 Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) reads a sexually explicit passage from Maia Kobabe's memoir, "Gender Queer," during a Senate hearing entitled "Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature" on Tuesday in Washington. (Screenshot from U.S. Senate; book cover courtesy of Oni Press) | As we say in Washington, the hearing's not over till a senator describes strapping on a dildo. That, anyhow, was the bizarre conclusion to this week's Congressional hearing on book banning. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) began with an appropriately serious introduction that placed our era's censorial craze in historical context. He noted that Southern states once banned "Uncle Tom's Cabin." And after Congress passed the Comstock Act in 1873, "hundreds of Americans were convicted for distributing books about topics such as atheism and reproductive health." Today, titles about race and LGBTQ+ people are on the pyre. Ever the master debater, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) countered with a poster claiming there's been a 347 percent increase in illegal border crossings under President Biden. Twenty minutes later, when the committee got back to its actual topic, the conversation continued to cross all kinds of boundaries. | The world's #1 bestselling author presents three brand new heart-racing tales of suspense, including the latest Women's Murder Club thriller, "23 ½ Lies."
| |  | | | | Testifying for the pro-book side, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said, "Our libraries have become the Thunderdomes of controversy and strife across our nation, the likes of which we've never seen before. These radical attacks on our libraries have divided our communities, and our librarians have been harassed, threatened and intimidated for simply doing their jobs." He went on to describe libraries getting bomb threats and being closed down in record numbers. Pish-posh, conservatives responded. All this hysteria about censorship is just another left-wing hoax to make Americans feel bad — like climate change or Black history. Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said, "To put it bluntly, books aren't being banned." The only things being repressed, according to Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, are the voices of loving moms and dads who want teachers to stop forcing their children to read about "violence, war crimes, rape, incest and more." Anyone who dares to object, she said, is "crucified." "Merely suggesting that kids who believe in Santa not have unfettered access to graphic sexual novels is tantamount to murder," Neily said. "Such public flagellation is intended to not only extract a pound of flesh from the perpetrator, but to send a message to any parent with similar reservations." (Crucifixion, Santa and an allusion to Shylock — it's a triple-crown dog whistle!) Bringing his usual insight and judiciousness, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested that Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, wants "to sexualize children, to provide minors with sexually explicit material and then hide this content from the parents. . . . That's what someone would do if they were grooming your child." Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) noted that worrying about being shot in school is probably more harmful to a young person than being exposed to certain kinds of books. But no one had any appetite to pursue that. In fact, soon, nobody had any appetite at all. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wrapped up the proceedings by reading a passage from Maia Kobabe's memoir, "Gender Queer," about strap-ons and oral sex. Then he sparred with Cameron Samuels, a queer student who'd testified earlier about being harassed in school. (Sen. Kennedy's sexually graphic story time left out the best parts.) With that, the hearing came to a thoroughly fruitless conclusion. As I've said before, defenders of literary liberty need to get much more savvy at countering sexually explicit public readings. It's a crude stunt that fanatics have been using effectively in school board meetings because it immediately obliterates sterile arguments about freedom of expression or historical accuracy. Again and again, I see liberals looking embarrassed and flummoxed when some right-wing crank works himself into an orgasm of indignation by reading aloud "the dirty parts." Samuels, the student from Texas, was on to something when they told Kennedy, "Senator, your definition of 'sexual' is synonymous with LGBTQ identity." But of course, under Kennedy's hectoring, that defense was given no room to develop. We need to make room. P.S. Young people interested in learning how to fight book bans: - PEN America is offering a free, online training program for high school and college students. In the eight-week course, they'll learn about the history of freedom of expression and how to defend it. Applications are due today!
- Fandom Forward, formerly called the Harry Potter Alliance, offers the Book Defenders' Toolkit with advice on how to collect and donate banned books, advocate for literary liberty and resist censorship.
