Recent and not so recent, online and offline sources
- See the American Library Association's (ALA)website for Banned Books Week. Here ALA made accessible the preliminary data on book challenges in 2023.
- Jonathan Friedman, Director, Free Expression and Education, and Nadine Farid Johnson, PEN America’s Washington Director, Banned in the USA: Rising School Book Bans Threaten Free Expression and Students’ First Amendment Rights (report issued in April 2022)
- Harper Collins, the publishing house, developed the series Harper Perennial Forbidden Classics.
- The National Coalition Against Censorship designed a map to show book challenges and banning across the U.S. recorded in their database.
- This library guide by Carnegie Mellon University on banned books provide a wealth of information on challenged books and the reasons for the challenges. Compiling our list was partly based on what we learned from our colleagues compiling this library guide.
- A quick read by a librarian at University of Pennsylvania, "Why I banned a book: How censorship can impact a learning community."
- Pen America, the 100-years old organization supporting writers and the freedom of written expression, offers a wealth of information about book banning in the US here: Book Bans - PEN America.
Copy of censor's note in Itzhak Isaak Benjacov's bibliography of Jewish learned literature, titled Ozar Ha-sepharim אוצר הספרים published in 1880 in Vilna.
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120 Banned Books
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Call Number: Z658 .U5 K35 2005ISBN: 9780816060436Publication Date: 2005-06-01Tracing the censorship histories of 120 works from around the world, this title provides a summary of each work, its censorship history, and suggestions for further reading. Updates to existing entries cover new controversies regarding such classic books as 'Huckleberry Finn' and 'The Canterbury Tales'. -
Dangerous Ideas
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Call Number: Z658.W46 D36 2021ISBN: 9780807036242Publication Date: 2021-05-04A fascinating examination of how restricting speech has continuously shaped our culture, and how censorship is used as a tool to prop up authorities and maintain class and gender disparities Through compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship, Dangerous Ideas illuminates the power of restricting speech; how it has defined states, ideas, and culture; and (despite how each of us would like to believe otherwise) how it is something we all participate in. This engaging cultural history of censorship and thought suppression throughout the ages takes readers from the first Chinese emperor's wholesale elimination of books, to Henry VIII's decree of death for anyone who "imagined" his demise, and on to the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the volatile politics surrounding censorship of social media. Highlighting the base impulses driving many famous acts of suppression, Berkowitz demonstrates the fragility of power and how every individual can act as both the suppressor and the suppressed. -
Forbidden Words
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Call Number: P305.18 .T33 A43 2006ISBN: 9780521819602Publication Date: 2006-10-05Many words and expressions are viewed as 'taboo', such as those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people. This 2006 book provides a fascinating insight into taboo language and its role in everyday life. It looks at the ways we use language to be polite or impolite, politically correct or offensive, depending on whether we are 'sweet-talking', 'straight-talking' or being deliberately rude. Using a range of colourful examples, it shows how we use language playfully and figuratively in order to swear, to insult, and also to be politically correct, and what our motivations are for doing so. It goes on to examine the differences between institutionalized censorship and the ways individuals censor their own language. Lively and revealing, Forbidden Words will fascinate anyone who is interested in how and why we use and avoid taboos in daily conversation.
