Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Typically held during the last week of September, 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 23, 2024
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Nineteen eighty-four
Orwell, George
Paper Book
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens...
The hate U give
Thomas, Angie
Paper Book
Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2018. Winner of the 2018 Silver Inky Award #1 New York Times bestseller A Teen Vogue Best YA Book of the Year "Stunning."-John Green "A masterpiece."-The Huffington Post "An essential read for everyone."-Teen Vogue "Outstanding." -The Guardian Sixteen...
This book is gay
Dawson, James (Young adult fiction writer)
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
The perks of being a wallflower
Chbosky, Stephen
Paper Book
A modern cult classic, a major motion picture and a timeless bestseller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story.  Charlie is not the biggest geek in high school, but he's by no means popular. Shy,...
Ulysses
Joyce, James
Paper Book
Ulysses has been the subject of controversy since copies of the first English edition were burned by the New York Post Office authorities. Today critical interest centres on the authority of the text, and this edition, complete with an invaluable Introduction, notes, and appendices, republishes for...
Brave new world : with the essay "Brave new world revisited"
Huxley, Aldous
Paper Book
Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. INTRODUCED BY MARGARET ATWOOD Our perfect society achieves peace and stability by dispensing with monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs. You can be happy too. All you need to...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER ** Go back to where it all began with the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series. 'The Handmaid's Tale changed me profoundly, hopefully for the better' Lee Child, Guardian
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
Classic hardback edition of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, featuring Tolkien's original unused dust-jacket design. Includes special packaging and the definitive edition of the text with fold-out map and colour plate section. Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all...
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. "The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in]...
Alice's adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis
Paper Book
On an ordinary summer's afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange world with even stranger characters, she meets a rabbit with a pocket watch, joins a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and plays croquet with the Queen! Lost in this fantasy land, Alice finds...
American Psycho
Easton Ellis, Bret.
Paper Book
Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho is one of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. A multi-million-copy bestseller hailed as a modern classic, it is a violent and outrageous black comedy about the darkest side of human nature. With an introduction by...
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen.Over 1 million copies sold in the UK. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
Streetwise George and his big, childlike friend Lennie are drifters, searching for work in the fields and valleys of California. They have nothing except the clothes on their back, and a hope that one day they'll find a place of their own and live the American dream. But dreams come at a price....
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 falsely charged...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Discover Toni Morrison's most iconic work in this Pulitzer-prize winning novel that exemplifies her powerful and important place in contemporary American literature. 'An American masterpiece' AS Byatt It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
It's Christmas and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters - shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by...
Night
Wiesel, Elie
Paper Book
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity- the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of...
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 ...
I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya
Paper Book
Maya Angelou's six volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration.In this first...

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