BANNED BOOK WEEK EVENT: A PASSIONATE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE FREADOM TO READ, w/ host DEB SLATER of KVOS

At Village Books, we’re passionate about the Freadom to Read, whatever, whenever we and our customers choose.  So, to mark National Banned Book Week (9/25-10/2) and celebrate the Freadom to Read, we invite YOU to join host Deb Slater (of KVOS' Experience Northwest) for a conversation about banned books, censorship, and the love of books.  Come prepared to share your views and wax poetic about YOUR favorite books that have been banned, challenged, or censored. 

Below are LOADS of banned, burned, and challenged works to get you started…If you’re like us, you’ll see many familiar literary friends on these lists.  We noted that many of these have been official book group selections over the years . . . just as we thought, Bellinghamsters love their Freadom to Read!  Come celebrate with us and tell us all about it!

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), The Color Purple (Alice Walker), Ulysses (James Joyce), Beloved (Toni Morrison), The Lord of the Flies (William Golding), 1984 (George Orwell), Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck), Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), Brave New World (Aldous Huxley), Animal Farm (George Orwell), The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway), A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway), Their Eyes were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston), Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison), Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell), Native Son (Richard Wright), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey), Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut), For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway), The Call of the Wild (Jack London), Go Tell it on the Mountain (James Baldwin), All the King's Men (Robert Penn Warren), The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien), The Jungle (Upton Sinclair), Lady Chatterley's Lover (DH Lawrence), A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess), The Awakening (Kate Chopin), In Cold Blood (Truman Capote), Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie), Sophie's Choice (William Styron), Sons and Lovers (DH Lawrence), Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut), A Separate Peace (John Knowles), Naked Lunch, (William S. Burroughs) Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh), Women in Love (DH Lawrence), The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer), Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller), An American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser), Rabbit, Run (John Updike) [source: the American Library Association]

Paula (Isabel Allende), How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Julia Alvarez), Go Ask Alice (Anonymous), The Inferno (Dante Alighieri), Bless Me Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou), Forever (Judy Blume), Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (David Carter), Dance on My Grave (Aidan Chambers), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky), Ricochet River (Robin Cody), Lords of Discipline (Pat Conroy), The Chocolate War (Robert Cormier), Stuck Rubber Baby (Howard Cruse), Stotan! (Chris Crutcher), Krik? Krak! (Edwidge Dandicat), My Brother Has AIDS (Deborah Davis), Lost Prophet: The Life of Bayard Rustin (John D’emilio), Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel), Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson), It's Perfectly Normal (Robie Harris); Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver), The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver), All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy), Choke (Chuck Palanuik), Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson), Captain Underpants (Dave Pilky); Freaky Friday (Mary Rodgers), Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (Luis J. Rodriguez), Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling), Push! (Sapphire), American [The Book] (Jon Stewart). Sophie’s Choice (William Styron), The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan), Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (Mildred D. Taylor), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), My Two Uncles (Judith Vigna), This Boy’s Life (Tobias Wolff)
[This second list was compiled by American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression from media resources as well as reports from those affected by the challenges.]