Luigi was not someone you would expect to be a Mafioso. He killed thirteen men (6 in Sicily and 8 in America).

There was another reason for Luigi’s defection (besides not rising to ‘made man’). The Mafia had given a contract to kill Luigi to the most dangerous hitman around. So Luigi came to the police and turned himself in to protect his wife and three daughters. As part of his plea agreement, he had to answer all questions honestly.

The coauthor, Michael Vecchione, spent months interviewing Luigi to understand the Sicilian and American Mafias. They met in Vecchione’s DA office, while Luigi ate veal parmesan sandwiches with beer. It was amazing how many important actions Luigi was part of during his time in the Mafia.

Luigi knew a lot about the French Connection of importing heroin into the US (a movie was made of this with Gene Hackman) and the Pizza Connection (trafficking drugs in the dough for pizzas). Luigi knew important details about the murder of mob boss Carmine Galante. He was also in the know about the schemes of an Italian banker suspected of stealing from the Vatican.

What is interesting about this story is that Luigi tells his life story through the lens of his Mafia associations, from Sicily to America. He had an interesting code of honor: He never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it. He had a code of paying his debts, treating his workers with respect, leaving the working man alone, and only going after those that deserved it. He was very disappointed in the American Mafia because they didn’t believe in those old-time Sicilian values. They were in it for the money. Period.

Luigi tells his story of being a hitman by meticulously watching and planning the hit. He was a respected assassin in Sicily because of this and was imported to America because of his skill in killing — and not getting caught. He was eventually convicted in 1976, but just spent five years in jail before disappearing in the federal witness protection program. In 1985, Luigi was the star witness in the President’s Commission on Organized Crime under President Ronald Reagan. He fascinated everyone. Later, the coauthor reports that he heard that Luigi committed suicide while in witness protection, but he is not sure if that is accurate. Overall score = 4.5 stars.

* A made man is a fully-initiated Mafia member. A made man demands respect and cannot be killed without a don’s permission.

An aside: What does “Luigi the Zip” refer to? Zip was a derogatory slur in early 20th century times by Italian American and Sicilian American mobsters in reference to younger immigrant Sicilian and Italian mobsters. Second-generation mobsters were directly imported from Sicily because they were already indoctrinated into the Maria mindset. However, Mafia members already in America thought they were yokels.

Fleet of Knives by Gareth L. Powell

Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)

FLEET OF KNIVES is the second in the SF trilogy by Gareth Powell. It starts almost directly after EMBERS OF WAR, which I reviewed earlier and needs to be read first. EMBERS OF WAR introduced us to most of the main characters: Trouble Dog, the sapient spaceship; Sal Konstanz, captain of Trouble Dog; Nod, the Druff engineer; and Ona Sudak, the war criminal who exterminated an entire planet. This book also introduces “Lucky” Johnny Schulz, the captain of the ship Lucy’s Ghost.

At the end of the first book, Trouble Dog had managed to escape the murderous intentions of her sister ships, found the Marble Armada – a fleet of one million ships hidden in a pocket universe, just waiting for someone to lead them – and brought out Ona Sudak to face justice.  But now it’s all going to come unraveled.

Trouble Dog and Sal are answering a distress call from Lucy’s Ghost, who has been mysteriously attacked in hyperspace and then crashed on a moon-sized generation ship left by the alien Nymtoq. The Nymtoq are going to be very unhappy that someone is messing around on their monument, but Johnny and the rest of the crew from Lucy’s Ghost have bigger problems just trying to stay alive. It turns out they are not alone in this place.

In the meanwhile, someone has broken Ona Sudak out of prison only moments before her scheduled execution. The Marble Armada has decided it needs a real leader, a biological entity, and Ona Sudak is the one. “What should we do?” it asks, and Ona Sudak says “End war. By whatever means possible” and thus begins more thousands of deaths as the Armada systematically destroys anything that can be a weapon – including Trouble Dog.

