Saturday, September 24, 2011

Banned Books Week! September 24−October 1, 2011 Read One Today!

It's National Banned Books Week so I'm urging y'all to head your bookshelves, local library, or bookseller and read a banned book.

I'm gonna re-read Catcher in the Rye just for fun.  My ex teases me about it because he says I'm too shy about using the F-bomb but I love Salinger's book and thinks that's weird. Oh well.  I've never claimed to be anything but unpredictable. Besides, telling me that a book is banned is like waving a red flag in front of a bull -- I simply have to read it!  And I find some of the entries downright astounding.  It takes a really sick mind to find Wuthering Heights or Macbeth worthy of banning -- just my take. If anyone has such a mind, stop reading now and go find another blog to read.

So, do y'all want to join me in reading a banned book? Here's a list of banned and challenged books -- some of which will amaze or amuse you. Wuthering Heights? Puh-lease!!!! Have fun!

  • 1984 - George Orwell
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) - Mark Twain
  • Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
  • Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
  • Andersonville (1955) - MacKinlay Kantor
  • Animal Farm - George Orwell
  • Arabian Nights
  • As I Lay Dying (1932) - William Faulkner
  • Awakening - Kate Chopin
  • Beloved - Toni Morrison
  • Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
  • Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo A. Anaya
  • Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
  • Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
  • Call of the Wild - Jack London
  • Can Such Things Be? - Ambrose Bierce
  • Candide - Voltaire
  • Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
  • Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
  • Catcher in the Rye (1951) - J. D. Salinger
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
  • Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
  • Color Purple - Alice Walker
  • Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
  • Decameron - Boccaccio
  • Dubliners - James Joyce
  • Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
  • Fanny Hill - John Cleland
  • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
  • Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
  • Grapes of Wrath (1939) - John Steinbeck
  • Hamlet - William Shakespeare
  • Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
  • House of Spirits - Isabel Allende
  • Howl - Allen Ginsberg
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
  • Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
  • Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
  • King Lear - William Shakespeare
  • Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
  • Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
  • Lolita (1955) - Vladimir Nabokov
  • Lord of the Flies - William Golding
  • Lysistrata - Aristophanes
  • Macbeth - William Shakespeare
  • Madame Bovary
  • Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
  • Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
  • Monk - Matthew Lewis
  • Native Son - Richard Wright
  • Nigger of the Narcissus - Joseph Conrad
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
  • Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
  • Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
  • Passage to India
  • Portnoy's Complaint (1969) - Philip Roth
  • Rights of Man - Thomas Paine
  • Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
  • Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Separate Peace - John Knowles
  • Silas Marner - George Eliot
  • Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
  • Sons & Lovers - D.H. Lawrence
  • To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
  • Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
  • Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
  • Ulysses - James Joyce
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
  • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte


Happy Blogging!!!!!

Kay

15 comments:

  1. I've read only 17 of those. I'm like you, I'll have to read others just to see what the fuss is about.

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  2. Black Beauty? A Wrinkle in Time? Oh my goodness! You gotta be kidding me. That's incredible! I loved those books as a kid. Sheesh!

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  3. I remember I had to read James Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist" (curiously, not on your list) when I was in high school. I hated it. It was difficult to read. I complained to my dad at the time, and a smile crossed his face. "I remember reading that book when I was in high school," he told me, "except I wasn't allowed to read it. I had to hide it from my teachers and my parents because it was banned at school. But ... I loved that book."

    I think the main reason he liked it was b/c he wasn't supposed to read it. Such is the power of banning a book. Maybe if we banned MORE books, then kids would be inspired to read more. Hmmm, probably not.

    Btw, much later I reread "Portrait of an Artist" and liked it better. By then I was 50, and a little more "mature."

    Don't think I'm quite ready for "Ulysses" yet (maybe when I'm 100). But I have been meaning to go back and reread "To Kill a Mockingbird." Thanks for inspiring me to do that.

    Btw, what a great list of books. Could be the basis for an interesting college course (maybe it already is.)

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  4. Some of my favorite books! But here's my excuse to dive into Ambrose Bierce, the originator of snark. I'm on it!

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  5. Wally: Good for you!!!! I was an English/Spanish major and have read about half of them (guessing here). I hope to have read all of them by the time I die.

    Kay: Astounding, isn't it and I must be an awful mom because I ready "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" to the Dynamic Duo!! They loved it.

    Sightings: I think "Portrait" is on the list -- I just put the short list here. I doubt I'll ever read "Ulysses" -- I've started it several time. And yeah, it would be a great course and I would love to teach it!!!!

    Nance: Same here!!! I keep a copy of The Devil's Dictionary on my desk!! Bierce was the Bill Maher of his day!!!

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  6. Amazing to me that books are banned or were banned.I have read a number of the books on the list and some of those i didnt finish because to me they were boring.

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  7. Anonymous2:18 PM

    Great minds think alike! This is blog post subject as well.

    Read and enjoy, but post a youtube video reading it if you can!
    http://www.youtube.com/bannedbooksweek

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  8. Andersonville!!?? I've read or attempted to read (Ulysses for one) 32 of the books on this list.

    Does getting your book banned serve as an indication that you have just written a classic or are classics so well written they can not help but becoming a red flag to people with small minds?

    Hmmm, I say both.

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  9. I've read many of those books, and have heard of all of them except "Monk". I'll be getting on that soon.

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  10. Thank you for this reading list. I have read some and attempted others. I will bookmark this page and work my way down the list!

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  11. Unreal--I've read many of those more than once!!! And will re-read them again!

    John

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  12. Would you believe that I've read 55 of those books? Do I get a prize?

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  13. Kay -- I guess I am guilty -- cuff me if you can catch me. I have read MANY of the banned books on your list. for some reason I did not understand who put this ridiculous list together. -- barbara

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  14. Looks like my summer reading list! I have read many of these books, and it's hard to see why some of them would be banned. Of course books have the power to change people's way of thinking...

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  15. I think I am going to have to read one of those and see what the fuss is all about.

    Which one is the shortest?

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