Banned Books Week Day #4

I'm not entirely sure what makes a book "a classic", but I know that I enjoy reading many books that have been given this title. They often put me in a different place or time, and that is what a good read should do.

When I first heard about Banned Books Week, I looked at the list, and was shocked to see "To Kill a Mockingbird " was challeneged that year for profanity and racial slurs. Well, you shouldn't be surprised that I picked up a fresh copy of that book, and read it again. This is where I started to pick a book from the yearly challenged list to read during this week.

Here are the top ten Classics* - where 1-9 have been challenged/banned:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The entire list of Classics* can be found here on the ALA and the details for some of their challenges can be found here.

Interesting.

*=Radcliffe Publishing Course, now at Columbia, compiled a list of the top 100 novels from the 20th century.