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Beware of the Book: Seven Banned Classics

neatorama.com — Of the Radcliffe Publishing list of the top 100 books of the past century, almost half have been challenged by schools, many are banned in whole countries. Here’s a few banned titles that just may surprise you..

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  • Sublex, on 02/16/2009, -0/+81Banning a book only made me want to read it more.
  • SOS84, on 02/18/2009, -2/+47A book worth banning is a book worth reading.
  • ibeetle, on 02/18/2009, -1/+35In 1977 at the Robert E. Lee High School in Baton Rouge, La. I brought a copy of the Catcher in the Rye to school. It was confiscated and I was told if I did that again I would be suspended. A few days later I wore a t-shirt with a copy of the cover of the book silk screened on the front of the shirt.

    My parents were called and told to either come get me or to bring me a new shirt from home.

    They refused. I was suspended. We sued. They lost.

    To this day every year for Christmas I find a book that was challenged or banned and donate a copy to my local library (not in Louisiana) and to that old Alma mater, and Until his death 5 years ago I used to send a copy to the principle who brought the suspension.

    There is a reason why the First Amendment is first.
  • idc5, on 02/17/2009, -0/+27I remembered my teachers in high school saying, "This book is banned, but we're still going to read it" quite a few times.
  • KingGorilla, on 02/18/2009, -0/+21oh ho ho teacher! You're not gonna trick me into reading this time!
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  • FI5HERMAN, on 02/18/2009, -3/+22Banning a book in fact makes it more popular.....look at drugs !!!
  • alamedaman, on 02/18/2009, -1/+18PHONIES EVERYWHERE- Holden
  • RSS14, on 02/18/2009, -3/+20My Triumphs, My Mistakes - by Gaius Baltar

    /Battlestar Galactica
  • sexybobo, on 02/18/2009, -0/+12none of the books on the list are banned in America. In fact you can buy them all on amazon. World wide though those 2 books are currently the most banned.
  • jmnormand, on 02/18/2009, -0/+10when it comes to violence, abuse and opression nothing beats the bible. good stories though if your not one of the wack jobs who believes it all hapend word for word...
  • Falldog, on 02/18/2009, -0/+9No book should be banned, regardless of how people interpret it.
  • Shadowmute, on 02/18/2009, -2/+11Catcher in the Rye:
    "In 1960, a teacher was fired from her job for requiring her eleventh grade class to read the book. Between 1961 and 1962, it was the most censored book in high schools and colleges. This novel has been banned in schools throughout America for being anti-white, blasphemous, profane, racist and overtly sexual. How anything can be racist and anti-white, I don’t know."
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -0/+9Consider the psychology of those who wish to ban books - they genuinely fear inanimate objects and, of course, the fear the liberty of others to both write and read whatever they wish. They suffer a profound mental retardation or even illness, i.e., they are unable to overcome their own misunderstandings and fears regarding a great many things. A human being who is maladaptive - considering the fact human beings are notable as a species for their adaptive talents - is a human being who needs professional help.

    The only reason to fear ideas is one's own intellectual inability to counter so-called bad ideas with better ones.
  • PhillyOC, on 02/18/2009, -3/+12The Koran should top the list.

    The Bible directly under it.
  • thelonelysouls, on 02/18/2009, -0/+9Digg needs a book section.
  • drex8, on 02/17/2009, -0/+8Dang, I haven't finished reading all of them.
    The author ruined it for me by divulging most of the plots.
    And add Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer on that list.
  • violaxcore, on 02/18/2009, -0/+8only a phony would say something like that
  • carbonetc, on 02/18/2009, -0/+8Honorable mention for most ironic book banning, maybe.

    Though I guess Fahrenheit 451 would be most deserving of that title.
  • 0mniscient, on 02/18/2009, -0/+8***** censorship.
  • Trent1492, on 02/18/2009, -0/+8Is it not nice to engage in fact free accusations?

  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -1/+9Five of the seven banned books make the top 100 . . .

