Thursday, September 29, 2011

ALA | Banned Books Week

ALA | Banned Books Week

Hello friends. It has been a long time. I have no excuse, other than I really have not been on my computer much over the last several months. My iphone has proven quite helpful in that area. But, enough of that. I came across this article today, and I wanted to share it.

Did you know that it is Banned Books Week? Yes, yes it is.

I was curious to see - what books have made the list? Have I read any of them? Would I consider them controversial? Unfortunately, it was difficult to find an all-inclusive list of all books that have been challenged or banned. But I did come across a list of "classic" banned books. Books that many of us have read and/or were required to read in school. You may notice that some of the numbers skip. Originally this was a list of Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels. If a number/book is missing, it hasn't been challenged or banned. So, to fill you with random knowledge, below is the 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 - read in 12th grade
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee - read in 9th grade

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 - read in 9th(?) grade
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 - read in 9th grade
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 - read last year
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair - read as a sophomore in college

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