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 Council Kirklees Libraries
This is your list in printable form. Simply print this page using your browser's print command.

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

Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya.
Paper Book
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
One of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time in display-worthy hardcover: A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution--from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times) The sixth and final season...
A clockwork orange
Burgess, Anthony.
Ebook
Wild swans : three daughters of China
Chang, Jung
Paper Book
OVER 13M COPIES SOLD - THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING PHENOMENON - NUMBER 8 ON SUNDAY TIMES BEST OF THE BESTSELLER LIST Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular bestseller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of...
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
Paper Book
"A true genius . . . Roald Dahl is my hero" David Walliams Witches really are a detestable breed. They disguise themselves as lovely ladies, when secretly they want to squish and squelch all the wretched children they despise. Luckily one boy and his grandmother know how to recognize these vile...
This book is gay
Dawson, James; Gerrell, Spike
Paper Book
A funny and pertinent book about being lesbian, bisexual, gay, queer, transgender or just curious - for everybody, no matter their gender or sexuality
American psycho : a novel
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
On San Piedro, an island of rugged, spectacular beauty in Puget Sound, a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial, charged with cold-blooded murder. It is 1954, and the shadow of World War II, with its brutality abroad and internment of Japanese Americans at home, hangs over the courtroom. Ishmael...
Well Of Loneliness (Oxford World's Classics)
Hall, Radclyffe.
Paper Book
'If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.'The Well of Loneliness is among the most famous banned books in history. A pioneering work of literature, Radclyffe Hall's novel charts the development of a 'female sexual invert', Stephen Gordon, who from...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today...
Brave new world
Huxley, Aldous
Paper Book
Now a television series by the creators of The Walking Dead! Ranked one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, this dystopian satire is a brilliant and terrifying vision of a soulless society--and of one man who discovers the human costs of...
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 One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Boisterous,...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and...
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...
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
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison's Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past, presented here in stunning hardcover with an introduction by A. S. Byatt. Named by The Atlantic as one of the Great American...
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
Orwell, George
Paper Book
75th Anniversary Edition--Includes a New Introduction by Téa Obreht George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel--a scathing satire of a downtrodden society's blind march towards totalitarianism. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than...
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 : the twelfth epic novel
Pilkey, Dav
Paper Book
The future of all humanity is at stake in the final color installment in this New York Times bestselling series by Dav Pilkey, the author and illustrator of Dog Man!George and Harold, and their doubles, Yesterday George and Yesterday Harold, have a good thing going. Two of them go to...
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
Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison's first book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Now repackaged in a gorgeous new paperback and looking even fabber than ever. Louise is an international bestselling author and her books can't fail to make you laugh...
Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone
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
Ebook
Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked aeroplane blows apart high above the English Channel and two figures tumble, clutched in an embrace, towards the sea: Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices. Washed up, alive,...
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 really...
The complete Persepolis
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in Iran during the revolution has for twenty years been a classroom staple, a feminist manifesto, and one of the most popular and widely known graphic novels of all time. <...
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark
Paper Book
Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunk father until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. But when Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escpe down the Mississippi river with runaway slave, Jim. They encounter trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed...
Slaughterhouse-Five
Vonnegut, Kurt.
Ebook
Adapted for a magnificent George Roy Hill film three years later (perhaps the only film adaptation of a masterpiece which exceeds its source), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is the now famous parable of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and POW, who has in the later stage of his life...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence. With a new Preface by the author.
Find this list online: https://librarian.syndetics.com/syndeticsunbound/lp/1043.1411/list/6519

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.