What did you read for Banned Books Week?
Tomorrow is the last day of this year’s Banned Books Week, a week where the American Library Association encourages you to celebrate your intellectual liberties by reading any of the the top most challenged or banned books.
There have been a lot of questions about books on Fluther the past few days, so I thought, given the timing, it would be appropriate to ask what scandalous, naughty, controversial, or banned-in-some-locales books you have read lately?
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Oh, man! I didn’t even know!
Well, I guess now’s a good a time as any to knock out “Fanny Hill”. I’ve been wanting to read that anyway. Thank you, Project Gutenberg!
I would have totally done that had I known about it. I can’t believe I missed it
Yeah, I didn’t realize it until just now… so I thought I’d ask a question about it!
@Seek_Kolinahr, I had never heard of Fanny Hill until I consulted the wiki… it sounds hot, I’ll have to check it out!
It’s not on the list, but the Malleus Maleficarum is banned a lot. You know, when one person every 50 years requests that a library get a copy… I’ve been trying to get through that damn book for years now.
Y’know, for $2500 they could throw in free shipping.
Ok I read that as ‘Banned Boobs’ week and anyway…
@papayalily, that sounds awesome. I just love old-school raunch. The Malleus Maleficarum is really interesting. I had the pleasure of writing a short research paper on it a year or two ago.
@Seek_Kolinahr, I was thinking the same thing… Did you see those illustrations?! Bowchickawowow!
@Simone_De_Beauvoir, they can have them when they pry them from my cold, dead hands….
I’ve already read
The Dead Zone – Stephen King
Little Black Sambo – Helen Bannerman
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
I have no idea how they made the list….
I’m shocked that they haven’t been kicked off eBay. I can’t even sell my Virgin Killer album, even if I put a fig leaf on the cover!
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I love old-school smut, too. I find The Good Old Naughty Days much better for my pre-bedtime activities than almost anything else. I want to change my Fluther avatar to that graffiti of Hepshepsut getting nailed doggy-style by Senenmut, but I thought it would violate guidelines…
I wrote a paper on The Burning Times years ago, but I’ve never read the Malleus Mallaficarum cover to cover, instead of summaries and whatnot.
@papayalily, there’s definitely cock and vag and raunchy fucking in that picture. It’s pretty graphic, even if it is a Victorian engraving.
@papayalily No, it’s because the Virgin Killer album cover is a naked 10 year old girl. eBay wants nothing to do with that album in particular. Something about child porn being illegal or something. ^_^
I havn’t read any of the books mentioned in your links but I have ordered several books about Ron Pearson’s “Big Breed Theory” about the orgin of the Universe (challenging the Big Bang Theory) and several books about actual secular scientists/engineers that are currently researching spiritual phenomenom as an actual part of quantum physics, not the “supernatural”. I have ordered several unorthodox minority viewpoint scientific books on a few topics, some that even include some mathematical formulas to back them up.
The people who wrote these books have been critised very harshly by their peers. I guess when you take the middle road between materialistic orthodox science and organized religion (the two most common camps on philosophies) you will not make too many friends or allies. I’m not getting into the intelligent evolution i-ther theory here but they make a good read on several unorthodox views. Can you imagine talking about a creating force that actually created itself? LOL.
I never heard of “Banned Books Week”. How ironic I ordered several of these books that just came in this past week.
Ahhh, I missed it! I used to work in an small, independent bookstore, back when there still were such things. :- ( We always did a nice display in the window for Banned Books Week. I miss that. It was fun. I guess I haven’t really been paying attention; there are a lot of books on there, on the list, that I’ve never heard of but it’s good to see that a lot of the classics have stood the test of time. :-) And will have to admit that I haven’t savored a good, banned book in a while. I’ll have to correct that.
@Jabe73, that counts too. Hell, any book that has ever been controversial for any reason falls under my parameters, even if it’s not on the ALA list. Hell, the fucking Bible and Koran count (though I’m pretty sure they are on one of the lists). threw in some cuss words for Simone
@lillycoyote, my local indie bookstore does the same thing. It is fun. There are some seriously good books on these lists, as well as some that make me go “wut?”
@Simone_De_Beauvoir, you should hear me actually speak them in my buttery smooth, gentle, country-boy accent.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Oh these books beat the Bible, Quran along with any God Delusion book by Richard Dawkins or End of Faith by Sam Harris. These books I am talking about are in a category all by themselves, hated by both the religious and majority secular community.
@Jabe73, in that case I’m totally going to check them out.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir, hmmm, I like the way you put that and also where this is going!
