banned book week

"But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me." Mark Twain

The American Library Association has declared the week of September 24-October 1 Banned Book Week. Chances are, if there is a book you particularly enjoy, it has been banned. One could argue that a book not on a list of challenged books is hardly worth the trouble of reading.

Seventeen of top 20 books on The Modern Library's list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century are banned books. 33 of the top 50. The reasons why are here.

Banned Book List
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell

11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren

40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron

64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles

73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence

80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer

84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller

88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

Stamp out prejudice, READ!

Toad

Celebrate Banned Books Week

The last week of September is traditionally Banned Books Week in the United States.

It doesn't take much to become a banned book. Merely, the word of an uninformed bigot and the tacit support of a silent administrator can bring public censure to a work of art.

Most of my favorite authors are banned somewhere in the US. Most of Twain, a bit of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dahl, Capote, Alice Walker, and Webster's Dictionary. You could posit that a book not on the list is not worth the trouble of reading.

For further info check out Google's Banned Book link

Stamp out prejudice, Read.

Toad

Banned Book Week

Half Priced Books

"But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me." Mark Twain

America delights in euphanism.  Out of politeness we refer to anyone who attempts to judge what's best for others a "censor" when in fact they are bigots.   It is our duty as thinking human beings to eradicate bigotry in all its forms.  To accept is to condone.

This week begins the American Library Association's Banned Book Week.  All of your favorite movels have been banned, somewhere, sometime, by someone.  By shining the light of truth on the oppressors of knowledge, the ALA attempts to make citizens aware of the many attacks on our liberty.  Support their good work.

Toad