Banned Books Week

I don't recall many details from most of the movies I saw as a child, but Fahrenheit 451 made a huge impression on a book-loving younster. Although the book by Ray Bradbury on which the movie is based isn't banned in too many places today, it was asked to be banned in Texas as recently as 2006 by a man who didn't want his daughter reading about bad language and violence, "downgrading Christians" and "talking about our firemen." Sounds to me like the man didn't even bother to read the book.

Today marks the beginning of the annual Banned Books Week sponsored by the American Library Association, celebrating the importance of the First Amendment and intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.

A few stats: the ALA received 4,312 challenges to books in their member libraries between 2001 and 2009: 1,413 for "sexually explicit" material, 1,125 due to "offensive language," 897 challenges due to material deemed "unsuited to age group," 514 challenges due to "violence," 344 challenges due to "homosexuality," 109 materials were challenged because they were "anti-family," and 269 because of their "religious viewpoints.

If you think censorship only happens in Texas and third-world countries, think again. Canada has its share of book challenges, as does New Zealand and various others.  And it's not just books:  Ireland just last year lifted its ban on the film The Life of Brian by the Monty Python comedy troupe.

It will be interesting to see how censorship plays out during this era of e-books. Although we've readly seen the ability of Amazon to reach out remotely into everyone's Kindles and delete a book, as the various e-book readers, platforms and providers mutliply, it seems to me it's going to be more difficult than ever before to ban a book completely. There will still be challenges to libraries and any place print books are located, but perhaps the era of digital books will at least mean an end to book burning.

For your "entertainment," here's a slide show of "History's Greatest Book Burners" via the Daily Beast; the 11 Most Surprising Banned Books, from Huffpo; the 16 Most WTF Banned Books, from Popcrunch; and Books You Could Have Been Jailed for Reading, via The Independent.