Dawn B. Sova

Very interesting. A lot of the situations would not have occurred to me, and I am thankful that my own parents were never crazy enough to challenge any of the books I read due to my sensitive nature. A lot of the books are banned or censored and were expected from my end since I had read a few of them and knew of the offending passages.

Some of them are offensive because it depicts women thinking, some are offensive because of language and still others are offensive because of sexual show more situations. Considering all this garbage of censorship and bowdlerization, I am surprised that some of Shakespeare was never formally opposed. Although, given the fact that there are 120 of them in here, it could have been challenged and I forgot. I mean, Oliver Twist by Dickens is in there because of how it depicts Jews in the 1830s. No seriously, instead of using it as a bridge to teach people how things were in the 1830s, they decide all out to go and try to ban it because it hurts their widdle feelings. Yeah, that isn't a typo, I was using baby talk to mock people that would consider their feelings hurt by a book writing about things that seriously happened. Not that Oliver Twist was real or true or anything, but the depiction of how Jews were perceived is valid.

Some other books were challenged because it made people "uncomfortable." For instance, To Kill a Mockingbird was challenged because it contains the word "nigger." I guess I can understand wanting to defend your child from the truth that such words were used back then to refer to a group of people, namely black people, but can't we move to discuss it rather than try to stamp it out?

One book I am surprised about is The Holy Bible. Not because it was included at all but because of the reason it was included. It wasn't because of the horrible things that happened in it or the sex scenes or anything like that, it was because of the Roman Catholic Church opposing their own power being challenged. See, back in the fourth century, some Saint translated the Bible into Vulgate Latin from it's Greek and Hebrew roots. The Roman Catholic Church(called the RCC from now on if I need to) decided that it was wrong to allow common people to be able to read the Bible in their own local language and called the Vulgate Latin text the only true bible. The RCC bitterly defended this right by killing the translators of the Bible under charges of Heresy. However, we all know how that turned out with the Schisms after the 95 theses of Martin Luther.

Censorship and bowdlerization are things that are unforgivable to me because they prevent the free exchange of ideas and the benefits of a democratic society. All this book really served to do was expand my own reading list, though it was written pretty well. It also includes further reading for each book mentioned to find out the particulars of why it was challenged. show less

This is a marvelous encyclopedia to all things Poe, whether you're looking for information about Poe stories, both well-known and obscure, or you're looking for the real-world people who had influences on Poe's life and writings. This over-sized paperback volume features extensive biographic and bibliographic entries, as well as numerous black and white illustrations. Appendixes at the back of this book include a Poe Timeline, a complete chronology of Poe's writings, and a very detailed show more bibliography of additional works about Poe. This isn't a work to just sit down and read for pleasure, but it's a very handy reference guide, with well-written (though sometimes brief) articles about Poe, his world and and his works.

Originally reviewed for my local library's website: http://www.lincolnlibraries.org/depts/bookguide/srec/staffrec10-11.htm show less

This is a fascinating and useful catalogue of significant literature that has been banned at sometime around the world. Each entry includes a short essay highlighting the issues surrounding the banning of the book.

An interesting mix of books here, and the write-ups about how and why they were banned were nicely done.