As befits the middle of a trilogy, it ends with our heroes beset on every side and managing to barely escape. None of the POV characters will die but just a warning, everyone else is fair game.

This is a fast-paced action-filled space opera. As before, the POV shifts every few pages between characters. Sal and Johnny are the captains desperately trying to keep their crews alive, Trouble Dog more dispassionate but also needing her crew. Nod has few scenes but still gets some character development. Ona Sudak seems rational on the surface but is just despicable – you will be irresistibly reminded of “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

There’s a surprise appearance at a crucial moment of someone from the last book. That was a little deus ex machina for my taste – Powell had better use him in the next book. Nod and its children were a delight and I know it has to play a bigger role next time.  I would have loved to see chapters from the POV of Lucy. I liked Trouble Dog’s emotional development. There’s good dialogue with some humorous moments, very good imagery, and lots of mystery to make you impatient to read the end of the trilogy.

Travel Back in the Day to 1972 by David and Lauren Benson

Review by jjares

The information, especially the photos, takes the reader back down memory lane to 1972. There’s a little for everyone, from world events to fashion trends, music, and beyond. A loaf of bread cost 27 cents, while a gallon of gas was 36 cents. The average home cost was $27,600, and the average price of a car was $3,879. The minimum wage was $1.60/hour, while the average income was $11,116/year.

Of the 1.7 million couples in the US who tied the knot in this year, many couples shared their first dance to Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” or “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers.  Also, three million three hundred thousand babies were born in 1972. Favorite male names were Michael and Christopher. Jennifer and Michelle were the hot female names for babies.

The information on vacations blew me away. Disney World opened in October 1971, and 400,000 visitors enjoyed the Magic Kingdom by the following year. Tickets were $3.75, and rides were extra. However, a family of four could ride and eat for $10 per person. Today, that cost is $100 per person. Another way to travel that became popular at this time was the RV (recreational vehicle). Winnebago and Airstream were popular brands.

Integration was a new phenomenon in education, along with English as a Second Language and classes for the disabled. In 1972, the high school graduation rate was 75% (today, it is around 86%). In 1973, 1.5 million students were in college. Today, the enrollment is about 19 million.

Many pages (and photos) are about the college protests against the Vietnam War, the hippie movement, and the emerging interest in drugs. Then, of course, Nixon and the Watergate Scandal are mentioned. On a more positive note, the moon landings were highlighted. The Olympics occurred in 1972. Finally, the tragedy of the Black September group killing Israeli Olympic team members is mentioned, along with comparing gold, silver, and bronze medal winners in the most successful countries.

I remember the Hewlett-Packard pocket scientific calculator. We bought one of the first available in 1972, I remember it cost an astronomical price of $135.You can find one that does more (than the 1972 scientific model) for about $20. The same year, Polaroid released the SX-70 model. It developed a photo in less than 10 minutes.

The 1970s brought color and new fabrics to the fashion world. Polyester was developed by NASA and hit the clothing market hard. The phrase “groovy psychedelic” describes the clothes of this era, complete with bell-bottom trousers, high-waisted pants, going braless, and oversized glasses.

The top television shows for 1972 were “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Sons.” The biggest movie was “The Godfather.” Roberta Flack had the biggest tune of the year, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Roberta and her music were introduced to moviegoers in “Play Misty for Me.” The photo of David Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust Tour is mind-bending.

This book is pure nostalgia. Readers can spend a couple of hours reminiscing about their old toys (now worth a mint), clothes, and pastimes. There is something for everyone. Enjoy. Overall score = G+.

The Winner of the Brand-New Copy of

Dune by Frank Herbert

is:

Lorraine S.

Congratulations! Your Book will be on the way to you soon!

Thank you to everyone who entered!

The Winner of the brand-new copy of

Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry is:

Susan R.

Congratulations! Your Book will be on the way to you soon!

Thank you to everyone who entered!