Two very different books

Two books on my mind tonight. Late last night (too late) I finished Liz Lipperman's Liver Let Die. I'd call this first in a new series a "non-culinary" mystery. Jordan McAllister is stuck writing personals for a small-town newspaper and dreaming of a career as a big-time sports reporter when she is suddenly asked to take over the food column. Jordan knows how to fry bologna and that's about it--her cast iron skillet is literally unused, though she puts it to good use here. In one of the funniest scenes I've read in a long time, she is sent to review an upsccale steak restaurant. She confesses to the waiter that she doesn't much like red meat, so he suggests foie gras, convincing her that it's chicken. Confronted with the look and texture of foie gras, she desperateley stuffs it in a borrowed purse and escapes the restaurant. Her review includes more than  you want to know about force-feeding geese.
Jordan, like a babe in the wilderness, writes her column with the help of her assorted friends and neighbors, one of whom is an outstanding cook. Potato chip casserole becomes Budin de Papitas Frites con Pollo, and pork chop casserole is Cote de Porc a'la cocotte.
But murder is deadly serious, and the waiter who served her the foie gras turns up dead at the steps to Jordan's apartment. She's suspect #1, and her amateur attempts to find out who really killed J.T. and prove her innocence drag her deeper and deeper into something menacing that she doesn't understand at all. There's suspense aplenty before it all gets straightened out, and you'll have as hard a time as Jordan does figuring out who are the good guys and who aren't.
The other book is Lone Star Leaders: Power and Personality in the Texas Congressional Delegation, by James Riddlesperger and Anthony Champagne. The Bookish Frogs, a lay support group for TCU Press, had a potluck supper tonight. For a while, I thought we were going to have a dessert buffet but it turned out there were plenty of delicious appetizers and side dishes--from pulled pork sliders to spanikopita and mac and cheese. The desserts were plentiful and delicious, and the wine flowed. The best thing about those evenings is the interesting people who attend--had fun, for instance, chatting with a Facebook "friend" that I don't think I'd ever talked to before..
Lone Star Leaders was written by two political science profs, but it's not the dull scholarly book you might expect. Instead it's a coffee-table book full of anecdotes and enlivened by photographs and cartoons. Tony Champagne spoke tonight and was both funny and interesting, full of facts about the Texas Congressional Delegation that most of us didn't know, from stories about well-known legislators like LBJ, Sam Rayburn and John Nance Garner to some about lesser known legislators who have had a great impact on our daily lives. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop when he spoke--everyone was completely engaged. I"m looking forward to digging into the book.
Two good books--take your pick.

Banned book week

In case you haven't been bombarded with emails  as I have, this is banned book week, a time to celebrate intellectual freedom. If you search on Google you can find lists of books that have been banned over time, everything from Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird to Gone with the Wind. Probably the classic some of us oldsters remember is Lady Chatterly's Lover--scandalous in its time. Some of the classics of our time and earlier times are on that list. Why are they banned? Often because parents, trying to protect their children from evil, protest to school boards. Lauren Myracle, an author of young adult books, calls herself America's number one most challenged author in the country in 2009. She writes about a young girl kissing another girl, a fifth grader with two moms, high school kids drinking too much and doing stupid things--and, yes, tampons.
In a wonderful column today in Shelf Awareness, an online newsletter for booksellers, she says the banned book argument often boils down to us (liberal thinkers) and them (conservative thinkers who go to church every Sunday, buy into conspiracy theories, and say, "Hell, yeah" when Rush Limbaugh mocks universal health care.) The division is not quite that simple. Myracle identifies hereself as a person of faith, a Christian who sings in her church choir. I have to agree that I identify myself as a person of faith and am proud to say I'm a Christian. But I'm not a Christian for book banning. Questioning is an essential part of faith, and if we are to lead meaningful lives we have to have intellectural freedom. Nothing irritates me more than people who think they can tell me what's right for them and for me--from banned books to abortion to politics.
If  you want to read the entire column, and it's thought-provoking, try to find today's Shelf Awareness on google (the full URL didn't print out, so I can't help much there).
A schoolteacher once told me that my very first young-adult novel, After Pa WAs Shot, would be banned if her superintendent read it, because I used the word "Kike" in it. The novel was set in East Texas in the late nineteenth century when Jewish immigrants landed in Galveston and made their way north to smaller towns. The word certainly did reflect my feelings but it was appropriate to time and place. I laughed aloud at the idea of me, Pollyanna, being banned.
On the Sisters in Crime listserv there's been much talk about banned books, and one author challenged each of us by asking what banned book we were going to read this week. I'm reading a really grisly novel, not my usual choice, so maybe that counts. Interestingly enough it also has an Amish background. But if I were going to reread one it would be To Kill a Mockinbird. I'm itching for my eleven-year-old granddaughter to be old enough to read it.
Many bookstores this week will have displays of banned books. Stop by, browse, and pick one up. See how you feel about banned books, intellectural freedom, and faith. I think they're all part of the mix. And here's a cheer for Lauren Myracle.