Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Banned Books Week September 22nd - 28th

It is that time of the year again to celebrate books that have been banned or challenged. To be perfectly transparent, I can’t believe that in this day and age books are still being banned or challenged. Just this week on my twitter feed it was announced that Harry Potter was banned by a Roman Catholic High School In Nashville, Tennessee. Their reasoning behind the ban was that the spells and curses were real.

I just want to ruminate on that for a second. The spells and curses from a work of fiction are real. That is absolutely mind boggling. That in the 21st century we are still dealing with books being banned. We all need to have a good read of Fahrenheit 451. Is that what we really want our future to look like. That may sound alarmist but think good and hard on that. Now, take a look at the little screen that we all carry everywhere. Now think about the screens in Fahrenheit. Do you see where I am going with this?

We need the books that are hard to read. We need to read books which challenge our notions of the world.


Ladies of Horror Fiction Books which have been banned

The HandMaids Tale by Margaret Atwood

The latest ban was for the text being detrimental to Christian values, sexually explicit scenes and graphically violent.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Was banned for depicting obscene or unnatural acts and acts against god. The latest ban was in 1955 by the South African Government.

The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Was also banned by the South African Government due to the message against blindly following tradition. However, the movie had been banned in Minnesota as late as 1981.


There are probably many more that I have missed off this list. Removing books from libraries is a very slippery slope. Personally, I don’t want to live in Fahrenheit 451 do you?

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