Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Banned Book Week Day 3: If you could go back in time, which book would you give your younger self?I'

In honor of Banned Books Week (September 26 through October 1, 2016), GHPALS members are reporting their answers to five prompts suggested by the Banned Book Week coalition.(See our post Banned Books Week.)

Today the prompt is If you could go back in time, which book would you give your younger self?

What an interesting bunch of answers we got.
  • I'll tell you a book I would never, ever give anyone. It's that dumb Dr. Seuss book that everyone gives graduates, Oh, the Places You'll Go! It's full of cliches and crappy advice that makes my eyes roll just thinking about it. Ugh!
  •  I'd give myself one of Richard Halliburton's books. Any one of them would do. He wandered around the world right after college and wrote  interesting and entertaining books about his experiences. I'll never forget his story of standing on top of the Matterhorn and fulfilling a lifelong dream–spitting a mile.
  • I'd give high school self Jack London's The Sea Wolf. It shows a character who given the right opportunity could have ruled the world. It taught me never to underestimate anyone, no matter the job they hold or their place in society. I also learned not to trust ferries.
  • The Murder of a Nation, by the US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau. It's an important book about the Armenian genocide by the Turks. The Society did a blog post about it a few years ago. 
  • Bill the Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison. "If your poor, don't go to Heliore." A life lesson learned in that phrase alone.
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and all the sequels. It wasn't written when I was a kid, but I would have loved it. Ditto Lemony Snickett's books, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
  • Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels After listening to another member talk about it, this book sounds awesome.
The Banned Books Coalition developed prompts to stimulate discussion during Banned Books Week. Tomorrow we'll post the answer to Which book would you go to jail defending?

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