BANNED books - how many have you read?

[HauntyMython]

Some libraries, including the one I work in, recently had a Banned Books display - turns out it's a national thing and different councils do it each year or something?

here's the list

How many have you read? Any that are particularly good/bad?

I have read 15 of them I think - favourites being Brave New World, Handmaid's Tale and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Currently ploughing through LOTR - DH has read the trilogy 17 times so I thought I should try it (I loved the Hobbit).

Also (I have several books on the go) reading Tropic of Cancer but OMG it is absolutely vile, far more bodily functions, parasites etc than I feel comfortable with

Any thoughts on this list then? :)

I have read 30 of them but attempted a few of the others. There can't be too many people who actually finish James Joyce - I have tried a few times but life is too short. Some of them are surprisingly mainstream though.

Tropic of Cancer is a real chore but I feel I should finish it

Interesting list. Clearly USA schools need to get a grip on themselves!

There are 114 on the list so I have 65 to go

What surprised me most (well, not surprised, just saddened) was the fact that on In The Night Kitchen parents were drawing clothes on nice way to give little boys a complex eh? It's just a willy FFS!

Why did I think there were 50 on the list

Maybe whatever book taught me to count should be banned :o sorry, for some reason I had the number 50 in my head. Didn't realise the list was quite so long. That makes my 15 even more pathetic!

I haven't read 11 of them, but I'm both old, and eclectic in my reading material.
Banned books are often just threatening to certain groups because they encourage an alternative way of thinking. Some of the books were vile, but that just made me have a more informed understanding of why I disliked the book and the ideas that it was presenting. I wouldn't ban any book outright for an adult audience.

Read:
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie and it was god awful
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood I bloody love this book
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Remarque
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence and hate it
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Last Exit to Brooklyn - Herbert Selby
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Carrie - Stephen King
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger I hated this book and wanted to kill all the characters
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchel
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Revolting Rhymes - Roald Dahl

On my list to read:
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging - Louise Rennison
The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
Dr Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe

I'mQuiteTheSubversiveTiggaxx

25. Does anyone else find it difficult to properly and honestly recall whether they have actually read certain classics?! Books on the list I particularly enjoyed were Harriet the Spy, which I just loved when I was a child, Catch-22 and To Kill a Mockingbird.

I've read 32 of them

The only book I've ever started which has revolted me so much that I couldn't finish it isn't on e Lis. It was 132 days of Sodom.

No, I remember what I've read. The real test is how many you have on your shelves I think.

49 and I've kept about half of those I think.

I'm not particularly tempted to read the rest though.

17 and a half (The Origin of Species is slow going in parts so it gets puts down in favour of other material a lot).

Amazed how many children's books are there, though, once you've read the content and the reasons cited or places it has been banned, it suddenly becomes clear. For example, I remember all the stuff about Potter in parts if the US. At least means it'll be easy to catch up.

I never buy fiction though, can't afford it and have no shelf space. I think the only book in the list we actually own is LOTR.

I have read 44 of them and given up on two of them (Wild Swans and Gine With The Wind because they were badly written imho, rather than controversial). V surprised to see the Maurice Sendak one on there.

Agree that American schools tend towards the barmy sometimes and that some people just like to be offended.

Gone With The Wind - although Gin with it might have made it more readable, perhaps?!

Disagree that the 'real test' is what you have on your shelves. I don't tend to keep fiction after reading it, unless it is an absolute favourite, so most of my shelves are full of cookery books and Stephen King books, plus history books. However, I have read lots of classics - and some of them, I can even remember!

I'm sure that Mein Kampf was banned during the war. My godmother gave me her copy not long before she died (at the grand old age of 103). It was heavily annotated with her thoughts but she was insistent that it was not a book she was 'allowed' to have.

A Clockwork Orange
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Animal Farm
All Quiet on the Western Front
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Lady Chatterley's Lover
The Da Vinci Code
Naked Lunch
For Whom the Bell Tolls
To Kill a Mockingbird
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Lolita
American Psycho
Brave New World
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Forever
Not Without My Daughter
Catch 22
The Grapes of Wrath
Black Beauty
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging
Blubber
Borstal Boy
The Canterbury Tales
Carrie
The Catcher in the Rye
The Colour Purple
Death of a Salesman
Dr Zhivago
Fahrenheit 451
A Farewell to Arms
Frankenstein
Gone with the Wind
His Dark Materials
In Cold Blood
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
The Merchant of Venice
Of Mice and Men
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Revolting Rhymes
Tarzan of the Apes
Uncle Tom's Cabin

Some I enjoyed, some I wish I'd never read and will never read again!

22. I still have my copy of "In the Night Kitchen". It was one of my favourite books as a child.

I've read 25, but its interesting how many of them are set books for English (GCSE or other).
Have to say Da Vinci Code would have been better not published. Haven't read it but read the prequel because someone choose it for book club, I found Frisbie throwing scientists at Cern, and a girl running around the whole book in shorts and having sex with the hero the same day her father is killed a bit...ummm ridiculous?

Have only read 14 of them. Need to try a bit harder I think.

41 and a bit, I too gave up on the satanic verses. (it is one of only 2 books I have ever given up on - the other was a Margaret Drabble set in Cambodia)

Very strange list though - serious books banned for their message alongside perfectly normal books banned by the bonkers!