Thanksgiving
It’s Thanksgiving in Canada. I’m thankful for the ability to read what I please.
Reading has always been big in our family, and something we’ve never taken for granted. Mom grew up in a household where reading was not just discouraged, but forbidden. Her stepfather was illiterate and banned reading in the house. In her early teens she had to leave home to be able to continue her schooling. So we were brought up to cherish reading and take advantage of every opportunity to do so. Perhaps this why I am so adamantly opposed to censorship today and thankful for the existence of organizations like Freedom to Read and the fact that I live in a society where ideas are free to flourish and evolve unimpeded (most of the time.)
As much as I have always been fueled by the fervent desire to read, we didn’t have the means to buy many books growing up, so I am eternally grateful for libraries. There was no public library in the very rural area where we lived, but the school library felt like a treasure trove and broadened my horizons immeasurably. In high school the library was my refuge from bullies and my passport to other worlds as I devoured the volumes at my disposal. Today I can afford to own books, and I do buy lots of them, but I still love borrowing books from the library, and especially browsing the stacks and discovering new authors and subjects that fire my imagination.
I’m especially grateful to have a supportive community of readers and booklovers who share my passion and fuel the fire.
Happy Thanksgiving!
One Thousand Novels - reading 1,000 great books in one lifetime 
Isn’t it shocking that people still try to have books banned? You wonder if these people are self-aware, and realize that what they’re doing is seen as on par as witch-burning: just as irrational, self-defeating and archaic.
Shocking and bewildering. Well put. Thanks for commenting.
I suppose that might be one of the upsides of e-books — because they are easily transmitted they could be difficult to ban. On the other hand it could become easier for censors if they can get support at a high enough level to be able to swoop in and alter or erase everyone’s digital copies of a book. Anyway, I’m planning on posting about e-books soon so I mustn’t get ahead of myself.