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
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Lambton County Library February Recommended Reading
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The Communist manifesto
Marx, Karl 1818-1883
Paper Book
A rousing call to arms whose influence is still felt today, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto is edited with an introduction by Gareth Stedman-Jones in Penguin Classics. Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, The Communist Manifesto...

Reason for challenge: political ideology

Fight Club
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Paper Book
Chuck Palahniuk's startling and outrageous debut novel, basis of the hit movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with...

Reason for challenge: violent content, anti-social behaviour

The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret 1939-
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 ...

Reason for challenge: violence, offensive language

Beyond order : 12 more rules for life
Peterson, Jordan B.
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
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
Hazelwood, Ali
Paper Book
Third-year PhD candidate Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships - but her best friend does. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating was always going to require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees - Adam Carlsen, a young...

Reason for challenge: scientific inaccuracies, sexual content

Fun home : a family tragicomic
Bechdel, Alison 1960-
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 1917-1993
Paper Book
A vicious 15-year-old hoodlum is the central character of this modern classic, first published in 1963 and later made into a Stanley Kubrick film. Contains a controversial chapter not previously published and a new introduction.

Reason for challenge: sexual content, violent content, immoral

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.
Paper Book
A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on theNew York Timesbestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women,...

Reason for challenge: racism, sexual content, LGBTQ+

The color purple
Walker, Alice 1944-
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence. With a new Preface by the author.

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

Carrie
King, Stephen 1947-
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 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 secret power. Unpopular and tormented, Carrie White's...

Reason for challenge: violent content, depiction of religion

Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich 1899-1977
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...

Reason for challenge: obscene

The satanic verses : a novel
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.

Reason for challenge: blasphemous

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...

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 1894-1963
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...

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

Someone knows my name : a novel
Hill, Lawrence 1957-
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

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
Bradbury, Ray 1920-2012
Paper Book
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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