Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores and schools. The annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community—librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers and readers of all types —in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

Updated August 17, 2025
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Night
Wiesel, Elie
Paper Book
A New Translation From The French By Marion Wiesel Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent...
The house of the spirits : a novel
Allende, Isabel
Ebook
This "spectacular... absorbing and distinguished work...is a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America" (The New York Times Book Review). The House of the Spirits, which introduced Isabel...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman....
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 hate U give
Thomas, Angie
Paper Book
8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best  ·  William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller! "Absolutely riveting!" --Jason Reynolds "Stunning." -...
Gender queer
Kobabe, Maia
Paper Book
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was...
Nineteen eighty-four
Orwell, George
Paper Book
Written 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever... This 75th Anniversary Edition includes: *...
All boys aren't blue : a memoir-manifesto
Johnson, George M.
Paper Book
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. A New York Times Bestseller! Good Morning America,...
Ulysses
Joyce, James
Paper Book
A classic depiction of exile, estrangement, paralysis, and the disintegrationof a society, Ulysses records the events of one average day, June 16, 1904, in the lives of three central figures in Dublin.
This book is gay
Dawson, James (Young adult fiction writer)
Paper Book
"The book every LGBT person would have killed for as a teenager, told in the voice of a wise best friend. Frank, warm, funny, USEFUL." --Patrick Ness, bestselling author Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual...
The perks of being a wallflower
Chbosky, Stephen
Paper Book
A series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the coming of age trials of a high-schooler named Charlie.
Brave new world : with the essay "Brave new world revisited"
Huxley, Aldous
Paper Book
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit "A masterpiece. . . . One of the most prophetic dystopian works." --Wall Street Journal  The beautifully designed Harper...
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...
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...
Alice's adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis
Paper Book
One of the most magical concoctions in childrens literature, Lewis Carrolls tale follows Alice into the upside-down, inside-out world of Wonderland where she attends the tea party of the Mad Hatter and plays croquet in the court of the Queen of Hearts
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien's three-volume epic, is set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth - home to many strange beings, and most notably hobbits, a peace-loving "little people," cheerful and shy. Since its original British publication in 1954-55, the saga has entranced readers of...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize...
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...
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 ...
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...
Drama
Telgemeier, Raina
Paper Book
From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile and Sisters!Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon over Mississippi, she can't really sing. Instead she's...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression A Penguin Classic Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught novels....
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...
Uncle Tom's cabin
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paper Book
  Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and...
The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian
Alexie, Sherman
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller--over 1 million copies sold!   A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the...
Maus a survivor's tale
Spiegelman, Art.
Paper Book
The definitive edition of the graphic novel acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker) * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * One of Variety's "Banned and...
Decameron
Boccaccio, Giovanni.
Paper Book
The year is 1348. The Black Death has begun to ravage Europe. Ten young Florentines-seven women and three men-escape the plague-infested city and retreat to the countryside around Fiesole. At their leisure in this isolated and bucolic setting, they spend ten days telling each other stories-tales...
American Psycho
Easton Ellis, Bret.
Ebook
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 ...
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lawrence, D H.
Paper Book
Lyric and sensual, D.H. Lawrence's last novel is one of the major works of fiction of the twentieth century. Filled with scenes of intimate beauty, explores the emotions of a lonely woman trapped in a sterile marriage and her growing love for the robust gamekeeper of her husband's estate. The...
The world is full of married men
Collins, Jackie.
Ebook
First published in 1968, The World is Full of Married Men was branded as "shocking," especially coming from a female author but despite being banned in several countries for its scandalous content became a #1 bestseller in just two weeks! Always ahead of her time, in her...
Candide, or, Optimism
Voltaire
Paper Book
The grapes of wrath
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
Forced from their home, the Joad family is lured to California to find work; instead they find disillusionment, exploitation, and hunger.
Pedagogy of the oppressed
Freire, Paulo
Paper Book
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in...

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