HOT TOPIC & GIVEAWAY: Banned Books Week - Sept. 25 - Oct. 1
2016 marks the 34th Annual Banned Books Week. What is Banned Books Week you ask?
Sponsored by the American Library Association and Amnesty International, along with various other literary agencies and the Library of Congress, it is a week-long celebration of the freedom to read.
Designed to raise awareness of banned and challenged books as well as persecuted individuals it "stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them and the requirement to keep material publicly available so that people can develop their own conclusions and opinions.”
Some of our greatest, most revered and even loved books have been challenged and/or banned over the years. Many of which are used in public schools today. Including Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Even Harry Potter, Gone with the Wind and The Holy Bible have met with challenge.
More recently censors appear to be focusing on books that represent diverse points of view, as discussed in this Time article.
When the American Library Association started keeping a database of challenged books in the early ’90s, the reasons cited were fairly straightforward, according to James LaRue, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “‘Don’t like the language,’ or ‘There’s too much sex’—they’d tend to fall into those two categories,” he says. Some books are still challenged for those reasons—Fifty Shades of Grey is a common example. But there’s been a shift toward seeking to ban books “focused on issues of diversity—things that are by or about people of color, or LGBT, or disabilities, or religious and cultural minorities,” LaRue says. “It seems like that shift is very clear.”
I know that many of us who read, or even write, under the LGBT umbrella could attest to this. Take a moment and look at this list of authors in the M/M genre who have had their books banned in the last few years by Amazon and/or other eBook retailers.
Joseph Lance Tonlet: Brother’s LaFon
Joseph Lance Tonlet and Louis Stevens: Quillon’s Covert
Lynn Kelling: Twin Ties Series
Brad Vance: Luke and Slader, The Whole Story
Max Vos: Going Home
Michael Mandrake: N’Awlins Exotica Paranormal Series
Kyle Michel Sullivan: How to Rape a Straight Guy and Porno Manifesto
A.M. Snead: Jackson’s Punishment
S. Knox: Perfect Boy/Perfect Son
Bey Deckard: Better the Devil You Know
GA Hauser: The Last Hard Man
It's sad but true that this is only a very small list of banned works from a tiny segment in a particular genre. The additional resources below paint a bigger picture.
Unfortunately censorship is still alive!
As is the intent of the ALA’s Banned Books Week initiative: It’s goal is "to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society."
In an effort to support the focus of Banned Books Week Kimmers' Erotic Book Banter would like to highlight one of these challenged works:
We are offering a SIGNED copy of this book to one lucky winner.
All you need to do is post below in the comments why you enjoy reading banned books and what one of your favorite banned books is. The names of those who comment will be placed in Randomizer and ONE lucky winner will be chosen.
GIVEAWAY TO BE HELD ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4TH.
For more information visit: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/
Other Recourses Used for this Article
