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Banned Books published by Google
Lens Hood Man writes "Marking the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week, Google is inviting users to celebrate their freedom to read by making Banned Books available to all. From the Google Blog: "...you can use Google Book Search to explore some of the best novels of the 20th century which have been challenged or banned." Those books challenged this year include 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Lolita'."
China will just see a big photo of Mao when you try to load the books on Google. Maybe they could get a backdrop of the glowing fire from a pile of books being burned too!
stuff |
It seems to just previews not the whole books.
Similarly, explain the difference between formal and implicit polymorphism in C++.
HINT: both involve overloading of terms.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Google is inviting users to celebrate their freedom to read by making Banned Books available to all."
Google has not made these books available to read online, it just gives you the ability to find a library that has the book.
these books are actually banned? this lists sounds more like a list of required-reading books than banned books.
put Anarchist Cookbook on there. i dare you.
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlink s/100mostfrequently.htm
Great! I've been meaning to read up on some musical history.
This guy's the limit!
[1] http://www.amazon.com/100-Banned-Books-Censorship- Literature/dp/0816040591 k s/100mostfrequently.htm
[2] http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlin
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
From the list of Top 100 challenged books:
#7 : Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
#19: Sex by Madonna
#88: Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
You're right. They're not publishing these, just making the searchable by all ... er most (pending China's great firewall).
... I was hoping Google would provide the original typesetting (that Joyce was very particular about) but instead it seems I just get a preview :-(
A lot of these I have seen on Project Gutenberg.
Sometimes when I'm dying in my cubicle at work, I open up a random page of James Joyce's Ulysses and drift away
My work here is dung.
I don't see how these are banned books... they might even choose at a community level not to stock your book at the library, that doesn't mean that your book has been banned.
If the government at any level forbids a library from carrying a book, it has been banned. In addition to that, books have been banned for ownership in certain localities.
Heck most libraries don't carry everything anyway, I can't go get Hustler and Playboy at my Library. At my local library I can't find copies of the Jane's Reference books, or many other books.
The difference is, is it the choice of the library or of an external influence? When some of the most popular and requested books, like the Harry Potter books, are not carried by the library because the city council has passed a law preventing the library from carrying them, then they are effectively being censored. This is a common occurrence and something everyone should be aware of.
There are good books on that list, but you don't need to hype them by saying that they have been banned or censored by "the man." You should take the books as what they are.
The point is, they have been banned and burned and what is being celebrated is victory over that. The fact that anyone can go online and find a way to get these books is worth celebrating.
Heinlein. Card. Asimov. Sturgeon. Ellison.
King's very good, but "the best"?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Considering we're coming up on Banned Books Week 2006, this is the perfect time to make these books available.
And yes, every book that Google has up there has been banned or challenged in public libraries across the country. There are still places where 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'Tom Sawyer' are considered improper reading for children - and for adults.
Good work, Google. Keep on it.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
these books are actually banned? this lists sounds more like a list of required-reading books than banned books.
These "Banned Books" lists that librarians like to trumpet tend to be lists of books which were ever banned anywhere by any library at any time, not books which are banned today. So if they can find that some old biddy in Vermont in 1903 didn't like "Huckleberry Finn", it goes straight on the list. The conclusion that you're supposed to draw is that Literature is Under Attack Even Today by Reactionaries who are hiding under your bed.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I'm waiting for Google to get hit with child pornongraphy charges on that one...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Google Cut and Paste for the LOSE! The correct entry: Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin "Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form...[a] beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times Books about Go Tell it on the Mountain followed later by the incorrect entry: The Call of the Wild James Baldwin "Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form...[a] beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times Books about The Call of the Wild
meh
And yet, close to 70% of the books listed there were part of my high school's English curriculum. Not "suggested reading," or anything else we had to read on our own, but part of the coursework over my 4 years of high school. Maybe that's just how we do thing around here, but as "contraversial" as the subject matter of each book may or may not be, I can read that list and remember the ideas presented from each book. I remember discussing the credits and demerits of each concept in an objective way as part of the class. I can't see why anyone would want to ban these literary icons from schools or libraries, when the dissection of each only lends to the ability to think freely and creatively, and develop critical thinking and reasoning skills.
So I think it just means that these books have been challenged or banned somewhere, not necessarily everywhere, and they're not necessarily challenged/banned any longer.
