list of books banned in America

[bobshaw235]

I cut and pasted this list of books banned in America from google,there are some strange ideas about which books should be banned dont ya think,

 

The thirty most-often banned books in America, as listed by Playboy

magazine in January. Books are listed in order of frequency of

censorship, with the most-banned first, the least-banned last.

 

The Dirty Thirty

 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Go Ask Alice (author unknown)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Forever by Judy Blume

Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women's Health Collective

My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown

Slaughterhouse-five or, The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Ann Frank

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Deliverance by James Dickey

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich by Alice Childress

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

It's OK if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

[sadako]

Of mice and men???? that was part of my English Lit curriculum at GCSE

[Mary]

Wait those are not banned anymore but they were when they first came out. Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird are required reading in high school students today.

 

Yes, we did have a more puritanical society but not anymore. Not sure where you found this list Bob.

[Mary]

After looking more closely I would say none of these books are banned anymore - NONE.

[Jerry]

With a cursory glance I'm sure I've read more than half of that list. I think the point was not if they are currently banned, but had been found dangerous to the status quo when they were published and therefore certain forces sought to censor and prevent their reading.

 

By the way, over the JFK Library at California State University at Los Angeles there are these words: Let this library be open to all except the censor.

[bobshaw235]

Mary, went back into site ,you are correct in that the list was formed in 1984,which is a fair while ago but not generations ago,anyway here is the site I stumbled across in my search for knowledge and not a nude lady in sight He He He.

http://www.radix.net/~bobg/books/banned.1.html

 

[ 25.05.2006, 23:53: Message edited by: bobshaw235 ]

[Mary]

Ok but that was in 1994 and there are specific high schools that had banned them. I like the saying Jerry told us about the Kennedy Library - ban the censors I say - long live freedom of speech even if it is offensive!

[Jerry]

But Mary - I think the subtle point of the list is that NONE of these should be offensive - they are not loaded with scatolgy or sexual encounters. Possibly the Huckleberry Finn was because the hero (Finn) helps a runaway slave, which was considered bad form in the lower states. I just recently reread Lord of the Flies and yes, there are one or two bad words, but none that would teach any reader any new bad words. I can't think of anything wrong in BLACK LIKE ME except that a white writer, disguised, saw for himself how our Confederate cousins have not surrendered the Civil War yet. I think the whole idea of this particular list is "How can anyone suggest this book is offensive and not fit for our children to read?" I remember Holden Caulfied used words that all 15 year old boys use. Not learning anything bad there either.

[Jerry]

Oddly enough, when I turned off the Internet and drove over to pick up my grandson, AM 1150 Radio was discussing banned books. One fellow called in to say he had just read the banned version of Upton Sinclair's THE JUNGLE. I wonder which version I've read. As you know it was a journalist's investigation of the Chicago stockyards where cattle and pigs go to be 'rendered'. Evidently some publishers thought the imagery was too much for some tender hearted people to read about. The version I read was pretty stomach turning, though. Wouldn't want to read any worse account of the goings on.

 

And after I turned the last page in Leon Uris' EXODUS I threw up and was laid out for 36 hours in bed. I think I didn't want to live anymore. Books can be powerful.

[willywonka]

The Jungle left a big impression on me, and it wasn't just because of the polemics: I've never eaten corned beef since reading it.

 

The edition I have is a Corgi circa '85 (edit - it might be a Bantam though).

 

I loved the cover illustration so much that I tracked down a print (this in the days before the internet) and I can look at right now.

 

Hey, you can too:

 

Ironworker's Noontime

 

Mine does need re-framing though.

 

[ 01.06.2006, 23:58: Message edited by: willywonka ]