Favorite Banned Book

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Ochalla

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The excuses are usually pretty thinly veiled. "Explicit content" is what parents at PTA meetings say these days to keep books out of school libraries, but banning books is not a new exercise in censoring content.

So tell me Iwaku what's some of your favorite banned books, either from ages long past or newly controversial?
 
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Slaughterhouse-Five, Lord of the Flies, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird off the top of my head. Freakin' love 'em.
 
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The only book that I've ever read that was banned, or at least considered scandalous once upon a time was Lady Chatterley's Lover. By the time I actually read it though I was kind of wondering what the big fuss was about, but then I realized back in the 20's and 30's it was the equivalent of Fifty Shades of Grey. Kind of makes me wonder how many woman would have fainted back then if they'd ever gotten their hands on some of the erotica books they have out today.
 
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Hmmm...I don't think I read any book that was 'banned' in my area, or that I know of. I don't really keep up with that, but...

Slaughterhouse-Five, Lord of the Flies, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird off the top of my head. Freakin' love 'em.
Where the hell were these banned? o.o
 
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Hmmm...I don't think I read any book that was 'banned' in my area, or that I know of. I don't really keep up with that, but...


Where the hell were these banned? o.o

They were all banned at some point or other, primarily in the American South.


Slaughterhouse-Five:

"Residents of Drake, North Dakota challenged it in 1973 and it was banned in Rochester, Michigan because the novel “contains and makes references to religious matters” and thus fell under the establishment clause. An appellate court upheld its usage in the school in the case of Todd v. Rochester Community Schools."


The Lord of the Flies:

"... challenged in the Dallas, Texas, Independent School District’s high school libraries in 1974 and the Sully Buttes, South Dakota high school in 1981.
Also in 1981, it was challenged at the Owen, North Carolina high school because the book was “demoralizing, in that it implies that man is little more than an animal.”
It was considered “inappropriate reading” in a Marana, Arizona, high school in 1983 and a year later challenged in the Olney, Texas, Independent School District for “excessive violence and bad language”."


The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

"Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or anti-racist, and because the word "nigger" is frequently used in the novel, many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the word "nigger" is illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the "most grotesque example of racism I've ever seen in my life". According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most frequently challenged book in the United States during the 1990s."


To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms so often that, today, the American Library Association reports that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most challenged classics of all time and still ranks at number 21 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2009. Even as recently as 2011 and amid 326 other book challenges for that year, it ranks in the top ten more than 50 years after seeing print.

... the first major incident surrounding the book was in Hanover, Virginia, in 1966 when a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Several examples of letters to local newspapers- which ranged from amusement to fury- expressed mostly outrage over the depictions of rape. Upon learning that school administrators were holding hearings regarding the book’s appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of “the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.”"
 
They were all banned at some point or other, primarily in the American South.
Ah. Well, that answers the question.
 
The only ones that come to mind are deliciously ironic ban targets.

First there's 1984 by George Orwell, banned or subject of attempted bans in various places due to having supposedly subversive or ideologically corrupting content. The whole story is about a dystopian society where thinking the wrong things is literally a crime and anything potentially subversive is eradicated with great prejudice.

Then there's Fahrenheit 451, which is all about books being censored and banned and destroyed. Some places have censored them because of obscenity, and people have tried to get it banned more recently because a Bible is burned in it, there's some violence, and people didn't like the depictions of Christians and firemen.
 
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The only ones that come to mind are deliciously ironic ban targets.

First there's 1984 by George Orwell, banned or subject of attempted bans in various places due to having supposedly subversive or ideologically corrupting content. The whole story is about a dystopian society where thinking the wrong things is literally a crime and anything potentially subversive is eradicated with great prejudice.

Then there's Fahrenheit 451, which is all about books being censored and banned and destroyed. Some places have censored them because of obscenity, and people have tried to get it banned more recently because a Bible is burned in it, there's some violence, and people didn't like the depictions of Christians and firemen.
What gets me is that there's a lot of creepy stuff in 1984 that could justify banning it more than the whole ideological thing. I mean, I'm not saying I think it should be banned, but a book where the protagonist fantasies about raping and killing someone is asking to be censored.
 
Harry Potter.
 
Catch-22: one of the funniest books I've ever read. Banned for heavy use of language and several other things

Catcher in the Rye: I don't know why I liked it, I just did. Banned for a lot of things.

The moral: don't write a story with 'Catch' in the name, and use language in it.
 
Some girls tried to get the Satanic Bible banned from my high school when I brought it into our sociology course as curious reading material.

The teacher never laughed so hard until parents showed up at his house proclaiming him a "usurper of religious values inherently necessary to the well being of adolescents". Then he had us do reports on why religious extremism in any form is bad.

Those girls left the class and took ag instead.

Otherwise, most people listed them already. Animal farm, to kill a mockingbird, 1984, etc.
 
captain-underpants.jpg

No really.
 
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Can I just choose a frequently challenged author and leave my answer as Stephen King?
Although for the King books I have read so far, I would have to choose Salem's Lot. I believe that has been banned in some libraries.
 
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First there's 1984 by George Orwell, banned or subject of attempted bans in various places due to having supposedly subversive or ideologically corrupting content. The whole story is about a dystopian society where thinking the wrong things is literally a crime and anything potentially subversive is eradicated with great prejudice.
I find it amusing that a book about those in power trying to control what people think by censoring unwanted opinions and ideologies was banned.

...Seeing as how banning books is essentially the practice of people in positions of power trying to control what others think (or at least what they're exposed to) by censoring any unwanted themes or ideologies.
 
Uhhhhhh, Harry Potter's still banned in some Christian schools, innit?

I like Harry Potter :P
 
In the age of technology does something that exists truly banned or just hiding a click away? With the invention of the internet there isn't something that exists that's banned... it's simply diverted or hidden. We posses the knowledge to simply find it and take it for ours but technology wise it's not very interesting is it? You lose the feeling of the raw page flipping in your hands and replace it to that of dull clicks for each page, you lose the sense of smell for the page that we very often feel. It feels as it is simply lacking in that matter?

I can't remember much books but I do believe Game of Thrones itself was banned. Then again much things aren't enforced her bans or no bans so I can't be quick to judge.

-tips hat-
 
The Great Gatsby. It was probably my favorite book out of the ones the school curriculum made me read.
 

Heh I just had a flash back to grade school having to explain to a teacher for a mandatory monthly (maybe weekly) reading assignment and the teacher I was telling the book about just suddenly snapped saying that the boys were jerks and this was only encouraging poor behavior and while it did seem to get children to read she didn't want to see it in the basket from me again. I put all the Captain Underpants books I owned in that basket.
 
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