Top 10 Banned Books of the 20th Century

reply to post by LiveForever8


Don't forget Harry Potter, one of the most challenged children's books of all time. Although most of the controversy over Potter happened in the early 21st century, there were some people burning it in the 90's.

Personally I feel Harry Potter is an underappreciated literary work, especially for it's depiction of a corrupt government.

Some great replies, keep them coming

One aspect of censorship that now has me thinking is the point i and many others have made.....banning a book only makes me want to read it more.

So, do these novels contain hidden messages that 'TPTB' want us to see? Negative thoughts that will effect us unknowingly, yet subtle enough to be made invisible by the overall brilliance of the novel.

Or.

Are these books being 'censored' by other more friendly powers that be, people who want us to take heed of the novels visible message. Be it To Kill A Mockingbirds questioning of racial equality or Nineteen Eighty-Fours warning of a totalitarian, oligarchical society.

By pushing for a ban, they would be raising the publics awareness of the specific novel and taking advantage of this 'reverse psychology' aspect of 'Im not too bothered'......'You cant have it'......'I want it now'

Reminding me of The Simpsons...
Homer's Brain: Don't you get it? You've gotta use reverse psychology.
Homer: That sounds too complicated.
Homer's Brain: OK, don't use reverse psychology.
Homer: All right, I will!


Peace.

Thanks for the thread and the reminder that this fight to limit access to a book based on some other person or groups narrow world view continues to this day.

I am very familiar with most of the books mentioned as they were required reading when I was a sprout. And we were not just assigned to read the books, but also encouraged to discuss the hoopla surrounding their content and how or why certain people took offense.

Fahrenheit 451 has been one of my favorite books of all time and the movie was pretty good as well. The fact that censors were fiddling with a story about censorship just about sums it up.

What bothers me is that this business still goes on and shows no sign of ever going away. Simple minded people will continue to find something to get all worked up over and insist that they are offended by something that many times they don't even understand.

You want to ban a book....ban the bible. There's more begetting, and damning, and murder than all the books mentioned above combined. But I could be wrong.

Inyo County Calif had a ban on comic books that lasted from the 1920s into the early 1970s.

It started as a ban by the county and that lasted into the early 1960s then one store started carrying them and told the county they could no do any thing about it,
That lasted till the 70s when other stores finely started carrying comic books.

When i was young (late 50s early 60s)taking comic books to Inyo county when i went there for the summer to stay with relatives was where i started my juvenile law breaking

[edit on 26-10-2009 by ANNED]

I've read 8 of 10.
Maybe we could ban some of Heinlein's books.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Time enough for love.
I will fear no evil.
Man, I've got hundreds of books they could ban.

Was hoping to see 1984 on that list...great book, and it really does show what the world would be like with the NWO.

S/F

Surprisingly enough, I read 3 of those books in my PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS, I am a junior in college now. Makes me want to go ahead and read the other books on the list. Thanks topic creator.

reply to post by LiveForever8
Interesting top 10, but I'd like to add a few more if they get get a top 20 list going.

William Cooper Behold a Pale Horse & Andrew MacDonald Turner Diaries

Another "banned" book would be "The Red Book" by C. G. Jung. While it wasn't necesarily banned, it certainly has been suppressed and took 70+ years to reach the public...

It recently was published after many years of being hidden in secrecy by Jung's heirs. I would buy it, but $115 is out of my league.

www.amazon.com...

The Red Book, also known as Liber Novus (The New Book), is a 205-page manuscript written and illustrated by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung between approximately 1914 and 1930, which was not published or shown to the public until 2009. Until 2001, his heirs denied scholars access to the book, which he began after a falling-out with Sigmund Freud in 1913. The book is written in calligraphic text and contains many illuminations.

en.wikipedia.org...(Jung)

The artwork and style alone make me wanna buy it, let alone all of the controversy of delving into the mind in a very unconventional sense. Check out a few pages:

www.scribd.com...

