"It was a pleasure to burn."
“All this happened, more or less.”
“It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.”
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
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“The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”
What is generally considered the most banned book of all time in America?
1984 by George Orwell
What was the first book ever banned in the US?
New English Canaan by Thomas Morton in 1637
This British author’s frequently challenged fantasy novels inspired a trilogy of movies with a total run time of 558 minutes
JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
This Canadian author’s most famous (& frequently challenged) novel, published in 1985, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the Booker Prize; the sequel was published in 2019
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
The fantasy series from this British author, first published in 1995, has been described by opponents as "atheism for kids;" even so, it been adapted for radio, theater, film, and TV
Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials/The Golden Compass
This Oklahoma author wrote and published her first novel in 1967 while still in high school; it has been frequently challenged despite being required high school reading still to this day
S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of this British author in 1989
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
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The autobiography of this author, born Marguerite Johnson in 1928, has been one of the 10 most frequently challenged books since it was published in 1969
(1970) Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel
(1975) Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Will Sampson, Michael Berryman
(1985) Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Rae Dawn Chong, Oprah Winfrey
(2012) Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd
(2018) Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Anthony Mackie, Issa Rae
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(1971) Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Aubrey Morris, Warren Clarke
This debut novel set in Kabul Afghanistan spent 2 years on the New York Times Bestseller list after its publication in 2003 and has sold more than 7 million copies; however, it has been one of the books most banned from school libraries in the last 10 years
This debut Young Adult (YA) novel spent 80 weeks on the New York Times YA Bestseller List, but has remained a top 10 most challenged book every year since it was published in 2017
This coming-of-age story, published as a graphic novel in 2007, has been frequently challenged, though also remains on the assigned curriculum of many high schools for its both comic and honest portrayal of Native American life in Spokane, Washington
This Alex-award winning graphic novel published in 2019 lead to town residents in Michigan voting to defund their public library when librarians refused to remove the book from their collection and resulted in the resignation of a public library director in Idaho (Alex is the ALA award for YA books)
This anthology of essays, originally published in the New York Times Magazine in 2019 (and in book form in 2021), is the only book that’s ever had federal legislation introduced against it
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Despite winning a Nobel Prize, this celebrated novel, published in 1970, is one of the most challenged books in the last 10 years; most notably, causing major controversy in Virginia in 2022