From the American Library Association:
Censorship can be subtle, almost imperceptible, as well as blatant and overt, but, nonetheless, harmful. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty:
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
— On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Banned Books Week began back in 1982. It is always designated as the last week in September. It is the only national celebration of the freedom to read what we want. More than a thousand challenges from every state have come in since 1982.
The following list is the top 100 banned or challenged classics:
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
10. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
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
21. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
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
31. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
38. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler’s List, by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia, by Willa Cather
52. Howards End, by E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz, by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
62. Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
68. Light in August, by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise, by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians, by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles
94. Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread, by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
It seems that we still want to ban books, either by burning or simply removing them from access to other people. It isn’t good enough, if someone doesn’t like the content of a book, to simply not read it. Some people are compelled to make sure no one else has access to the reading material. They want to eradicate it from society.
Several weeks ago, a pastor attempted a very public book burning of the Koran. Even the President of the United States intervened to prevent this event from taking place. At the last minute Pastor Jones called a halt to his plans. however, other copy cats picked up the baton and took over where he left off.
The most famous book burning in modern times took place on May 3, 1933 when thousands of books were burned under the new Nazi regime, in an attempt to purge Germany of all that was un-German.
Book banning should start and stop in the home. It is the parents’ responsibility to determine suitable literature for their children, not someone else’s. Adults should decide for themselves what they read, with very few exceptions. Content involving child pornography should not be published or distributed, but we all agree on that.
How many of the books listed have you read? More than a few of my favorite books are on that main list. Should any of those books be banned? How far do we want censorship to go?
Visit the site to learn more about books that have been banned or challenged. They are sorted by year, decade, author etc.
“The Great Gatsby,” one of the best and most richly symbolic books in American literature, is #1? And I can only think of one scene in “The Grapes of Wrath” that might have been objectionable (at the very end), but it was purely allegorical. My life would not have been the same if I had never read most of the listed books.
Most of those books are pretty tame – except for some anti-establishment thought.
I’m surprised at the number of Faulkner’s books on the list. Sanctuary is the book of his that I’d expect to see, but it isn’t there.
This is making me want to re-read a whole bunch of books.
I never liked Catcher in the Rye. It just didn’t take. Is it just me?
What on earth is wrong with Rebecca
When I was in high school, my friends and I took a road trip out of town to buy a copy of Catcher in the Rye just as we’d done to purchase “Louie, Louie”. We just had to have them because they were taboo. A friend’s mother said she thought Cathcher was banned for its use of the “f”word – which made us hunt for it all the more. I guess I wasn’t into Caulfield’s angst and didn’t find it that interesting.
I think most of the books were banned for teenagers because parents still had hopes that they (the kiddos) would be able to live sheltered “Mayberry” lives. Life was cruel and the youngsters didn’t need to be exposed to reality any sooner than they had to be.
Oh, what an awesome list! What memories of the times I read so many of those. I must be a total perv because I’ve read 62 of them.
I am totally with Emma on this one…some of these books truly did change my life. After I read The Awakening, it never left me and I ended up leaving my first husband and I have to say, that was by far the best decision I have EVER made in my life. I can’t say I walked out the door the next day, but it haunted me and I knew I had to make a major life change.
Agree with Moonhowler too…definitely time to re-read some of these. All my books are in storage until we move. Cannot wait to have a real room to put all my books in. I used to hang out at McKay’s for hours and leave with a pile of books and I never have traded in any of them. Now my job is sucking the life out of me…I don’t think I’ve read a novel in months and that was only because I had a long flight so I got one in.
That’s kind of a strange list. When I first perused those titles, it nearly knocked my socks off figuratively. Winnie the Pooh? Charlotte’s Web? Kim? My Antonia? O Pioneer? The Wind in the Willows? Main Street? But when I linked back to the ALA site, I found the following disclaimer: “The titles not in bold may have been banned or challenged, but we haven’t received any reports on them. If you have information about the banning or challenging of these titles, please contact the Office for Intellectual Freedom.” So, then, just how did these titles make the list?
@Wolverine, That was odd. Did you see the other lists? I had no idea there was such a week. Thanks Cindy for letting me know.
Its a great list, banned, challenged or otherwise. Check the other lists out at the website.