Wouldn't touch anything with Dozois's muddy fingerprints on it, ever.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I guess this means that Google is going to be banned in Alabama libraries? I'm assuming they have libraries in Alabama.
Kidding! Of course they do.
Oh You POS
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
"This list of books is exactly why we must not fail in our fight against terrorism. Ya see, the terrorists hate our freedom. They hate our way of life. This list of books shows how much they hate us."
*psst*
*mumble mumble mumble*
"America? Really?"
"Can't we jazz it up to so I can use it in a speech on terrorism? No? Karl will figure out a way."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Seriously: So many of the books on this list are completely and totally harmless. I can understand the challenges to "My Dad's Roommate" from a Christian perspective (Don't agree, but understand). But WTF is wrong with Waldo? "How to Eat Fried Worms" is a nice, innocent book. My mother is a conservative Mormon, and she loves to read it to her First Grade class every year.
The fact that many of these books make these lists says a lot about the mentality of people who want to ban books.
I'd hardly call Heinlein a "hack". I'm not saying he's the most important writer ever, but a "hack"? No.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Can't believe I am responding to an ANON.
But...
Let me remind you that the Islamic-Fascist's go one better: attempt to kill the author.
Salman Rushdie and the cartoonists that drew the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark have had to live in hiding, Theo van Gogh was silenced forever by them.
Yes Virgina, evil exists and it wants to kill you.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
If they are banned how is it I can go buy them? A more honest and less inflammatory term would be controversial books. At least in the US they are not truly banned. Maybe not available in some school libraries or even some public libraries but that isn't the same thing as banned.
Frankly I would like to see libraries "ban" more books.
Chariot of the Gods would be a good start.
Why wasn't the Bible on the list? It is banned in and or restricted heavily in many countries.
Also I didn't see any Holocaust denial books or pro Nazi books on the list. Those have been banned in many countries as well.
If you are going to pretend that you support freedom of speech I guess posting a list of books "banned" in some US high schools is a freaking safe way to do it.
I have to admit that publishing a book online that you can can buy at most any book store in the US really does make up for censoring pro-democracy cites in China. Good for you Google. Let us all bask in your "Celebration of the Freedom to Read".
I think I will go puke now.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
... except that Call of the Wild is by Jack London, not James Baldwin...
o f+the+Wild%22+%22James+Baldwin%22+-london&btnG=Sea rch
--
different book.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Call+
I've been seeing a lot of comments about "Hey, I read most of those books in High School! How can they be banned?" First of all, this is a list taken out of context... many of those books were taken out of libraries due to topics that are not controversial now, but were controversial a few decades ago. Depictions of euthanasia ("Of Mice and Men"), drug addiction ("To Kill a Mockingbird", "Brave New World"), sex (Lots of books on the list), even favorable depictions of non-Caucasian races ("Adventures of Huckleberry Finn") all would be cause to get a book banned. In hindsight, it seems silly, but every generation has its taboos. Just TRY to get a book approved about terrorism or school shootings in today's English curriculum. AIDS is okay to talk about now, but it wasn't 20 years ago.
It's a lot like Rock stars. They do a lot of publicity stunts and live a lifestyle that seems garish and offensive to the social conservatives of their time, but looking back in hindsight, most of the hype is just plain silly. Biting off the head of a bat? Ozzie, your domestic home life is much scarier than that; so is the fact that we find it entertaining to televise it.
Second, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of these books are chosen by high school English teachers in a misguided attempt to jazz up their curriculum. "Ooo, this was a banned book. That'll reach out to my jaded kids who barely can read a page a day, let alone a whole book." I don't think they realize how big the Cliff Notes market is, or how easy it is to rip off essays about banned books from the Wikipedia.
I'm assuming they have libraries in Alabama.
Of course they do - where else are you gonna store all those Bibles?
Uh, no. We get a picture of Tipper Gore. I dislike the republicans as much as the next guy, but it doesn't mean I forget that the Democrats are a bunch of assholes too. Tipper Gore (as per the link) got all hot and bothered when she heard her daughter listening to a Prince album and it flustered her so much she went the wrong direction and tried to get all kinds of great music banned.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I dislike the republicans as much as the next guy, but it doesn't mean I forget that the Democrats are a bunch of assholes too.
That's why they're called Republicrats. Two sides of the same coin.
