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Libraries Release Most-Censored Books List

destinyland writes "The American Library Association released this year's list of the most-frequently censored books. (Included in the top 10 are two best-selling novels — Twilight and The Hunger Games — as well as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.) The annual list celebrates 'the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment,' according to the library association, highlighting 'the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship.' Interestingly, seven of the ten most-censored books are now available on Amazon's Kindle — more than twice as many as last year."

30 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Banned books week by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    This week is banned books week. Celebrate (?) by reading a banned book - say no to censorship :)

    1. Re:Banned books week by iiiears · · Score: 2

      "..seven of the ten most-censored books are now available on Amazon's Kindle — more than twice as many as last year."
      I lol'ed

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      15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
    2. Re:Banned books week by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For twilight I think it is banned (partially) due to religious groups. But I think it is mostly from high school English teachers who do not want to read essay after essay about twilight from every girl. When they assign them a book report.

      I remember a college class on creative writing the first day of class the professor stated she didn't want any stories about God or Jesus. Not because she had a problem with religion, but she previously taught in salt lake city Utah, and every story she read was about God, and was sick of hearing the same thing over and over again in a creative writting class.

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    3. Re:Banned books week by FictionPimp · · Score: 2

      I'd complain if I was subjected to twilight!

    4. Re:Banned books week by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

      All American high school diplomas entitle the holder to attend a university

      Let's not be silly.

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    5. Re:Banned books week by rusl · · Score: 2

      They are writing creative stories from the perspective of God or Jesus? i want to read that! That sounds awesome. Jesus goes to the bar and gets into a fight and turns the water into beer? God decides a week will be 10 days and do everything in metric. It just sounds like a lot of fun and blasphemy!

      Probably I'm being too optimistic on the story topics. I wish everybody would write a story about God themselves instead of parroting the same boring Hollywood version of the Bible stories.

      BTW my religion is "ignostic" I got that word off of wikipedia.

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      Stupidity is its own reward.
  2. Not really censored by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    In this age of hyperbole, where everything is worked up to be a huge scandal (Obama is the antichrist, Bush is Hitler, and social security is a Ponzi scheme), it's worth mentioning that censorship here is not government censorship, it means someone decided to remove that book from their library. All these materials are easily available elsewhere.

    And frankly, if they're going to remove something from their library, Twilight is a great choice. Bravo, friends, bravo.

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    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Not really censored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't even really mean that someone removed the book from their library. If you read carefully it says that these are the most challenged books, where a challenge is defined as a formal written complaint or request to remove the book from the library. None of these materials are actually censored.

      But, the editors here clearly self-censored and chose not to read the article before posting it.

      Captcha: "paranoia" (somewhat apt).

    2. Re:Not really censored by AlXtreme · · Score: 3, Informative

      Someone please mod AC up.

      These books weren't censored, they were challenged by over-protective parents fearing that their children might ask them uncomfortable questions. The books themselves weren't removed (I'd assume successful challenges might not even make it to ALA).

      "And Tango Makes Three" got the most challenges. Seriously America, you're worried about two male penguins hatching an egg?

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    3. Re:Not really censored by Talderas · · Score: 2

      I like to compare Twilight to trashy romance novels.

      I think trashy romance novels are better because you still get the sex.

      Plus it's fun to recite them out loud in a dead pan voice.

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      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
  3. Re:Brave New World by narcc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh, I don't know -- maybe something to do with all of the young children engaging in "erotic play". That sort of thing tends to make people uncomfortable.

  4. Censored? by pahles · · Score: 3, Informative

    The list is about "challenged" books, not about them being censored. Please RTFA!

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    Sig?
  5. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by victorhooi · · Score: 4, Informative

    heya,

    Err, which version of the Bible are you reading...?

    I'm fairly sure the bible never commands anybody to kill non-believers. In fact, last time I checked, it stated quite unequivocally "Thou shalt not murder". (Exodus 20:13). Note that it says murder, not kill (http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/001102_ThouShaltNotMurder.html).

    The giving/taking of life is God's alone to command - and barring some explicit command from him (as happened in the OT), to take a life is considered by most Christians to be tantamount to blasphemy and trying to supplant God's role.

    So sorry, but your post is really full of ignorance.

    Cheers,
    Victor

  6. Challenged isn't censored by jevring · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article lists the most *challenged* books. Challenging a book doesn't result in it being censored. The title of the article is incredibly misleading.

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    1. Re:Challenged isn't censored by FrootLoops · · Score: 2

      To follow up on my own comment about the success of these challenges, I read the Wikipedia page on And Tango Makes Three, #1 on this year's list and also #1 for 5 of the last 6 years. It's based on a true story where two male penguins formed a couple and were given an egg to raise.

      To summarize the list of challenges on the linked page, which is hopefully representative of the challenges that went particularly far, there were...
      3 failed requests to restrict the book
      2 failed removal requests
      1 successful request to move it to non-fiction
      1 successful removal, oddly based on no requests; the removal was reviewed and at least temporarily reversed, though I didn't find the ultimate outcome

      This is the mildest form of censorship I can think of. I imagine most school districts wouldn't bother to go to court over this book. It's good that this list is kept and some organizations work to keep controversial books around, but until some real censorship takes place it's not really news.