Varoom! Varoom! "Radical Wolfe," a documentary about the late great Tom Wolfe, debuts today. The film is based on a Vanity Fair article by Michael Lewis, who appears along with Gay Talese, Lynn Nesbit, Christopher Buckley, Niall Ferguson, Alexandra Wolfe, yours truly and others. Jon Hamm, an old colleague of mine from the John Burroughs School, reads passages by Wolfe. (It's possible that no other review will mention the Charles-Hamm connection.) Directed by Richard Dewey, the documentary does a terrific job of conveying the inexhaustible energy of Wolfe and his prose. (How Wolfe saved American fiction.) "Such a polite person, such a well-mannered person," Talese recalls, "with a pen in his hand could be a terrorist." (Wolfe's years as a Washington Post reporter.) Indeed, this unabashed celebration still finds room to consider the firebombing aspect of Wolfe's work, especially his brutally funny (or unfairly cruel) portrait of a fundraising party thrown by Leonard Bernstein for the Black Panthers. (Jamal Joseph is not a fan.) In his defense, Wolfe says, "The truth is always revolutionary." It's all here: the origin myth of the 50-page "masterpiece" about custom cars that he typed up over nine hours for Esquire; his embalming of the New Yorker in "Tiny Mummies"; his transformative portrayal of test pilots in "The Right Stuff"; and, of course, the white suit that served as his "suit of armor." (His daughter, Alexandra, recalls realizing that he wasn't like other dads: "He wore a cape!") The section on Wolfe's pivot to fiction with "The Bonfire of the Vanities" offers a dramatic reminder of what a cultural event that massive bestseller was in 1987. His catfight with Updike, Mailer and Irving — "My Three Stooges" — took place in a distant era when literary debates drew blood instead of tweets. "Radical Tom" is frank, as it must be, about the diminishing quality of his later work, particularly the cringe-inducing "I Am Charlotte Simmons," which won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award but nothing else. (And if there's a mention here of his final, terrible novel, "Back to Blood," I missed it.) What remains, though, is the man's fearless, revelatory attention to how we live and his absolutely hypnotic way of describing it. And the photographs! paintings! illustrations! cartoons! of Wolfe that fly across this documentary like confetti shot from a cannon!!!!! Has any other author ever inspired so many adoring, hilarious, eye-catching portraits as this man in full?  (handouts) A guide to publishing's busiest season, including Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried, a new novel from Jesmyn Ward and Barbra Streisand's memoir. By Washington Post Staff ● Read more » | | | Books to screens and stage - "Wilderness," starring Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, debuts today on Prime Video. The series is based on B.E. Jones's thriller about the perfect road trip planned by a woman who knows her new husband cheated on her. Turns out there's nothing scarier in the Grand Canyon than the green-eyed monster. News about the series has been eclipsed by excitement over the soundtrack, which includes Taylor Swift's hypnotic single "Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor's Version)" (listen).
- "Dumb Money," starring Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Sebastian Stan and Pete Davidson, debuts today in theaters (trailer). The movie is adapted from Ben Mezrich's nonfiction book "The Antisocial Network" about the crazy trading of GameStop stock.
- "Gutenberg! The Musical!" has been performed in one form or another since 2005 — or, possibly, since 1450 — but tonight it finally previews on Broadway with Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, the original co-stars of "The Book of Mormon" (tickets). The goofy story is ostensibly about a pair of authors trying madly to sell their musical about Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press in Europe in the mid-15th century. But no one will miss that "Gutenberg!" is really a parody of Broadway musicals.
 (Phaidon) | Drake, the wildly popular rapper, recently announced that his next album, "For All the Dogs," will be released on Sept. 22. That sensational news has reignited interest in the companion poetry book that Drake and songwriter Kenza Samir published in June called "Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness." (Drake joins the pop-star poetry struggle.) Good luck getting a copy of that collection now. "Titles Ruin Everything" is not available from bookstores. The publisher, Phaidon, ran out of stock two months ago. Even the rapper's own retail site, DrakeRelated, has no copies on hand. Sure, the "Air Drake" cashmere blanket is still available for $4,100, but I wanted the poetry book now. After all, Phaidon promises that these "provocative musings" translate Drake's "wit and talent for wordplay into potent stanzas." I won't tell you how much I paid to get a used copy from eBay, but The Post's accounting department has me washing dishes in the cafeteria through New Year's. (I'm just kidding. We don't have a cafeteria.) Now that I've read "Titles Ruin Everything," I don't think a title could have further ruined anything. As one of these "potent stanzas" puts it: "You're nothing / to write home about." The little softcover book is full of facing pages containing snippets of "provocative musings" like "Some days I got it all figured out / but most days I never learn." Imagine your brother-in-law seeing a Jenny Holzer exhibit and saying, "I could do that." Voilà: "If jumping to conclusions was an Olympic sport / you wouldn't have just won my heart, you would have won gold." Some of these "poems" seem self-evidently untrue, such as "I'm a terrible texter, but a great writer." Swinging between self-pity and self-righteousness — but never far from cliché — the speaker taunts and pleads with his partner. "Everest is probably easier to get over than you. . . . Having trouble figuring out if you're a devil missing a horn or a unicorn." My favorite poem here is one that asks, "Why me?" I know I should just ignore this vanity project, but with huge advertisements in newspapers across the country, "Titles Ruin Everything" may be the most widely promoted poetry book of the 21st century. "I don't know if I have ever wanted people to buy or support something more in my life," Drake told his 142 million Instagram followers. There's something intolerably cynical about such commercial manipulation. Still, to be fair, "Titles Ruin Everything" is not completely worthless. There are 30 blank pages that can be used as scratch paper.  