Faulkner should have been banned–for boringness.
His words don’t just flow….I’ll grant you that.
@Rez It makes me sad when people say that about Faulker. The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece that just requires a little patience and effort, but it’s so worth it! You must hate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then, Rez.
And Emma, your favorite is?
Emma, I meant no disrespect. There are many people who love Faulkner. Faulkner is so hard for me to get through that I can’t say I have finished many of his books and I tried.
I can’t say that I have ever read anything by Marquez. I did a google on him and saw that it said he put things in magical terms or something like that. Is he just as involved as Faulkner?
I am always trying to expand my horizons so if you have any recommendations for a start to Marquez I would appreciate it to see if I like it or not. I seem to have more time on my hands lately so I could use a good recommendation.
By the way, although I liked the movies of Lord of the Rings, I could never get into Tolkien as reading material. Maybe I just have an aversion to thick books. 🙂
@Moon-howler Jane Austen, of course. And I’ve been on an F. Scott Fitzgerald kick–got a bunch of short stories on my Kindle now. Wish I had more time to read–don’t want to end up like the guy in the “Twilight Zone” episode who only wanted to be left alone with all of his books–so he gets his wish when the world comes to an end and it’s just him and his books, only he accidentally crushes his eyeglasses.
@Emma– do you have an e-reader?
I might treat myself to something tonight.
@rez, I think Faukner is hard to read also. For me, its those long sentences. I have trouble with visual tracking. that is one thing I love about kindle though…I can play around with font size.
“All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren — the best. Of course, I could go as well for “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad. No explanation needed on that one.
@Wolverine–All the King’s Men was our entrance novel we had to read before freshman registration at college. I need to reread it. I barely remember it…just the Huey Long likeness.
“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. One of the best little books I’ve ever read by an African author. You need to read books like this if you ever want to really gain some understanding of the anglophone West African culture.
Wolverine, how about a couple paragraph summary of “Things Fall Apart?”
Chinua Achebe is an ethnic Ibo, the mostly Christianized people who are the majority in southeastern Nigeria. These are the people who tried to secede from the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the 1960’s and were defeated in what was called the Biafran War. Their main complaint , as I recall, was that they were shut out of their proper share of power and benefits at the federal level. I traveled to Enugu, their regional capital,and other parts of that region before the civil war and knew many Ibos after the war. They have always been a very dignified and proud people who have had my admiration. They suffered greatly from the consequences of the civil war.
Achebe wrote his book in 1958, just before Nigeria became independent from Great Britain. I believe he was raised near the city of Onitsha. His book is sort of an anthropological study of Ibo culture without being a pedantic anthropological study. It gives the reader a serious and entertaining look at some of the most intimate details of traditional Ibo life by taking you right into it at a very personal level. Even better, the author takes you back to a period in which colonialism had just started to make its presence felt in Nigeria, so you get a look at the “real” culture without too much imposition of European values. The book was a major event, eventually being translated into many languages and selling millions of copies worldwide. Achebe is a well-traveled and very erudite man and has become one of the most noteworthy of African writers. I believe he now lives up in New York and not too long ago won the Gish Award for literary accomplishment.
One of Achebe’s goals in writing this sort of book was to try to overcome the then prevailing Western view that Africans before colonialism did not have organized and noteworthy cultures. His principal target was one of my other favorite books, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. Achebe was adamant that Conrad was portraying Africa as a place where the indigenous peoples had no noteworthy culture of their own or any very organized system of governance before the arrival of the White Man. His personal campaign hit America right about the time that the Kennedy administration had created a great interest in newly independent African countries. In my own opinion, Achebe and his work played a very large role in shifting American academic opinion away from the Conrad model and toward a realization that Africans had an important and ancient history of their own before the colonial era. Although I always thought that Achebe might have been a bit harsh on Conrad, who wrote his book in 1902 as a product of his time and about a place in Africa (the Belgian Congo) which was pretty primitive in comparison to the great pre-colonial histories of West Africa and other parts of Africa such as Ethiopia. Nevertheless, Achebe is one of those authors who placed an indelible stamp on Western attitudes toward African history and culture before the arrival of Europeans.
Thanks Wolverine. Very interesting. I read Heart of Darkness many years ago. It was assigned reading.