[edit on 26-10-2009 by Boom Slice]

Fahrenheit 451 changed me at the age of ten. After I read that, it really does show what censorship, what banning books, and most of all, what burning books, really shows.

As Ray Bradbury said,

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."

It's beyond sickening that such a society would wish to try to burn away knowledge...

Whether it's for fear, or anger, for religion, or whatever excuse or reason people come up with, censorship must be stopped!

“Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.”

reply to post by LiveForever8


Well in my school, here in Burbank, CA, we have already read To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984! Glad these banned books are still unbanned here, I dont know what is up anywhere else though

There must be a link between censorship and hmm education. Seven of those books were required reading for me in high school and one other I remember being an option for summer reading. Actually, Fahrenheit, 1984, and the Grapes of Wrath were freshman year (along with Animal Farm) plus others that I don't recall ever being banned. I hope when I finish my book it's banned, seems to be the fastest way to make it onto required reading.

In this day and age to be banning books is insane!! Complete nonsense!

I read To Kill A Mockingbird & Farenheit 451 in High School. (and Animal Farm)
My own high school education made me read these books.

Granted it was 10 years ago....

But I don't really think these books are banned.

Great thread, thanks!

Books are powerful, words are powerful, ideas are powerful. Stories are everything. I am proud to have read most of the books mentioned here, in addition to many others by the same authors.

I was furious about the upheaval during the release of the film "The Golden Compass" a couple of years ago. It is hard for me to believe that this still happens... and part of me is surprised that it doesn't happen more often. I would not want to live in a world without books.

reply to post by gazerstar
William Faulkner? One of the greatest authors of the 20th century? What the hell is this country coming too? I wonder how parents would react if they had to read "Stranger In A Strange Land?' How about "Job: A Comedy of Manners?" Or, God forbid, "The Door Into Summer?"
I chose "A Door Into Summer" for a book report when I was a sophmore in high school, got an "A" and the teacher asked to borrow my copy.
Let us not forget Heinlein's latter works, which dealt with incest, polygamy and just about every other "perversion" you can think of.

reply to post by LiveForever8
"To Kill A Mockingbird" changed the way I looked at the world when I was 15. When I saw the movie, then re-read the book, I was affected on an even deeper level. It is in my private library, along with the move.

reply to post by Tadarida
Agree whole heartedly. I read the trilogy, and I'm sorry folks, but I didn't see anything antil Catholic or anti religion about it, except that religion,(whatever sect, denomonation, or name you stick on it) can contol people who refuse to think for themselves. (I happen to be Christian, but I'm not married to doctrine.)

Wasn't the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments banned a while back? I'm not sure but I think so. The experiments in the book were apparently too dangerous but I think "they" didn't want people to learn the chemistry. Knowledge is power after all.

en.wikipedia.org...

I read quite a few of these books in high school, 1967-71. Heh, while we were encouraged to think for ourselves and to challenge authority, and were introduced to these books that had previously been banned by fools, boys during my freshman year had restrctions on how long our hair could be. We learned quite well and by the end of that year, the school would have lost too much government money by making us all stay home, who had said f*&% it and just let it all grow in protest.

In 1971, in a college sociology class, we were assigned a book to read titled, The Student As Ni&&er", by Jerry Farber. I read the book. We were assigned to right an essay on this "essay" book. I understood very well what the message was in the book. It drew an analogy between the status of students and the status of Arican-Americans in U.S. society. The book concerned the master-slave relationship in the current educational institutions of the time. When it was time to hand in the essay on this essay of a book, I handed in a single sheet of paper with my name on it and a big F&^% You in the center. The instructor looked at me and said, "Are you sure you want to do this?" I said, "Yes!" He smiled and wrote a big A+ on the paper and put it in the stack of other much thicker essays from the other students.

I suppose what I am trying to express here is that whether one is told YOU MUST read this book, or YOU MUST NOT read this book, it is ultimately the individual who chooses which path to take and what lesson to be learned.