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
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
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
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times) * The sixth and final season of the award-winning Hulu series starring Elisabeth Moss is now streaming ...
A clockwork orange
Burgess, Anthony
Paper Book
A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his...
Wild swans : three daughters of China
Chang, Jung
Paper Book
Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century.
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
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
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
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * PEN/Faulkner Award Winner *  A gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric masterpiece of courtroom suspense--one that leaves us shaken and changed.  "Haunting .... A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at...
The well of loneliness
Hall, Radclyffe
Paper Book
First published in 1928, this timeless portrayal of lesbian love is now a classic. The thinly disguised story of Hall's own life, it was banned outright upon publication and almost ruined her literary career.
Kite Runner, The
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 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  Aldous Huxley's...
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken
Paper Book
An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s. In this classic novel, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who...
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
Blending fact and fiction, this darkly comic fable "may be the purest distillation yet of Mr. Ma's talent for probing the country's darkest corners and exposing what he regards as the Communist Party's moral failings" (Mike Ives, The New York Times). Called "Red Guards...
A court of mist and fury
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
Coming soon ... return to Prythian with TWO new books in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Pre-order ACOTAR 6 for 27th October 26, and ACOTAR 7 for 12th January 27. The second instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR....
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
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. * With a new introduction by Claire Messud "The conjunction of a sense of...
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
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
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
*The Louise Rennison Repackages Snogging will be featured in the HarperCollins booth at major institutional conferences, including TLA, IRA, ALA and NCTE *A finished book will be sent to a list of 550 large school and public library systems and...
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! In celebration of 25 years of Harry Potter magic, Bloomsbury is proud to be releasing a special commemorative edition featuring the much loved original cover...
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
CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, 1951 - 2026 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...
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
Like its popular predecessor, this critical edition is designed for "teaching the conflicts" surrounding Mark Twain7;s classic novel. It reprints the 1885 text of the first American edition (with a portfolio of illustrations) along with critical essays representing major critical and cultural...
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.

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