From TFA :
/.ers are actually more digging into the fact than average persons only frightens me, I mean, have you tried to only read only the headlines in a newspaper ?)
"To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It's hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned."
Only those 42 books are online right now. Remember that the headlines are misleading (the thought that
Of course, as pointed by the parent, and pointed in other posts, a lot of significant works have been banned : Mein Kampf, Mark's Capital, the Bible, etc... but they are not in the top 100 NOVELS of the century.
Plus, may I be the first to say, that putting online all books that have been banned at one time and at one place in human history would be a very huge work and probably would result in a digitalization of the entire litterature.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Notably absent from these pages are the words "in the United States". This list would be a hell of a lot longer if we included books banned by, for example, Nazi Germany. (Uh oh, I feel a Godwin coming on.)
I realize Google is based in the US and this isn't necessarily even an accusation of USA-centrism (why would I even object? I'm a US citizen myself..) but it is a factual omission that seems important considering this will be seen by Google's hundreds of millions of users all over the world.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Sort of ironic to celebrate Google's showing these banned books when Google China agreed to censor itself.
The box said I needed Windows XP or better so I bought a Mac.
Reading this article I tried to find Nabokov's novel by searching for "lolita" on google. Considering the number of results this definitely looks like a popular novel but how come isn't Nabokov Book the first result?
\u262D = \u5350
Well at least they aren't paid links to Amazon.com.
an ill wind that blows no good
"I don't want to go on a rant, here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowulf having sex with Robert Fulton at the first battle of Antietam. I mean when a neo-conservative defenestrates it's like Raskolnikov filibuster deoxymonohydroxinate..."
"What the hell does rant mean?"
Whatever man, I spelled it write!
I went to the Google page and clicked on the "To Kill a Mockingbird" link to find that book at my local library.
What I got was a list of about 75 books with "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the title, including many screenplays, references, notes, etc. I think there are a lot of duplicates, too, with minor differences in the book's meta data. It was extremely difficult to distinguish which one is the "real" book.
After trying five or six links that looked like it might be the right one, I gave up.
-David
Let me remind you that the Islamic-Fascist's go one better: attempt to kill the author. Salman Rushdie and the cartoonists that drew the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark have had to live in hiding
I find the news coverage and people's opinions of the cartoon issue very interesting. Certain rabble rousers intentionally tried to cause trouble over the cartoons, the the point of sending ones they created and which had never been published anywhere to newspapers and to religious zealots in many countries. And yet, I saw not in one place, but in many, Muslim clerics placing themselves between an embassy and a mob throwing stones and trying to calm the situation and prevent violence. Islamic culture won big points in my mind that day.
I just picture a bunch of hicks from rural America showing up at an Iranian embassy after the widespread publication and promotion of pictures of jesus being sodomized. Then, to put it in context, I picture this happening in Texas, months after an army of middle easterners had conquered Mexico, bombing cities and sending frightened refugees to hide in the USA. Where each of these hicks knew some old friend or relative or friend of a friend or friend of a relative who had lost a mother or son or child to the bombings. And then I pictured all this happening after the President of Iran had made comments about how they should invade the US too, since the US had aided Mexico and all those christians were violent sodomites. With this picture in my mind, I wondered how many local pastors and priests in texas would be there, placing themselves between the rocks and the mob, and the Iranian embassy.
Yes Virgina, evil exists and it wants to kill you.
I don't approve of censorship or murder, but I do understand why people are convinced that both are right in certain circumstances. Lets just be sure not to pre judge people based upon religion or ethnicity. A catholic, muslim, or atheist is equally capable of promoting fascism.
Plus, may I be the first to say, that putting online all books that have been banned at one time and at one place in human history would be a very huge work and probably would result in a digitalization of the entire litterature.
I believe digitization of our entire literature is the goal. Think big.
Similarly, explain the difference between formal and implicit polymorphism in C++.
:(
HINT: both involve overloading of terms.
Answer: Both break if you use non-pointer types when adding items to STL lists
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Have you ever actually read that book?!
Good god; voilence, terrorism, fratricide, sex, rape, a whole section devoted to love poems - writen by a self proclaimed polygamist!, calls to vigilante justice. We just can't be letting anyone read that book!
Nope, of any of the books I've seen people protest over, the bible has more & worse.