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard “Wut”? Don’t be naive, young man, James and the Giant Peach is a dangerous and dangerously subversive book that, should we allow America’s children to read it, will lead to the destruction of all that is good and decent and holy in our great republic! We can’t allow it!
I read Cat’s Cradle once a year, whether I need to or not, I just love the book. Really? A Wrinkle In Time? Really?
@Blueroses, there are elements within society who believe with all of their little hearts that children’s literature should be invariably cheerful, light, and composed of clearly-defined moral characters who always quickly punish the evil ones. A Wrinkle In Time doesn’t quite fit that description.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard As long as they don’t ever disobey their parents or use anything that even remotely resembles magic or communism in the process of punishing evil ones.
or use anything that even remotely resembles magic or communism in the process of punishing evil ones.
I lol’d.
I want to burn book and art banners. I swear, if there were one point in time I could return to and change it would be the Bonfire of the Vanities
@Blueroses, hmm, I’ve never heard of that until now. Thanks!
@Blueroses, I hate the DaVinci Code, but I’ll check out the book you posted. Thanks a lot!
@MacBean Damn. I’ve only not read 4 of those. If they’re as good as the rest, they go on my reading list right now!
@MacBean, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is fantastic!
I’m surprised at how many of those books I’ve already read! :D
The list made me feel old. Many of the titles I have already read, some more than once, and some for the first time before I really understood what they were about (Huckleberry Finn was a favourite since my teenage years – we owned an edition with the beautiful illustrations by Norman Rockwell, and it is to my lasting regret that we did not recognize its value.). Why was the Satanic Verses banned, anyway? I never got past the first chapter, Rushdie is simply not readable. Another one of that ilk is Ulysses. One of the criteria for banning a book should be that the person finding it objectionable must a) read the thing; and b) write a 500 word essay that summarises the content without bias.
@bea2345, Satanic Verses stirred up a shitstorm among the less mainstream elements of the Muslim community. A fatwa was placed on Rushdie’s head.
@Blueroses LOL. At first I thought you were referring to the list that @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard had posted in his original question when you said there were only 4 books on the list that you hadn’t read. I’m a little disappointed as I was hoping that you might tell me whether or not The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby and Captain Underpants were worth bothering with and if they were really as big a threat to Western Civilization as they sound.
@lillycoyote I actually did read Captain Underpants to a kid I was babysitting. Not so much a threat to democracy as we know it.
@Blueroses Good to know. I had a feeling that might be the case.
I’m surprised to find that I’ve read a decent amount of them on that list. 17 to be exact. Not to mention tons from the Goosebumps series and 1½ from Harry Potter. :D
The majority of them, however, were assigned reading books in high school which means I read about half of each. Lawl.
I just recently decided that I really want to start reading again and there are many on that list that I would love to either read again, this time from beginning to end, or read for the first time.
I own A Clockwork Orange, but haven’t opened it. Perhaps I will this weekend. :)
@Vunessuh, DO IT! A Clockwork Orange is awesome!
Oh yeah! A Clockwork Orange changed me after reading it. Changed my vocabulary while reading it too. “So then I screeched: “You filthy old soomka”, and upped with the little malenky like silver statue and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that shut her up real horrorshow and lovely.”
Also, as with all Kubrick films, reading the book makes the movie comprehensible.
@Blueroses, yeah, the Droog slang was the best part, in my opinion.
I have read 24 from that list.I have a long way to go…
@lucillelucillelucille, haha, I posted this same question more or less as my facebook status, and my dad commented on it with almost the exact same thing you just said! He said “right now all I’m reading is organic chemistry. I think those books ought to be banned.”
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I remember when a price was put on Rushie’s head. We actually discussed this topic in one of my social studies classes in high school. I’m not sure of the exact amounts the Iranian clerics offered but I remember it somewhat in the order of an Iranian doing the hit would get the most money, a muslim outside of Iran would get the second most amount of cash and a nonmuslim or complete outsider would still get paid for the hit but recieve the least amount. I don’t think the Satanic Verses (though I’ve never read it) could had insulted Islam anymore than any book written by John Hagee and I do not see a price on Hagee’s head. I’ve read several of John Hagee’s books (and they are very anti-muslim, pro-jewish). John Hagee is an extremist however.
I never mentioned the books I ordered by name. I don’t think they would be something you would be interested in but they are controversial but somewhat rare and hard to get (most of them).
Playboy Volumes 1–3. Lol. ;)
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