Book Notes — 25 Books Some Folks Want Banned

When I was growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana’s attorney general made a really big deal about banning Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.  The owner of a downtown scholastic bookstore was arrested and prosecuted for selling it “under the counter.” I also remember seeing paperbacks with a banner across the top proudly proclaiming that  particular book was “banned in Boston.”  I often wished one of my books would be banned.  It’s not only a badge of honor but likely to increase sales. It’s not so much fun for librarians who have to deal with irate citizens who think they have the right to control what other people read.  Every year the American Library Association (ALA) sponsors “Banned Book Week,” reminding the public that librarians across the country must still deal with serious attempts at censorship.

Books like Fifty Shades of Gray are expected to stir up some dust. It stirred up so much, in fact, that it sold like i-Phones and spawned sequels and clones. For reasons less obvious such books such as J. K. Rowlings’ Henry Potter series, (books that inspired more children to read than any Dick and Jane book ever written), scare parents because they allow children to think for themselves.  Below is a list from the ALA of some of the 20^th Century classics medieval library-goers want removed from library shelves. What they’ve actually created is a valuable set of important books to add to our bucket lists.

Crime fiction, the usual subject for this blog, has for the most part, slid under blue-nose radar. However, Thrilling Detective web site editor Kevin Burton Smith notes that Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man as well as James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice were honored with a “banned in Boston” distinction. These four books, of course, are considered by many crime fiction lovers to be among the very best of the genre.

The ALA Most Challenged Book List

 The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Ulysses, by James Joyce

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

1984, by George Orwell

Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Native Son, by Richard Wright

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

Banned Book Week begins today (September 21).  Libraries and bookstores are highlighting the event.  For a list of independent bookstores, click here.  For a list of mystery bookstores, please click here.

Opinion — Banned Book Week Gets Appropriate Send-off From Arizona

Banned In Arizona

Texas and Florida seem to be in a run-off for the title of the Dumbest State in the Union. Florida enhanced its reputation a couple of days ago by giving a prisoner a ‘stay of execution‘ so the state’s attorney general could legally skip the event to attend a fundraiser.  And every year, Texas revisionists try to shove Creationism into our nation’s science textbooks while also editing our history books to diminish the impact of slavery and minimize the unjust treatment of Native Americans. Meanwhile Arizona has been making noise, asking for a little attention in field of brazen stupidity.

Last week, as the American library Associations’ Annual Banned Book Week approaches, an Arizona school district banned National Book Award finalist Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban. Portions of the highly praised novel were deemed too sexually explicit for juniors in High school. I repeat: Juniors.  Arizona has a history of trying to keep books by Latino authors out of schools and off shelves.

Now is a good time to visit your local, independent bookstore and or library to investigate those books some folks don’t want you to see.

American Library Association’s

Banned Book Week

September 22- 28

Book Notes — Banned in Guantanamo Bay, Texas Jails And In A Library Near You

Each year the American Library Association hosts “Banned Book Week,” when they call upon the public to remember the U.S. has a history of trying to determine what we should be allowed to read. I remember as a kid turning the wire bookrack in Simpson’s Pharmacy, seeing those excitingly vulgar paperbacks with hot type banners: Banned in Boston.  If the books were arty, the word, “unabridged” might convey a certain sauciness therein.  Very desirable that was.  I remember the owner of Aristotle’s Bookstore in Indianapolis being arrested for selling Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer under the counter. Aristotle’s was an academic bookstore not particularly known for its appeal to the prurient. Yet the state of Indiana deemed the book obscene and banned it. This was in the early ‘60s.  I was in my teens and the only encouragement I’d need to read the book was to be told I couldn’t.

As a side note, Indiana is a funny state.  There was a big kerfuffle about the musical Hair coming to town. It was nearly banned.  Hair contains nudity. On the other hand it was the hottest ticket in the country.  There was a fight among the citizenry between those who wanted the city to be culturally savvy — cool  — and those who wanted to hold the line against savage appetites stealing the souls of our young.  A number of concerned citizens just wanted the play and its message of love to go away.  Producers were caught.  If they went ahead, the play might be raided.  Threats were made. The troupe couldn’t find a venue because of it.  Eventually they worked it out.  A strange compromise.  The logic was this:  Nude statues were legal.  In fact there were concrete and marble penises here and there in fountains, for example — all around the city.  And breasts.  Same thing.  Right? So, cast members would spend a moment in compete darkness, during which they would remove their clothing. They would remain PERFECTLY still when the lights were on, still like statues, the show could go on. It did.

Back to books attacked for political reasons.  Indiana doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.  It seems determined to uphold the rights of the uptights at the expense of the rest of the population.  The state and another Republican governor made news again in its desire for mind control. Recently — that is 2013 — Indiana Governor and potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels, who had no academic credentials, tried to get books by historian Howard Zinn thrown out of state university curriculums. Zinn’s sin was that he didn’t always portray the U.S. in a positive light. It’s true. It’s doubtful he could have portrayed Daniels in a positive light either.  After terming out of office and needing a legit job, Daniels was appointed head of Purdue University by the school’s board of trustees — the same trustees he appointed while governor.  Mr. Zinn, had he not died a couple of years earlier, would have found that bit of business historically interesting.

In another bit of irony, this time on the world stage, the people who run Guantanamo Bay have banned Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.  In apparent homage to Mother Russia who originally banned his books, an uncharged Gitmo detainee was not allowed to accept a copy.  They are allowed books — just not this one.  Perhaps authorities didn’t want the detainee to make that Gulag connection. Next time, try Kafka.

In Texas, contrary to federal law, the state’s department in charge of criminal justice maintains a database of 12,000 banned books, many of them by the usual suspects “Slick Willie” Shakespeare, Big George Orwell and Norman (Tough Guys Don’t Dance) Mailer.  Usually the only books banned in prisons are ones that explain how to make a bomb out of oatmeal or how to carve an AK15 out of a case of DOVE soap. But this is Texas.

This year, we will “celebrate” Banned Books Week from September 22 to September 28.  Libraries and bookstores around the country will have special sections devoted to books that have been banned throughout the years.  Among the many authors with that distinction are Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Kurt Vonnegut, William Golding, Richard Wright, Aldous Huxley, J.D. Salinger and Ken Kesey.

And here are a few of the 50 or so books, The American Library Association said were banned or challenged just last year:

Alexie Sherman, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Georges Remi Hergé, Tintin in the Congo

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Stephen King, Different Seasons

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Chuck Palaniuk, Fight Club

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Check out and support your local library and go here for a list of independent bookstores throughout the U.S.