Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
So many banned books are favorites of mine because they don’t just skim the surface of things, but dig deep, ask questions, and make me curious enough to go looking for other books on the subject. They arouse emotions and inspire me. They are courageous and take on hard topics. Many of them have beautiful, memorable language and unforgettable images.
The characters in the books below have stuck with me and these books are the ones most often spoken about when people speak of books that meant a lot to them. They are a common language and often alluded to in other books.
Wiki has the list of the most commonly challenged books in the United States:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
My favorites from the wiki list:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Nineteen Eighty-four (1984) by George Orwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
From other lists:
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Another list of books A-I
http://www.banned-books.com/...
J-Z
http://www.banned-books.com/...
Shakespeare? Of course, Shakespeare.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/...
The Savannah Morning News reported in November 1999 that a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear. The teacher's school board had pulled the books from class reading lists, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence. Many students and parents protested the school's board's policy, which also included the outright banning of three other books. Shakespeare is no stranger to censorship: the Associated Press reported in March 1996 that Merrimack, NH schools had pulled Shakespeare's Twelfth Night from the curriculum after the school board passed a "prohibition of alternative lifestyle instruction" act. (Twelfth Night includes a number of romantic entanglements including a young woman who disguises herself as a boy.) Readers from Merrimack informed me in 1999 that school board members who had passed the act had been voted out, after the uproar resulting from the act's passage, and that the play is now used again in Merrimack classrooms. The Library at Occidental College has an online exhibit on the censorship of Shakespeare through history.
More lists:
http://www.ala.org/...
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
The cynic in me suggests that if there is a book you loved once because it challenged your mind, it is on some banned list somewhere. I have only listed a few so now it is your turn to mention the ones you love.
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Write On! Going in-scene.
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http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 97: Antonin Dvorak, Harry Burleigh, and American Pentatonic Music
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http://www.dailykos.com/...
You Can't Read That!
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http://www.dailykos.com/...
Sara and Ann have helped so many Dkos members with quilts!
Pootie Pad Party: Helping Ann
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http://www.dailykos.com/...
Historical Fiction: The Song of Roland
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AIDS Walk Austin - it would be Magnificent to get matched donations
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NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early