Banned Books Week usually catches me by surprise. One reason: it’s not listed on my calendar. The other: I’m surprised we still ban books, especially when we as a country hold free speech so dear. As the President said to the UN today (full speech):
Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with.
I always supposed that protected-but-disagreed-with idea held for books and other art too.
But this year I’m ahead of the game! The American Library Association trumpets Sept 30-Oct 6, 2012 to be Banned Books Week on their website bannedbooksweek.org. There are events, user-created videos and, of course, lists of banned books.
The reason I’m ahead of the game this year is that I found this video by Bookmans, an independent bookstore, thanks to Twitter:
I feel that reading Harry Potter again would be cheating, so I’m going to check the lists for new-to-me books to read in between stanzas of Troilus and Criseyde.
What are you reading for Banned Books Week? You still have a few days to pick something up!
I have bookmarked this; some I have read, some not. Thanks for letting us know about this great initiative!
After reading a banned book I’m often left wondering why it was banned. I hope you were able to find some good books for your reading list!
I tried the ALA link but couldn’t find a page where all the books are in a list. Do you have a direct link to a text-based list of the banned books? I want to read (at least) one next week!
I suppose I should have included a direct link. It’s actually not as easy to find it on the website as you’d think.
Their about section had a list here:
http://bannedbooksweek.org/about
And the main American Library Association site has a list of classics here:
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/reasonsbanned
Thanks. Sorry to hear the list was hard to find, but kind of glad it wasn’t just me and my computer nincompoop ways. Off to choose a banned book to read now…
You’d think that a site dedicated to the reading of banned books would make it easier to find them. Oh well.
Can’t wait to hear your pick.