Banned or Challenged Books

Read these dangerous books at your own risk!

Updated June 7, 2023
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Me and Earl and the dying girl : a novel
Andrews, Jesse.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film!   This is the funniest book you'll ever read about death.   It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
Paper Book
First published in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader is unable to forget its images and its forecast. With more than two million copies in print, it is Margaret Atwood's most popular and compelling novel. Set in the near future, it describes life in what once was...
The clan of the cave bear
Auel, Jean M.
Paper Book
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of this timeless classic with a special edition featuring a new foreword by the author and a message that is as relevant today as when it was first published. Since the late 1940s, Ray Bradbury has been revered for his works of science fiction and fantasy. With more...
Running with scissors : a memoir
Burroughs, Augusten.
Paper Book
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated...
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
Capote, Truman
Paper Book
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library's new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote--also available are Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume),...
Flamer
Curato, Mike
Paper Book
Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in Flamer, his debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love. "This book will save lives." --Jarrett J. Krosoczka, author of National Book Award Finalist Hey...
As I lay dying : the corrected text
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
A true 20th-century classic from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury: the famed harrowing account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. As I Lay Dying is one of the most...
Anne Frank the diary of a young girl
Frank, Anne
CD
Journal of a Jewish teenager describes the joys and torments of daily life and typical adolescent thoughts throughout two years spent in hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland.
Lord of the flies : a novel
Golding, William
Paper Book
Golding's iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age.   This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler. ...
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Haddon, Mark.
Other
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic--both poignant and funny--about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. "Disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.......
Crank
Hopkins, Ellen.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling tale of addiction--the first in the Crank trilogy--from master poet Ellen Hopkins. Life was good before I met the monster. After, life was great...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in...
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.
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,...
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...
Gender queer : a memoir
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...
Lady Chatterley's lover
Lawrence, D. H.
Paper Book
Banned, burned, and the subject of a landmark obscenity trial, Lawrence's lyric and sensual last novel is now regarded as "our time's most significant romance." -- "The New York Times. "This classic tale of love and discovery pits the paralyzed and callous Clifford Chatterley against his indecisive...
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 bluest eye : a novel
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.   In Morrison...
The things they carried : a work of fiction
O'Brien, Tim
Paper Book
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of...
Nineteen eighty-four : a novel
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:*...
Out of darkness
Pe rez, Ashley Hope
Ebook
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, Texas. 1937. Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. They know the signs that mark them. They know the people...
My sister's keeper : a novel
Picoult, Jodi
Other
"">New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult tells the story of a girl who decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body in this riveting story that tackles a controversial subject with grace and explores what it means to be a good person.
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 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 immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Other
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...
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....
Sophie's choice
Styron, William
Paper Book
Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.
Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death
Vonnegut, Kurt.
Paper Book
A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds<...
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.
The glass castle : a memoir
Walls, Jeannette.
Paper Book
In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shouting, Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric, and severely misguided family.
All the king's men
Warren, Robert Penn
Ebook
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this classic book is generally regarded as the finest novel ever written on American politics. It describes the career of Willie Stark, a back-country lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power. 
Brideshead revisited
Waugh, Evelyn
CD
Charles Ryder's friendship with Sebastian Flyte begins at Oxford in 1923. Carefree days of drinking champagne and driving in the country soon end, however, as Sebastian's health deteriorates. Questions about morality and religion are raised as the radiant tone gives way to a bleak atmosphere of...
Black boy (American hunger) : a record of childhood and youth
Wright, Richard
Paper Book

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