Banned Books published by Google 392
Lens Hood Man writes "Marking the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week, Google is inviting users to celebrate their freedom to read by making Banned Books available to all. From the Google Blog: "...you can use Google Book Search to explore some of the best novels of the 20th century which have been challenged or banned." Those books challenged this year include 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Lolita'."
...except china (Score:5, Funny)
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Cool links. [blogspot.com]
Re:Well, things are better here (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's why they're called Republicrats. Two sides of the same coin.
Just previews? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Just previews? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just previews? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's odd - Call of the Wild has been challenged?
It's informative - I've just started reading The Satanic Verses, and now i have a new reading list
It's missing? - I can't believe Farenheit 451 isn't on that list...
It's scary - many people in the world are denied access to these books.
It's scarier - many people in this country would have these books banned
It's sad - in 100 years, who knows if we'll all still have access to these books.
It's encouraging - challenges, even recently, to these books in schools and libraries have failed - let's hope history repeats itself in such a fashion for years to come.
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No need to let people know the actual consequences of letting governments sensor reading materials...
Project Gutenberg Has Most of Them (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of these I have seen on Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org].
Sometimes when I'm dying in my cubicle at work, I open up a random page of James Joyce's Ulysses [gutenberg.org] and drift away
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Re:Just previews? (Score:4, Informative)
Read 1984 in its entirety here [online-literature.com].
Re:Just previews? (Score:5, Funny)
A bit misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Google has not made these books available to read online, it just gives you the ability to find a library that has the book.
Re:A bit misleading (Score:4, Funny)
Hu.. what???.
Not evil, not good (Score:3, Funny)
Well at least they aren't paid links to Amazon.com.
these are banned? (Score:2, Insightful)
these books are actually banned? this lists sounds more like a list of required-reading books than banned books.
put Anarchist Cookbook on there. i dare you.
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Find me a copy of Wilhelm Reich's Creation. Or a 1922 edition of Joyce's Ulysses.
Freedom of the press, indeed.
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Intellectual dishonesty (Score:4, Funny)
These "Banned Books" lists that librarians like to trumpet tend to be lists of books which were ever banned anywhere by any library at any time, not books which are banned today. So if they can find that some old biddy in Vermont in 1903 didn't like "Huckleberry Finn", it goes straight on the list. The conclusion that you're supposed to draw is that Literature is Under Attack Even Today by Reactionaries who are hiding under your bed.
Re:Intellectual dishonesty (Score:5, Insightful)
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And also that any book currently banned isn't really literature and doesn't deserve any attention/protection.
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In general I agree, though there are recent complaints about Huckleberry
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Why do you think there are people who would like to see them banned?
I've got a friend who was raised a JW who was turned from the path of rightousness by the simple act of reading Have Spacesuit Will Travel. His parents weren't happy (and have been shunning him for decades). He wasn't even allowed to visit a library, but obtained the book by the simple invention of placing a library in a bus; the Bookmobile.
The book came to him w
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banned books? (Score:5, Funny)
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Lolita? (Score:2, Informative)
I thought there was something in the US constitution about "freedom of speech". Is it still possible to ban a book? And a book which happens to be one of the best books by one of the best authors of the 20th century...
What about the beautiful Kubrick film with Peter Sellers?
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There was an episode of that sitcom MJF was in that dealt with this; his characters sister was told she couldn't do a book report on a certain book, but she did anyway and presented it.
Fortunately I think that crap has died out, but I remember it being a hot topic in the 80s. My HS required us to read several of the books on that list. I wish F451 got more attention; similar to 1984 and addresses this to
Re:Lolita? (Score:4, Informative)
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This is the top ten challenged in 2005
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A Couple Good Resources for Finding Banned Books (Score:5, Informative)
[1] http://www.amazon.com/100-Banned-Books-Censorship- Literature/dp/0816040591 [amazon.com] k s/100mostfrequently.htm [ala.org]
[2] http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlin
Not all banned/challenged books are meaningful (Score:4, Interesting)
#7 : Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
#19: Sex by Madonna
#88: Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
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Re:Not all banned/challenged books are meaningful (Score:5, Informative)
"Where's Waldo?" was challenged because of one part in the beach scene where a kid is sticking an ice cream cone on the back of a young lady causing her to lift her topless chest off the ground enough to see breasts. (It should be noted that her top is on the towel under her.)
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Thanks for the info!
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Apparently one of the frames from the adult edition of the book was mistakenly placed inside a proof for the children's edition. The scene depicted is a giant orgy.
This is, of course, a scandalous oversight. Children should not have to see Waldo's head sticking out of some poor woman's crotch.
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Holy crap! (Score:2)
1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of the Flies, Ulysses, Heart of Darkness, A Farewell to Arms, Invisible Man.
Why not just ban all books from the second half of the 20th century and be done with it? These are CLASSICS, the books literature experts practically memorize by heart. What next? Are we going to ban The Odyssey because of the violence?