I read this book in high school, and I came away from it with a new appreciation for the horrors of racism and injustice. How the hell is it degrading? By showing just how fucked-up the law was in regards to nonwhites?
Some black parents in my school district recently tried to have Mockingbird removed from the curiculum (but not from the library) and my first reaction was similar to yours. The media reports made it sound like their whole objection was that the book uses The 'N' Word and discussing it in class was offensive to them. When I went to the meeting however, I quickly discovered the issue was more complex. The main problem is that mostly white teachers choose this 46-year-old book by a white author to teach students about racism. 46 years ago, a novel by a white author was about the only way such a message could reach a wide audience, but in 2006 there have got to be better ways. Any black author knows far more about racism than Harper Lee (despite Mr. Lee's best intentions), and it's time for the curiculum to reflect that.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I suspect "challenged" means that someone attmpted to ban it.
A "ban" would typically refer to a law or ordinace passed which either removes said book from libraries, or prohibits its sale. Due to the way our Federal government works a lot of power devolves on states and on small municipalities, which aren't always run by the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean. They can ban or attempt to bad all sorts of stupid stuff for the most trivial of reasons. Getting something like that overturned on constitutional grounds is a long process.
For example, when I was a kid in the early 80's our city government banned The Garbagepail Kids because they thought they were gross and would thus hurt kids somehow. Of course all that did was generate a heap of free publicity for the stupid things. Kids who'd never heard of them suddenly started collecting them.
(It's also worth pointing out that while McCarthy may have been overzealous, he was largely right, as declassified KGB records have shown; there were Communist operatives everywhere doing what damage they could, much of which we're still sufferring from. Research it.)
Her full name is Nelle Harper Lee, and she's been a woman all her life.
For a real banned book:
m
i ornate_di_Sodoma
One that's not even in Project Gutenburg.
One that google won't even show you if you use moderate safesearch.
One that has been banned in more countries than any other.
120 days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade
Warning: NSFW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_120_Days_of_Sodo
Quite possibly the most fucked up thing ever written.
Or turned into a movie for that matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal%C3%B2_o_le_120_g
People ban stuff for the silliest reasons. Half of those books were banned merely because of racism or one or two possibly offensive subjects.
This is a true banned book. If you are not offended by it, you are quite possibly a horrible human being.
Even saying that, I think you should read it. It puts perspective on things.
Maybe, but fascism is a good discription of what they, the Islamo-Fascist, want. A world wide totalitarian society with scrict information control, progroms, purges, and thought policing by a central Islamic government called the Caliphate.
Fascism is also a good description of the ideology of the Neo-Cons here in the US. It's almost funny how we have one group of fascists calling another group fascists. It brings to mind that old quote from Huey Long:
When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag
Or, Long's response to the question of whether or not Fascism would ever come to the US:
Yes, but in America, we'll call it anti-fascism.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I just picture a bunch of hicks from rural America showing up at an Iranian embassy after the widespread publication and promotion of pictures of jesus being sodomized.
Listen to yourself - you are equating a funny picture showing the real state of affairs (i.e. the trend of Islamic states heading towards terrorism) to an intentionally offensive one of showing a religious head performing sexual acts.
Did they show Allah making out with a naked guy? All they did was have a comic commenting on Islamic terrorism, and a very valid one at that.
I'm sorry, Islam by itself may not be violent, but a significant chunk of Muslims out there are increasinly turning to a violent version of the religion. You can say all you want about hicks and conservatives, but their percentages are way lower.
Heck, you see comics and cartoons involving almost every religion in a lot of democractic countries -- the thing is, you can publish a funny cartoon of Jesus in the US and people would perhaps even laugh at it. Good luck trying to publish one in Saudi or Pakistan.
It takes a frustrated fundie to even notice that...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Just read here, here and here.
I've also addressed this issue before.
I can't go so far as to claim that the United States has become totally Fascist (yet), but I stand by my claim that the neo-con ideology is
moving us in the direction of fascism. I'll even go so far as to say that "Neo-Con" is just a euphemism for "Fascist."
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Thomas Paine, Deist, famously agreed with you in his book The Age of Reason :
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
And ironically, the Bible's got its own clear policy on censorship: Deu 13. But historically, it was probably banned for that content far less often than for the fact that it encourages people to worship something other than the State.
Revive the Constitution.