Banned Books.

Banned Books week is September 26-October 2.  I found the list of the most commonly banned classics from the ALA website.  Some I have read, some I haven't.  I put notes on the ones that I did or have intentions to read.  Play along!  I'm pretty sure I did this a few years ago, but it never hurts to have a reminder.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald  (Read it in 10th grade, and a few years ago. I don't love it, but I also don't hate it.)


2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (My dad gave me a copy of this years ago. I still need to read it.)

3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (have started before and put by the wayside.  Should I try it again?)

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Love. Swoon.)

5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Love, love, love Alice Walker.)

6. Ulysses by James Joyce

7. Beloved by Toni Morrison (Ditto Toni Morrison.)

8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (read in 10th grade)

9. 1984 by George Orwell

10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (Started it this year, didn't finish, but now I think I should get it again.)

11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (I read this to Thomas when he was 5. We both cried when Charlotte died. It was a proud moment for me!)

14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

17. Animal Farm by George Orwell

18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (I've wanted to read this for a long time.)

24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Love Song of Solomon. Think about how the mother killed her son whenever I hear the phrase "I brought you into this world and I can take you out.)

26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell  (My favorite book during high school)

27. Native Son by Richard Wright

28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Lucy told me about this one years ago. Still need to read it. I've always imagined it being about pigs being killed or something gruesome. Glad Lucy dispelled that impression!)

30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (10th grade, again.)

33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf  (Does anyone enjoy Virginia Woolf? Can I be an English major and admit that I don't?)

35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

37. The World According to Garp by John Irving

38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (Swoon. Aragorn.)

41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally

42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (I think I have read this, most likely in college)

43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (They mention Ayn Rand a lot in the tv show Mad Men.)

44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf  (My one experience with V.W. See above.)

47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin (One of my favorite books from college.)

51. My Antonia by Willa Cather

52. Howards End by E. M. Forster

53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

56. Jazz by Toni Morrison (Read in college.)

57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron

58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (think about this book when I listen to the Old Testament. Haven't read it yet.)

59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (10 grade. Was anything we read that year NOT on the banned list?)

68. Light in August by William Faulkner

69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James

70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Hated it. Hated it.)

72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (Tried to read & just didn't love it.)

75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway

78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (This has been on my list forever.)

82. White Noise by Don DeLillo

83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

87. The Bostonians by Henry James (College. Wrote a great paper on it.)

88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (The Ayn Rand book they always talk about on Mad Men. Love that Donald Draper.)

93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster

99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie


Wow, only 15 read, and a bunch of others with intentions to read.  How many have you read?