Banned Books and Brilliant Beginnings

Last week the Coeur d’Alene Public Library and several other public venues across the country celebrated Banned Books Week (September 24 – October 1) by conducting a Banned Books Readout with library volunteers and community leaders reading from challenged books.

The American Library Association (ALA) records the attempts by individuals and groups to have books removed from libraries shelves and classrooms and maintains a list of the most frequently challenged and banned books across the United States. They also provide information and links for people to research why particular books were banned.

One list I found on their site was a list of banned and challenged classics. The ALA points out that, of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century compiled by the Radcliffe Publishing Course at the request of the Modern Library editorial board in 1998, at least 46 of the books on the list have been the targets of ban attempts. Following is that list:

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Ulysses, by James Joyce
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
1984, by George Orwell
Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, by Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

Wow! I found some of my favorites on this list. How about you?

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Have a great weekend! Also, check out our Events page for happenings in the North Idaho area this weekend and the coming week.

BRILLIANT BEGINNINGS 

Don’t forget the BRILLIANT BEGINNINGS deadline is  

October 15!

$30 cash prize to First Place Winner.

No cost to enter.

Go to BRILLIANT BEGINNINGS for details.