Banned Books 2025

Banned Books Week UK returns from 5–11 October 2025. It’s a week to celebrate the books that have been challenged, removed or silenced, and to stand with the people who write, sell and share them. Join Kirklees Libraries and Index on Censorship in honouring the right to read freely and the courage it takes to speak up.

www.indexoncensorship.org/bannedbooksweek

Browse, download and read from our eAudio and eBook collection of Banned Books at: kirklees.overdrive.com/bannedbooks

Updated October 7, 2025
Kirklees Libraries
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I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya
Paper Book
Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself....
Lysistrata and other plays
Aristophanes.
Paper Book
Writing at a time when Athens was undergoing a crisis in its social attitudes, Aristophanes was an eloquent opponent of the demagogue and the sophist. This collection includes Lysistrata, the hilariously bawdy anti-war fantasy; The Acharnians, a plea for peace set against the background of the long...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times). Now an award-winning series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning...
A clockwork orange
Burgess, Anthony
Paper Book
In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him - but how and at what cost?
Wild swans : three daughters of China
Chang, Jung
Paper Book
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history--a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.
The perks of being a wallflower
Chbosky, Stephen
Paper Book
"A timeless story for every young person who needs to understand that they are not alone." --Judy Blume "Once in a while, a novel comes along that becomes a generational touchstone. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books." --R. J. Palacio, #1 New York...
The witches
Dahl, Roald; Blake, Quentin
Paper Book
'One child a week is fifty-two a year. Squish them and squiggle them and make them disappear.' This is a story about REAL WITCHES. Real witches dress in ordinary clothes, have ordinary jobs and look very much like ordinary people. But they are not...
This book is gay
Dawson, James; Gerrell, Spike
Paper Book
The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. ...
American psycho
Ellis, Bret Easton
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * In this modern classic, the acclaimed author of The Shards explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. "A seminal book." --The Washington Post ...
Snow falling on cedars
Guterson, David
Paper Book
A “finely wrought, flawlessly written” novel (New York Times Book Review), set on a small island in the Puget Sound, that is “at various moments a courtroom drama, an interracial love story, and a war chronicle” (San Francisco Chronicle). “Guterson has fashioned...
The well of loneliness
Hall, Radclyffe
Paper Book
This pride month, discover the groundbreaking and moving lesbian novel that rocked the British establishment. As a little girl Stephen Gordon always felt different. A talent for sport, a hatred of dresses and a preference for solitude were not considered suitable for a young...
Kite Runner, The
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling debut novel that introduced Khaled Hosseini to millions of readers all over the world. Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan's...
Brave new world
Huxley, Aldous
Paper Book
Huxley's story shows a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability. An ominous warning to the world's population, this literary classic is a must-read.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken
Paper Book
Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made...
The giver
Lowry, Lois
Paper Book
The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the...
China dream
Ma, Jian
Paper Book
A poetic and unflinching fable about tyranny, guilt, and the erasure of history, by the banned Chinese writer hailed as 'China's Solzhenitsyn'. In seven dream-like episodes, Ma Jian charts the psychological disintegration of a Chinese provincial leader who is haunted by nightmares...
A court of mist and fury
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
The # 1New York Timesbestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas' spellbindingACourt of Thorns and Roses. Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court--but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend...
Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich
Paper Book
Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as a classic not to the controversy its subject matter aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. With an introduction by Martin Amis. When it was...
Breathless
Niven, Jennifer
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places comes a compulsively readable novel about a teen girl determined to write her own story--sex, heartbreak, family dramas, and all. "A coming-of-age story that will make your heart ache...
Animal farm : a fairy story
Orwell, George
Paper Book
When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control...
Heartstopper. Volume 1
Oseman, Alice
Paper Book
Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A sweet and charming coming-of-age story that explores friendship, love, and coming out. This edition features beautiful two-color artwork. Now streaming on Netflix! Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to...
Captain Underpants and the sensational saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot
Pilkey, Dav
Paper Book
Laugh out loud with Captain Underpants, the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Dav Pilkey, the creator of Dog Man!George and Harold, and their doubles, Yesterday George and Yesterday Harold, have a good thing going. Two of them go to school, while the other two hide in the tree...
All Quiet on the Western Front
Remarque, Erich Maria
Paper Book
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time--with an Oscar-winning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix.   "[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank."--...
Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging : you'll laugh your knickers off
Rennison, Louise
Paper Book
Angus: My mixed-breed cat, half domestic tabby, half Scottish wildcat. The size of a small Labrador, only mad. Thongs: Stupid underwear. What's the point of them, anyway? They just go up your bum, as far as I can tell. Full-Frontal Snogging: ...
Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone [25th Anniversary Ed.]
Rowling, J. K.
Paper Book
Galloping gargoyles ... 2022 is the silver anniversary of J.K. Rowling's magical classic Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone! The boy wizard Harry Potter has been casting a spell over young readers and their families ever since 1997. Now the first book in this...
The Satanic Verses
Rushdie, Salman
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths."--Newsday Rushdie's...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you...
The complete Persepolis
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark
Paper Book
Mark Twain's brilliant 19th-century novel has long been recognized as one of the finest examples of American literature. It brings back the irrepressible and free-spirited Huck, first introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and puts him center stage. Rich in...
Slaughterhouse-Five
Vonnegut, Kurt.
Paper Book
Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time * One of The Atlantic's...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
Now a Broadway musical featuring Jennifer Hudson Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice...

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