banned books
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Scarlett Johannson Fails to Ban French Novel
A French novel by Grégoire Delacourt featuring a character who looks like Scarlett Johannson will be translated and published in the UK next month. In The First Thing You See, a French mechanic meets a woman who he thinks is Scarlett…
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What You Can Read at the Guantánamo Bay Detainee Library
Prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay have access to 18,000 books in 18 different languages, including Arabic translations of King Lear, Anna Karenina, and Stephen King thrillers. But books deemed critical of the US government, including Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s…
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The Most Banned Books
Every year, the American Library Association releases a list of the top banned books in the country. But how do you determine which book is the most banned? The statisticians at FiveThirtyEight attempted to figure out exactly which book earned the crowning…
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We Shall Not Ban Comics in English Class!
Recently, Tara Shultz, a college student at Crafton Hills College, expressed her shock and disgust at the “pornographic and violent” content in the selection of graphic novels (Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi) used in her English class…
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Always Part-Time
Over at KUOW, Sherman Alexie chats about why The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian just can’t stop getting banned.
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Don’t Read That Book
The history of banning books is almost as old as book themselves. Now Electric Literature has featured an infographic from Printerinks.com exploring that history, beginning with the Bible in 1440 and leading up to The Da Vinci Code in 2003.
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This Filthy Stuff
The New Republic has re-published a 1930 interview with a government censor, and it provides an interesting look into the mindset of the man charged with keeping “pollution” out of the hands of “innocent” New Englanders: Why, sometimes it’s the…
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Secret Locker Library Distributes Banned Books
A student at a Catholic high school has been running a secret library out of her locker distributing banned books to fellow students. The student, identified by online handle Nekochan, was incensed when The Catcher in the Rye appeared on…
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Banned Books Week to Highlight Graphic Novels
This year’s annual Banned Books Week—a celebration of books that have been banned—will target graphic novels, those picture-filled narratives better known as comic books. And that’s exactly why Banned Books Week is taking a special interest in comics this year,…
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Police Called on Teens Giving Away Banned Book
After Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was banned by an Idaho school district, a crowdsourced funding effort bought a book for every kid in the local junior high school. Nearly all of the books…
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Do Not Discuss List Draws Attention to Banned Books
Reddit’s Do Not Discuss List was revealed as an April Fools’ Day prank by the forum moderators. They planned the fake ban partly to draw attention to actually-banned books.
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Reddit’s Do Not Discuss List
The books subgroup on Reddit, the famously libertarian-leaning message board, has planned a ban on discussion of several popular books. Many of the titles have been banned previously in the real world. Claiming “good discussion is stifled by repetition,” the…