    Editors' list
    # ↓ Year ↓ Title ↓ Author ↓
    1. 1922 Ulysses James Joyce
    2. 1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
    3. 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
    4. 1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
    5. 1932 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
    6. 1929 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
    7. 1961 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
    8. 1940 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
    9. 1913 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
    10. 1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
    11. 1947 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry
    12. 1903 The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler
    13. 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
    14. 1934 I, Claudius Robert Graves
    15. 1927 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
    16. 1925 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
    17. 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
    18. 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
    19. 1952 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
    20. 1940 Native Son Richard Wright
    21. 1959 Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow
    22. 1934 Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
    23. 1938 U.S.A. (trilogy) John Dos Passos
    24. 1919 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
    25. 1924 A Passage to India E. M. Forster
    26. 1902 The Wings of the Dove Henry James
    27. 1903 The Ambassadors Henry James
    28. 1934 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
    29. 1935 Studs Lonigan (trilogy) James T. Farrell
    30. 1915 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
    31. 1945 Animal Farm George Orwell
    32. 1904 The Golden Bowl Henry James
    33. 1900 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
    34. 1934 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
    35. 1930 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
    36. 1946 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
    37. 1927 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder
    38. 1910 Howards End E. M. Forster
    39. 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
    40. 1948 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
    41. 1954 Lord of the Flies William Golding
    42. 1970 Deliverance James Dickey
    43. 1951-
    1975 A Dance to the Music of Time (series) Anthony Powell
    44. 1928 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley
    45. 1926 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
    46. 1907 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad
    47. 1904 Nostromo Joseph Conrad
    48. 1915 The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
    49. 1920 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence
    50. 1934 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller
    51. 1948 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer
    52. 1969 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth
    53. 1962 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov
    54. 1932 Light in August William Faulkner
    55. 1957 On the Road Jack Kerouac
    56. 1930 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
    57. 1924-
    1928 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford
    58. 1920 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
    59. 1911 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm
    60. 1961 The Moviegoer Walker Percy
    61. 1927 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather
    62. 1951 From Here to Eternity James Jones
    63. 1957 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever
    64. 1951 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
    65. 1962 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
    66. 1915 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham
    67. 1902 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
    68. 1920 Main Street Sinclair Lewis
    69. 1905 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
    70. 1957-
    1960 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell
    71. 1929 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes
    72. 1961 A House for Mr Biswas V. S. Naipaul
    73. 1939 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West
    74. 1929 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
    75. 1938 Scoop Evelyn Waugh
    76. 1962 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
    77. 1939 Finnegans Wake James Joyce
    78. 1901 Kim Rudyard Kipling
    79. 1908 A Room with a View E. M. Forster
    80. 1945 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
    81. 1953 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow
    82. 1971 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner
    83. 1979 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
    84. 1938 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen
    85. 1900 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad
    86. 1975 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow
    87. 1908 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett
    88. 1903 The Call of the Wild Jack London
    89. 1945 Loving Henry Green
    90. 1980 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
    91. 1932 Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell
    92. 1983 Ironweed William Kennedy
    93. 1965 The Magus John Fowles
    94. 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
    95. 1954 Under the Net Iris Murdoch
    96. 1979 Sophie's Choice William Styron
    97. 1949 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
    98. 1934 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain
    99. 1955 The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy
    100. 1918 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library_100_Be ...
  • ibeetle, on 02/18/2009, -0/+7Every first week in September American Libraries Association brings awareness to this problem with Banned Book week.

    www.ala.org/bbooks/

    For more information.
  • bandoni, on 02/18/2009, -0/+7Won't somebody please protect me from real life!!!
  • chaiwalla, on 02/18/2009, -0/+7I am surprised that Mark Twain's novels are not here. They are often banned for "racist language" though Twain was clearly not a racist. He insisted on using dialogue that was true to his locale.
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -0/+7No, you cannot download those books for free, but you can certainly buy them and if you can buy them, they certainly aren't banned.

