Aristotle’s Compleat Master-Piece had been banned in the United Kingdom for 200 years and it’s about to go under the hammer yet again- the auction hammer, that is. An edition printed circa 1766 is expected to draw more than $645 at the Edinburgh auction house Lyon and Turnbull on January...
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, was first published in 1939 and would achieve both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize that same year. When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 the novel was referenced frequently. TIME magazine lists it as one of...
Harper Lee’s immortal classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, was first published in 1960 to instant acclaim- despite her editors’ warnings that it probably wouldn’t sell all that well. In its first year of release it would garner rave reviews by The New Yorker and Time magazines, as well as...
The banning of books has become the new “Oprah Effect.” As governments and other organizations try to crack down on the spread of material they find offensive, the popularity of those works rises when they are labeled “deviant.” Today, books continue to be challenged or banned in the United...
There’s more reasons to miss Borders in the United States- their willingness to stand up for their employees and their dedication to the freedom to read. The manager of a Borders bookstore in Malaysia has been charged with distributing a book by controversial writer Irshad Manji. A statement by...
Some call it fan fiction, while others call it “mommy porn;” but the fact is that whatever you call it, Fifty Shades of Grey, a New York Times #1 bestselling novel by E. L. James, has become an international hit. The trilogy was originally conceived as fan fiction based on characters from...
Being that these are the final days of Black History Month 2012, I thought it wise to share a news story that is also sadly apropos to the subject of censorship. Prison officials in Alabama have banned a book detailing how the American South established a form of de facto...
The classic novel, “Ulysses,” by Irish author James Joyce, celebrated its 90th birthday on February 2. Widely-regarded as one of the greatest novels of all time, it even initiated the creation of an international holiday, Bloomsday, celebrated annually on June 16th. It is a staple of many an English Literature course,...
Last week I reported that the Plymouth-Canton Schools in Michigan resolved a challenge to the book Beloved; but the same parents that objected to that title also have their torches aimed at another novel- Waterland, by Graham Swift. And so it is that Graham Swift becomes the latest casualty...
Well wouldn’t you know it? Yet another of America’s legendary Founding Fathers has had their written work banned by the same citizenry that purports to idolize them. Benjamin Franklin’s life story was published in France under the title “Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin”(The Private Life of...