September 25 – October 1 is Banned Books Week, “a celebration of writing that has been challenged by would-be censors.”
It’s a good time for us readers to let our hair down and flash our rebellious side, maybe by doing something daring like reading a “filthy trashy sex novel” such as John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, or even works by North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee Maya Angelou, who was one of the most banned authors in America for her unflinching narrative memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Readers don’t get to walk on the wild side all that often, so you can imagine folks are celebrating this week in all sorts of different ways.
The New York Public Library offers a quiz on its website where you can see how well you know your banned books.
Bookstores such as Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill are devoting entire front-of-store displays to banned books, which includes Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini…and Where’s Waldo?
And command central for this celebration is the website for Banned Books Week, which has been causing a literary ruckus since 1982.
So go ahead. Pick up a copy of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, or the Holy Bible, and stick it to the would-be censors. Because these books were among the ten most challenged titles of 2015.