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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Do You Read Banned Books?

Ok, folks.  Time for me to be a librarian. 

Here we are, right smack in the middle of Banned Books Week.

 Reprinted by permission of the American Library Association
Naturally, as a librarian, this is something that is near and dear to my heart.  So in the spirit of Banned Books Week, I decided to take a look at the ALA's list of banned and challenged classics to see how many I'd read.  The list consists of the 46 of Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century that have been banned or challenged.

I'm a bit disappointed to report that I've only read 15:

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
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
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
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
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

The numbers on this list skip because they correspond to their number on the Radcliffe's list, just in case that threw you off. ;-)

I'm still trying to figure out how I made it through nearly 30 years without reading some of the books on this list, yet have managed to read all the D.H. Lawrence novels up there.  Guess I'd better get reading!!!

How many of these classics have you read?

6 comments:

  1. I'm even worse... only 9! Had I realized this earlier, I would have grabbed one of these books from the library instead of buying magazines for the flight to Orlando tonight!

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  2. I've read twelve, but can't remember what all of them were about! Many of them were required reading in high school, which is why I read them.

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  3. I've only read 15 too. I need to add these to my goodreads list pronto. Oh and have you never read 1984?!?! You need to get on that.

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    1. I know!! I think that was the one I was most surprised to realize I'd never read. I'm re-reading Tender Is the Night right now, but I think 1984 might be next on the list. :-)

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  4. Ooo I got seventeen, but my Hemingway phase and Vonnegut love helped me out there. The Awakening is one of my favorite reads in high school. Not sure why, it's a little depressing, but I do love a rebellious female.

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  5. I'm so disappointed that I've only read 8 of these!! Must get to work. :) I just read The Color Purple and although I started off thinking I wouldn't enjoy it, I was really surprised!

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