This week is Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read. Why do we celebrate this week?
James Madison, for whom our university is named, is known as the "Father of the Constitution." The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. But in the U.S. and around the world, books have been (and continue to be) censored, challenged, removed, or banned from schools, libraries, cities, states, and countries. Many challenged or banned books "are by authors of color, or contain events and issues concerning diverse communities." By drawing attention to the harms of censorship, Banned Books Week supports the freedom to seek information and to express ideas.
Join in this annual celebration of intellectual freedom by checking out from JMU Libraries one these books that have been banned by governments or challenged/banned from libraries or schools:
American Psycho: A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis
An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity by Ha-Joon Chang
Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kucklin
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brave New World: A Novel by Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman by Hedy Lamarr
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Howl by Allen Ginsberg
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation by Michela Wrong
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Looking for Alaska: A Novel by John Green
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Native Son by Richard Wright
1984 by George Orwell
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer by Peter Wright
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Read more about banned & challenged books, and the freedom to read, here: