William Noble

Edit: forgot to add bookdarted passages... see below.

Thorough but superficial... but of course it's a huge subject, and each chapter could be a book itself. A bit dated, but still relevant.

Explores history as well as more contemporary efforts. Explores self-censorship, censorship, bowdlerizing, banning, restricting, and burning. Explores different reasons for challenging books for different audiences. Uses lots of words from challengers as well as from defenders, respecting (for example) show more those conservative parents who are truly concerned about the requirement to read *As I Lay Dying* and (for another example) refugees from the Dust Bowl who did not appreciate the way 'Okies' were depicted in *The Grapes of Wrath.*

One thing I wish it had explored more was the problem that those of us who defend banned books still do discourage children being taught views that we disagree with. It seems to me, even though I'm a queer feminist atheist, that sometimes the pendulum swings a bit too far, and, for example, no mention is made in a high school history text of the Christian beliefs that drove a significant of the settlers of the American West, though plenty of mention is made of other beliefs. (The chapter "The Newest Bookbanners" came close, but wasn't about exactly what I'm curious about.)

And I wish more people in general would distinguish between banned books and books either restricted for age-appropriateness or just not pushed on students. I mean, could not *As I Lay Dying* be one of the list of side reads for the class, instead of a mandatory text? And it's certainly not a book that's going to be in the Elementary school library.

Complex issues. This book a fascinating and very readable introduction/ summary of many of them.

Gene Lanier says "A book is easier to burn than to explain."

"The essence of the dispute between the bookbanner and the civil libertarian" is that of emotion vs. reason. "The more determined the civil libertarian is to be rational, the more the opposite reaction will take place in the bookbanner." At the root, many here say, is fear. Understand that both sides know the power of words, but seek to understand the bookbanner's underlying motives.

(I'm not convinced it's always fear, nor that it's always illogical emotion at all... and I am sure that civil libertarians are emotional, often even fearful, at heart, too.... More complex than that quote admits, but still an interesting and potentially useful framework for the debate.)

[a:Louisa May Alcott|1315|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200326665p2/1315.jpg] on [b:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|2956|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|Mark Twain|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405973850s/2956.jpg|1835605]: "If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them." show less

There is some useful material in this book, but it takes a lot of digging around to find it. I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. It seems to be 70% analysis of literature with examples, combined with a general theme of how many different ways show and tell can appear in fiction. The focus seems to wander around. A more concise and specific book would have been better for me, but maybe I'm not the target market.

If you are a writer, this is a book worth having. It is clear, concise, and it helps that there’s a large amount of humor throughout the text. I’ve read a few books on the writing/editing process recently, and this one is by far the best of the lot. I got the book from my local Library, so I’ve gone to the extreme measure of typing out the Table of Contents to refer back to until I am find a copy in a used bookstore. As it was published in 1992, I doubt that I’ll find it in any show more ‘big box’ store. I could relate to the examples the author gave, and am ever so grateful that they were short – unlike another book I reviewed recently, where an illustration went on for 12 pages and lost its relevance to the point the author was trying to make. Mr. Noble didn’t do that. He provided everything in clear prose, and did it all in 116 pages. What more could one ask for? show less

A very bad book offering the most appalling advice to budding writers. One gets the impression that the author has summarized every cliche about writing ever uttered without really knowing how to write a halfway decent book. One will not learn how to be a good writer from reading this book. Most of the pitfalls that it warms of are the very things that give writing color and make it interesting.