good - Katrina

jB

I picked up this book in our school library and originally thought it too outdated to read. However, I quickly became fascinated. Published in 1978, this book gives a glimpse into a writer's life that is still apt today. I found myself marking a dozen passages to share with my students. Reading an excerpt such as the following, it could have easily been written yesterday instead of 40 years ago:

"Oftentimes it is not one climactic episode that inspires the writing of a book, but rather bits and pieces picked up here and there, such as newspaper accounts of racists tying a black man to a truck and dragging him to his death; of the beating of a gay college student in Wyoming; or the Neo-Nazis celebrating Hitler's birthday. Predictions of terrible things to come in the year 2000, and the dangers of allowing immigrants into our country, or allowing any type of gun-control—all these fears. How do these hatreds and fears begin?" ( )