    (It takes 75 years for works to pass into the public domain.)
  • HalsMyPal, on 02/18/2009, -0/+7its because whites are phonies
    so are blacks they are phonies too
    ...... we all just a bunch of phonies! Hey phony!

    man i love that book!
  • haikuFU, on 02/18/2009, -0/+6If I ever become a teacher, banned books will be required reading.
  • gl77, on 02/18/2009, -0/+6i read that once when i was in junior high, then i loaned it to my friend...i think....but he doesnt remember borrowing it from me and it has been lost for years. Just got a call today from a man from the library named "Bookman" if you can believe that. he left a pretty gruff message on my voicemail telling me that i must meet him ASAP at the downtown library....
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -3/+8You want to see a list?

    Just wait until the Fairness Doctrine passes.
  • centran, on 02/18/2009, -0/+5That's funny... I read over half of those and as school assignments.

    I also went to private schools in the chicagoland area... so.
  • groo68, on 02/18/2009, -0/+5You're fine now aren't you? doesn't that mean that a 13 year old should be fine reading it?
  • wigglypig, on 02/18/2009, -1/+6Government does prefer to maintain the status quo by banning a wide variety of very interesting and thought provoking book titles. "Thought provoking" being the primary clue as to why they bother to do this in the first place.

    Think for yourself. Don't let any Government, ideology, or other movement do it for you.
  • brsteve88, on 02/18/2009, -0/+5I'll probably get dug down for this, but "A Farewell to Arms" sucks. The characters all speak with such similarity that they really aren't characters at all. I know many will disagree with me because it's Hemingway, but for all the praise he gets for always knowing the perfect word, he sure couldn't write convincing characters.
  • perogi21, on 02/18/2009, -2/+7Really, principle?

    They must have gone over that word during your suspension...
  • fantasyflamz, on 02/18/2009, -0/+5In my experience, people either love or hate this book. I mean, everyone in my high school read it and it wasn't banned, but I still didn't like it. I wasn't a big fan of the story and didn't find it to have a very engaging storyline or relateable characters (and I've red lots and lots of books in my day, so it's not like I hate reading). However, I don't really see the need for this book to be banned.
  • PutSCIENCEfirst, on 02/18/2009, -1/+5I had to search the web to see if that last line was original. Very impressive. I just recorded it along with my favorite quotes.
    Dugg for brilliance!
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4Sheesh, and here I thought people always appreciated the stuff inline.
  • dmanmax99, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4We had to read half of those book in High School.
  • brycehebert, on 05/03/2009, -0/+4@brsteve88 Yeah, same with Brave New World - published 77 years ago in 1932.

    EDIT: Ahh, just read up on this. It's actually 95 years from the first publication date.
    http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/
  • Diggnabbit, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4No, it's not. A Farewell to Arms is better.
  • csrster, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4I still think there's a slight difference between "banned" as in "government made publication of this book illegal" and "banned" as in "some local school board decided not to include it on a compulsory reading list". Hell, my school didn't put Lady Chatterley's Lover on our reading list either, but I've never felt repressed by it.
  • vault, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4I think a 13-year-old is old enough for Catcher in the Rye. It is pretty tame by today's standards.
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4Yeah, it's a sick topic, but to read Nabokov's writing is something you'll never forget. He is an absolute genius (and English wasn't even his first language.)

    From wiki:

    Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as amongst his most important novels, and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works. The novel was ranked at #4 in the list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library.

    Number 4, man. That's no joke. The writing is that good.
  • lollapaloooza, on 02/18/2009, -0/+4I was surprised there was no 1984. However, good list nonetheless.
  • PhoenixTx, on 02/18/2009, -0/+3Exactly!
  • MonkeyFit, on 02/18/2009, -0/+3"How anything can be racist and anti-white, I don’t know. "

    I think they need to look up the definition of racism again.
  • LukeBeaumont, on 02/18/2009, -0/+3Isn't that a Seinfeld plot?
  • inactive, on 02/18/2009, -0/+3don't presume; he could very well be addicted to drugs. several, perhaps.
  • crysiss, on 02/18/2009, -0/+3That's a good way to pique your interest.
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