C-SPAN, in partnership with the Library of Congress, launches a new series next week exploring 10 books that shaped America. | "Books that Shaped America" will begin airing on Sept. 18. The series, a collaboration between C-SPAN and the Library of Congress, explores American history through 10 books that have "provoked thought, have been best sellers, have led to significant public policy changes, and are still talked about today" (trailer). The title of this series may sound familiar. In 2012, the Library of Congress opened an exhibit called "88 Books That Shaped America." Drawn from literary experts and a public survey, it was, inevitably, a controversial list. Somehow, Ben Franklin snagged three of those 88 spots. But the omissions were possibly even more striking than the inclusions. The curators insisted these were not the "best" books, merely influential ones. Sure. America had some thoughts. The list was expanded to 100. The new series should provoke similar engagement, and audience participation will reportedly be included in each episode. It's a curious list of 10 obvious and not-so-obvious selections: - "Common Sense," by Thomas Paine (1776).
- "The Federalist," by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (1788).
- "History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814).
- "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," by Frederick Douglass (1845).
- "The Common Law," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1881).
- "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain (1884).
- "My Ántonia," by Willa Cather (1918).
- "Their Eyes Were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston (1937).
- "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement," by Milton and Rose Friedman (1980).
- "The Words of César Chávez," by César Chávez (2002).
 (Courtesy of the Whiting Foundation) | Literary awards and honors - The Library of Congress named three winners of this year's Literacy Awards, sponsored by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein: The News Literacy Project in Washington won $150,000 to help teachers, students and the general public become more astute readers of the news. Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit won $50,000 to support its innovative student program that combines academics and athletics. And Worldreader in San Francisco won $50,000 to help provide mobile reading technology to millions of children around the world.
- Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove has been named winner of the 2023 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A statement from the National Book Foundation, which confers this annual honor, said, "Dove's poetry has served as a guiding light for readers and writers alike, and has made an indelible impact on our literary and cultural heritage." Dove is the author of 11 collections, including "Thomas and Beulah," which won a Pulitzer Prize. In 2000, she began writing the "Poet's Choice" column for The Washington Post (Robert Haas's introduction). Dove will receive the lifetime achievement medal and $10,000 at the National Book Awards ceremony in New York on Nov. 15.
- Sandra Cisneros, best known for her 1984 novel, "The House on Mango Street," has won the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The prize, conferred by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, honors "a writer whose body of work fosters peace and global understanding."
- The Whiting Foundation named seven winners of its Literary Magazine Prizes. Every three years, the judges honor "magazines that publish extraordinary writing, support talented writers on the page and in the world, connect with readers, and advance the literary community." I love the way these awards support journals I subscribe to and alert me to new ones I should. Here are this year's winners: Guernica, Los Angeles Review of Books, Mizna, n+1, Orion, Oxford American and the Paris Review.
 Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot and Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver in "A Haunting in Venice." (20th Century Studios) | "I expect you're wondering why I've gathered you all here." Today is Agatha Christie's 133rd birthday. We'll be celebrating in the Library with the Candlestick: - "A Haunting in Venice," Kenneth Branagh's third outing as the mustache of Hercule Poirot, is playing in theaters (trailer). The film is loosely based on "Hallowe'en Party," a late Christie novel (1969) that finds a 13-year-old girl drowned in an apple-bobbing tub, which cemented my early terror of that unsanitary festivity. The movie has modified such ghoulishness — in deference, no doubt, to the apple cartel or the bobbing lobby. But Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday says the new adaptation still has a "a melancholy and often genuinely scary sense of doom" (review).
- A graphic novel version of "Murder on the Orient Express," adapted and illustrated by Bob Al-Greene, has just been published. This full-color presentation — with lots of clever visual perspectives — could bring a new audience to the classic mystery.
