Banned Books

There has been a lot of discussion in the forums about a book that was recently removed from Amazon.  There are valid points on both sides of the argument, and I don't wish to continue that argument here.  But, it did get me thinking about other books that have been banned.  (In no way is this posting designed or intended to belittle the seriousness of the issues raised regarding the book that was removed from Amazon.)

In 1998, as we were preparing to enter the new millennium, the Radcliffe Publishing Course released a list of what they considered to be the top 100 novels of the 20th Century.  Believe it or not, I have a degree in English, and there is actually a book on the list of which I have NEVER heard.  I wonder if that is a lapse in my professors work, or in my studies (most likely the latter).  Of those 100, forty-six of them have been banned or challenged at some point in the U.S., according to the Office for Intellectual Freedom.  The difference between banning and challenging is that challenging a book is an attempt to remove a book from public view, banning it is the actual removal of said book.

Here is the list of the 46 books from the Radcliffe Top 100 that were banned or challenged (links highlight books available for Kindle):
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger 
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck 
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker 
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce 
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison 
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding 
9. 1984, by George Orwell 
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov 
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck 
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller 
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell 
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway 
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner 
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway 
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston 
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison 
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison 
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell 
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright 
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey 
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London 
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin 
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren 
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien 
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair 
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence 
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess 
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin 
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote 
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie 
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron 
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence 
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut 
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs 
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence 
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer 
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller 
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser 
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike 



I will publish the Radcliffe Top 100 list in totality at a later date.

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Christy Parker is the author of three blogs:  Ruminations from and Unkempt Mind,  Learn to Crochet - In Minutes a Day,  and You Be the Editor.

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