    2. Re:Challenged isn't censored by tverbeek · · Score: 2

      So they are examples of attempted censorship, not necessarily successful. It's still troublesome.

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    3. Re:Challenged isn't censored by jevring · · Score: 2

      So they are examples of attempted censorship, not necessarily successful. It's still troublesome.

      There will always be people unhappy about something. It's their right to be. I don't think we have to be worried about people complaining about this until it's actually acted upon. It's not like we can prevent people from asking others to censor stuff. That would be censorship in itself.

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      Move sig!
  7. That's not being protective, it's avoidance. by mosb1000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I question the claim that these parents are being protective of their children. I think they are doing nothing more than being bad parents by avoiding difficult but important conversations with their children.

    I am reminded of the fact that people who never learn to swim are much more likely to drown. You might think that they don't know how to swim, and so they will stay out of the water and be safer that way. The real world doesn't work that way.

  8. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by mosb1000 · · Score: 2

    I've read the Bible a couple times, it doesn't say that.

    God does command the Israelites to kill certain people (for example the inhabitants of Jericho) based on their practices which it claims are an abomination to God. Whether or not they are believers doesn't enter into it.

    Nevertheless, these verses are largely censored in churches. Not so much because preachers want to denigrate them, but because preachers are generally a bunch of spineless cowards who want to avoid difficult conversations that might hurt the profitability of their churches.

  9. Incongruous by akeeneye · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Alexie's book, written for teenagers, yet quite satisfying reading for adults, has a few references to jacking off as I recall. Any parent of teenagers who thinks this would be foreign territory to their spawn is delusional. But Nickel and Dimed?? Are the uber-capitalists now descending on libraries to challenge the sort of books that illustrate that the economic status-quo is not exactly peachy for everyone?

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    The man who dies rich dies disgraced. -- Andrew Carnegie
  10. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by narcc · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm fairly sure the bible never commands anybody to kill non-believers.

    Give Deu. 17:3-5 a quick read. You don't get much more explicit than that.

    Honestly, I don't see how you could have missed it. Joshua slaughtered just about everyone in Canaan -- with more than a bit of divine assistance.

  11. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by slippyblade · · Score: 2

    Yep - Lot. What a nice guy.

    Here's a clip that I love to trot out.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2_LqOS3uo

    Exodus 21 talks extensively about the buying, selling, and owning of slaves. Deuteronomy is indeed the source of the 2 fabrics comment. The reason you wont see christians follow it? Same as every other backwards and self-contradictory passage, they pick and choose what bits to believe.

  12. Re:What's missing here? by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    Which, for at least Christian Conservatives go directly against their Jesus's direct order to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

    Not in Conservative Christian Logic. "If I were a homosexual/atheist/non-Christian I'd want someone to pressure me and make things difficult so that I would have no choice but to accept Jesus and be saved from the fires of hell."

  13. Re:Banned Classics...1984 eh? by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anyone else find it a tad ironic that 1984 is among the books "censored"? Maybe they should remove Fahrenheit 451 as well. :)

    I would go with enforcing conversion of the title to "Celsius 233". I am the SI unit Nazi

  14. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by artor3 · · Score: 2

    Ahh, but surely you're aware that Christians follow the New Testament, in which Jesus states that he who is without sin should cast the first stone.

    The Old Testament is full of obscure rules that have no bearing on the Christian faith. The Catechism is very, very clear on the taking of a life: you can only do it to protect against an attacker, and even then you should not be trying to kill, only disable.

  15. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not a iota or a dot will go away [from OT] before the world ends * Matthew 5:18-19

    not a single letter of the OT can be invalid * Luke 16:17

    all scripture counts * 2 Timothy 3:16

    it is not up to personal interpretation * 2 Peter 20-21

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    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  16. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by artor3 · · Score: 2

    Jesus worked on the Sabbath. He associated with sinners. He didn't fast at all the appointed times. The OT is still around, and important for historical reasons, but Jesus repeatedly made clear that the rules were changing.

  17. Re:Brave New World by Ash+Vince · · Score: 2

    Children being encouraged to experiment with sex, I'd bet.

    If that was the case, you should start censoring MTV. Almost every female pop idol since Madonna has indulged in a bit of pelvic thrusting or whatever in the videos.

    I remember working at a gig one saturday morning building the stage with all the roadies when suddenly they were all outside the security guards hut leering at a Christina Aguilera video being shown on children's TV. They were all enjoying it immensely until someone pointed out their daughters were probably at home watching it too.

    Kids are encourage to experiment with sex by every other form of media, why should books be any different?

    On a different note anyone who reads A Brave New World should also read Island as in many way the books are counterpoints to each other.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(novel)

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    I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
  18. Re:Brave New World by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

    That plus the religious rituals to Ford that had an element of group sex.

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    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  19. Re:It amazes me that books like these are censored by pongo000 · · Score: 2

    Jesus fulfilled the law of the OT. Don't forget the Israelites were the intended audience of the OT. Christians don't believe the OT is null and void, but that Jesus fulfilled the old law through his teachings and authority as the Son of God. Observant Jews still follow the OT laws because they don't view Christ as do Christians. Jesus, a Jew himself, was clear on the point of fulfillment:

    Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath." He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, âI desire mercy, and not sacrifice,â(TM) you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath." (Matt. 12:1-8)