- Take a stab at entertaining with "Recipes for Murder," by Karen Pierce. Her deadly cookbook offers "66 dishes that celebrate the mysteries of Agatha Christie." Even if you never poison a guest, Pierce's murder menu is a delightful reminder of the role that food plays in Christie's work. You could try Devon boiled potatoes from "And Then There Were None" or stuffed vegetable marrows from "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." As Pierce notes, "Poirot, with his sensitive but particular stomach, pursues gastronomic pleasure, regardless of the body count." So can you!
- Next month, Laurence King will release a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle called "The World of Hercule Poirot." Illustrated with dastardly ingenuity by Ilya Milstein, the puzzle is full of "clues, crimes and culprits."
- Here's a mystery for our little grey cells: How can Agatha Christie keep writing? On Oct. 24, Sophie Hannah will publish "Hercule Poirot's Silent Night," her fifth "continuation novel" authorized by the Christie estate.
 (Apples & Honey Press) | Shana tovah to readers celebrating Rosh Hashanah. Looking ahead, I've got my eye on "Big Bad Wolf's Yom Kippur," written by David Sherrin and illustrated by Martín Morón. Once upon a time, Big Bad Wolf is getting ready for a busy day of badness when there's a knock on the door. "Perhaps," he thinks, "it was a grandmother. He could cross one thing off his list while having her for breakfast." But no, it's just Raccoon, dropping by to apologize for rummaging through his garbage. Why not come along to the synagogue for Yom Kippur, Raccoon asks? "At the synagogue everyone was surprised to see Wolf," Sherrin writes, "and a bit nervous." Wolf gets so caught up in the song that he almost howls along. "Then he remembered . . . a Big Bad Wolf doesn't sing." Later that day, he runs into Little Red Riding Hood and then three little pigs, but he's no longer the Big Bad Wolf he once was. Kids will get a kick out of seeing these traditional fairy tales veer off on surprising new paths. With fun illustrations of a hairy but not too scary hero, this sweet picture book encourages little ones (and wolves) to apologize when they mess up, follow the urge to be better and accept forgiveness from others. Every child needs to hear, "My, what a big heart you have!"  (Persea) | Amy Newman is upfront about the inevitably limited scope of her sixth collection: "An Incomplete Encyclopedia of Happiness and Unhappiness." But readers will find plenty in these humane and gently witty poems about nature, aging and spirituality. Newman opens with particularly wise advice: "First, let us admit our imperfections. / And let us be forgiven our imperfections." She's one of a small group of fine poets who approach profound theological questions through precise, sometimes mirthful attention to everyday life. Making Small Talk, the Cashier at the Grocery Store Inadvertently Creates a Religion Passing the pears over the scanner, she says
These are beautiful. Look at the markings!
And: I don't know the story of where they're from.
But I believe they are just right.
And passing the figs:
So complex, what's on the inside.
Everything worthwhile has a kind of mystery.
I don't bother with it more than that.
The chévre in its paper, rolled
and taped, she handles with care.
I'll put that on top. With delicate things
its best to be careful. What is it?
she asks. When I tell her goat cheese,
she smiles. Everything, she says,
that partakes of the grasses
will taste of the grasses. Everything
that partakes of the earth...
and in all this rain we've been having...
passing the berries across,
waving the delicate wafers by the scanning eye.
I just let the day unfold, she says
waving the bottle of wine across,
and try to dress accordingly. From "An Incomplete Encyclopedia of Happiness and Unhappiness: Poems." Copyright © by 2023 Amy Newman. Published by Persea. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.  Ron Charles as Tigger from A.A. Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner" and Dawn Charles as a camel rider from Téa Obreht's "Inland." (Photo by Kindly Witch in attendance) | Where's Waldo? Last night, several errant Waldos were gettin' down at the Library of Congress for the annual Literary Costume Ball. More than 2,000 characters — all much younger and cooler than us — partied in the grand hall of the Jefferson Building, shaking their booties, tails, swords and capes to the blaring rhythms of Taio Cruz. Classic literature ruled the sartorial choices: Lewis Caroll's Alice and the White Rabbit were running off in all directions. Witches — variously scary, sexy and not trying anymore — suggested a strong Harry Potter influence. We also spotted a couple of Medusas, a few Circes from Madeline Miller's popular novel, a Cat in the Hat, a Sherlock Holmes, many princesses I couldn't place and Miles Standish from Longfellow's poem. Even more than usual at the Library of Congress, the books were ALIVE! Meanwhile, send any questions to ron.charles@washpost.com. You can read last week's issue of the newsletter here. Tell friends who might enjoy this free newsletter that they can get it every week by clicking here. And remember, you can find all our books coverage, updated every day, here.
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