Freedom To Read (Adult)

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom.

Despite having strong traditions of free expression and free inquiry, Canada also has a long-standing tradition of censorship. Historically, books and magazines have often been quietly removed from libraries and classrooms. Freedom to Read Week was founded in 1984 to challenge the covert nature of censorship, creating a broader awareness of these ongoing challenges to Canadian writing. It also encourages Canadians to actively defend their right to publish, read and write freely and to widen their understanding of the negative effects of censorship, not just on readers but on writers and publishers as well. Over the years, Freedom to Read Week has become a regular feature of the annual programming of schools, libraries and literary groups across Canada.

Updated December 30, 2025
L
Lambton County Library February Recommended Reading
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Freedom To Read (Adult)

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom.

Despite having strong traditions of free expression and free inquiry, Canada also has a long-standing tradition of censorship. Historically, books and magazines have often been quietly removed from libraries and classrooms. Freedom to Read Week was founded in 1984 to challenge the covert nature of censorship, creating a broader awareness of these ongoing challenges to Canadian writing. It also encourages Canadians to actively defend their right to publish, read and write freely and to widen their understanding of the negative effects of censorship, not just on readers but on writers and publishers as well. Over the years, Freedom to Read Week has become a regular feature of the annual programming of schools, libraries and literary groups across Canada.

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The Communist manifesto
Malia, Martin E.
Paper Book
The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, is one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration the authors produced this incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they...

Reason for challenge: political ideology

Fight Club : A Novel
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Paper Book
An underground classic since its first publication in 1996,Fight Clubis now recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels published in this decade. Chuck Palahniuk's darkly funny first novel tells the story of a godforsaken young man who discovers that his rage at living in a world...

Reason for challenge: violent content, anti-social behaviour

The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times). Now an award-winning series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning...

Reason for challenge: violence, offensive language

Beyond order 12 more rules for life
Paper Book
The companion volume to 12 Rules for Life offers further guidance on the perilous path of modern life.    In 12 Rules for Life, clinical psychologist and celebrated professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto Dr. Jordan B. ...

Reason for challenge: political ideology

Gossip Girl : a novel
Von Ziegesar, Cecily.
Paper Book
Serena van der Woodsen is back from boarding school -- but is she still the Upper East Side's It Girl? The wickedly funny first book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that inspired the original hit CW show and the HBO Max series. Welcome to...

Reason for challenge: sexual content, offensive language, LGBTQ+

The love hypothesis a novel
Hazelwood, Ali
Paper Book
When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman's carefully calculated theories on love into chaos.

Reason for challenge: scientific inaccuracies, sexual content

Fun home : a family tragicomic
Bechdel, Alison
Paper Book
A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic...

Reason for challenge: LGBTQ+, sexual content

Happy place
Henry, Emily.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry. "The beach-read master...

Reason for challenge: sexual content

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...

Reason for challenge: sexual content, violent content, immoral

Essex County
Lemire, Jeff.
Paper Book
Read the beloved classic that inspired the CBC miniseries! New York Times BestsellingcartoonistJeff Lemirepays tribute to his roots withEssex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of his hometown, the eccentric farming community of...

Reason for challenge: offensive language

The bluest eye
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. * With a new introduction by Jacqueline...

Reason for challenge: racism, sexual content, incest

I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya.
Ebook
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....

Reason for challenge: racism, sexual content, LGBTQ+

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...

Reason for challenge: sexual content, LGBTQ+, offensive language, violent content

Carrie
King, Stephen
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY MARGARET ATWOOD *  Stephen King's legendary debut, the bestselling smash hit that put him on the map as one of America's favorite writers * In a world where bullies rule, one girl holds a...

Reason for challenge: violent content, depiction of religion

Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir.
Audiobook
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...

Reason for challenge: obscene

The satanic verses : a novel
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 ...

Reason for challenge: blasphemous

Snow falling on cedars
Guterson, David.
Paper Book

Reason for challenge: sexual content

Flowers for Algernon
Keyes, Daniel.
Paper Book
Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, this powerful, classic science fiction story is about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache. Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ,...

Reason for challenge: offensive language

Brave new world
Huxley, Aldous.
Audiobook

Reason for challenge: sexual content, offensive language, anti-family themes, anti-religious themes

Fall on your knees
MacDonald, Ann-Marie
Paper Book
The Piper family is steeped in secrets, lies, and unspoken truths. At the eye of the storm is one secret that threatens to shake their lives -- even destroy them. Set on stormy Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, Fall on Your Knees is an internationally acclaimed...

Reason for challenge: sexual content, violent content, LGBTQ+

The book of negroes
Hill, Lawrence
Paper Book
Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom--and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War....

Reason for challenge: offensive language

Wenjack
Boyden, Joseph
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the 2017 OLSN Northern Lit Award An Ojibwe boy runs away from a North Ontario Indian School, not realizing just how far away home is. Along the way he's followed by Manitous, spirits of the forest who comment on his plight, cajoling, taunting, and...

Reason for challenge: cultural appropriation

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...

Reason for challenge: depiction of Nazi symbols

Fahrenheit 451 A novel
Bradbury, Ray.
Ebook
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....

Reason for challenge: offensive language, violent content, religious and political ideology

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