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....
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
Paper Book
'What we were after was lashings of ultraviolence' In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his teenage delinquency and the State tries to reform him -...
The perks of being a wallflower
Chbosky, Stephen
Paper Book
Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way...
The witches
Dahl, Roald
Paper Book
From the World's No. 1 Storyteller, The Witches is a children's classic that has captured young reader's imaginations for generations. This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches. Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the...
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
Ellis, Bret Easton
Paper Book
One of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho is a multi-million-copy bestseller hailed as a modern classic - a violent and outrageous black comedy about the darkest side of human nature. With an introduction by...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to...
Brave new world : with the essay "Brave new world revisited"
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
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...
The Giver
Lowry, Lois.
Paper Book
In a perfect world, Jonas begins to see the flaws... THE GIVER is the classic award-winning novel that inspired the dystopian genre and a major motion picture adaptation for 2014 starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift. It is the future....
A court of mist and fury
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
The seductive and stunning #1 bestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas's spellbinding A Court of Thorns and Roses. Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This "powerful, mesmerizing story" (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author. "A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can...
Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir.
Paper Book
'You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.' Humbert Humbert, a European intellectual adrift in America, is a middle-aged college professor. Haunted by memories of a lost adolescent love, he falls outrageously (and illegally) in lust with his landlady's...
Breathless
Niven, Jennifer
Paper Book
Your first love, your first time, your first heartbreak. The new novel from Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places. You were my first. Not just sex, although that was part of it, but the first to look past everything else into me. Some of the names and...
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
A beautiful hardback edition of the most famous anti-war novel ever written, translated by Brian Murdoch. 'A necessary, shattering read' Irish Times In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to...
Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
Rowling, J. K.
Paper Book
This special edition of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE has a gorgeous new cover illustration by Kazu Kibuishi. Inside is the full text of the original novel, with decorations by Mary GrandPre.Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom...
The satanic verses
Rushdie, Salman
Paper Book
Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, fall earthward from a bombed jet toward the sea, singing rival verses in an eternal wrestling match between good and evil.
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth and has influenced countless coming-of-age stories since. Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up,...
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark
Paper Book
Mark Twain's sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, chronicling the adventures of Sawyer's friend, Huck Finn. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colorful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of...
Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death
Vonnegut, Kurt
Paper Book
Read Kurt Vonnegut's powerful masterpiece, which is as timely now as when it was first published. 'An extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist' New York Times Book Review Billy Pilgrim - hapless barber's...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim,The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in...

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