Excellent timing. (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, every book that Google has up there has been banned or challenged in public libraries across the country. There are still places where 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'Tom Sawyer' are considered improper reading for children - and for adults.
Good work, Google. Keep on it.
Ready for the Bookstore (Score:2)
Call of the wild has the wrong author listed (Score:2)
The Call of the Wild
James Baldwin
"Baldwin... has really unusual substantive powers but conventional ingenuity in form...[a] beautiful, furious first novel." - The New York Times
I do believe it was Jack London.
Five of these were my High School textbooks! (Score:2)
That's 12%. Can anyone do better?
"banned" theme getting to be kind of lame (Score:2)
Banned books are a historical curiosity now, at least in the lands where people are going to get excited about this. You aren't brave for reading Lolita.
Google Cut and Paste! (Score:3, Informative)
Banned... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Such abilities are dangerous to existing power structures, be they governmental or religious.
They hate our freedoms (Score:3, Funny)
*psst*
*mumble mumble mumble*
"America? Really?"
"Can't we jazz it up to so I can use it in a speech on terrorism? No? Karl will figure out a way."
Interesting use of the word banned. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I would like to see libraries "ban" more books.
Chariot of the Gods would be a good start.
Why wasn't the Bible on the list? It is banned in and or restricted heavily in many countries.
Also I didn't see any Holocaust denial books or pro Nazi books on the list. Those have been banned in many countries as well.
If you are going to pretend that you support freedom of speech I guess posting a list of books "banned" in some US high schools is a freaking safe way to do it.
I have to admit that publishing a book online that you can can buy at most any book store in the US really does make up for censoring pro-democracy cites in China. Good for you Google. Let us all bask in your "Celebration of the Freedom to Read".
I think I will go puke now.
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I guess the list has only books that were banned somewhere in US, but for some of them they also list some other countries where they w
Banned Books and Rock Stars (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been seeing a lot of comments about "Hey, I read most of those books in High School! How can they be banned?" First of all, this is a list taken out of context... many of those books were taken out of libraries due to topics that are not controversial now, but were controversial a few decades ago. Depictions of euthanasia ("Of Mice and Men"), drug addiction ("To Kill a Mockingbird", "Brave New World"), sex (Lots of books on the list), even favorable depictions of non-Caucasian races ("Adventures of Huckleberry Finn") all would be cause to get a book banned. In hindsight, it seems silly, but every generation has its taboos. Just TRY to get a book approved about terrorism or school shootings in today's English curriculum. AIDS is okay to talk about now, but it wasn't 20 years ago.
It's a lot like Rock stars. They do a lot of publicity stunts and live a lifestyle that seems garish and offensive to the social conservatives of their time, but looking back in hindsight, most of the hype is just plain silly. Biting off the head of a bat? Ozzie, your domestic home life is much scarier than that; so is the fact that we find it entertaining to televise it.
Second, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of these books are chosen by high school English teachers in a misguided attempt to jazz up their curriculum. "Ooo, this was a banned book. That'll reach out to my jaded kids who barely can read a page a day, let alone a whole book." I don't think they realize how big the Cliff Notes market is, or how easy it is to rip off essays about banned books from the Wikipedia.
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According to Ozzy, that incident was a mistake. Apparently some fool threw a real bat on the stage and Ozzy bit the head off thinking it
Missing words (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize Google is based in the US and this isn't necessarily even an accusation of USA-centrism (why would I even object? I'm a US citizen myself..) but it is a factual omission that seems important considering this will be seen by Google's hundreds of millions of users all over the world.
How come? (Score:4, Funny)
Search Issues? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I got was a list of about 75 books with "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the title, including many screenplays, references, notes, etc. I think there are a lot of duplicates, too, with minor differences in the book's meta data. It was extremely difficult to distinguish which one is the "real" book.
After trying five or six links that looked like it might be the right one, I gave up.
Bah! (Score:4, Interesting)
One that's not even in Project Gutenburg.
One that google won't even show you if you use moderate safesearch.
One that has been banned in more countries than any other.
120 days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade
Warning: NSFW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_120_Days_of_Sodo
Quite possibly the most fucked up thing ever written.
Or turned into a movie for that matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal%C3%B2_o_le_120_g
People ban stuff for the silliest reasons. Half of those books were banned merely because of racism or one or two possibly offensive subjects.
This is a true banned book. If you are not offended by it, you are quite possibly a horrible human being.
Even saying that, I think you should read it. It puts perspective on things.
Re:Homework assignment (Score:5, Funny)
HINT: both involve overloading of terms.
Ob Family Guy Quote: (Score:4, Funny)
"What the hell does rant mean?"
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HINT: both involve overloading of terms.
Answer: Both break if you use non-pointer types when adding items to STL lists
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Re:Homework assignment (Score:5, Funny)
Kidding! Of course they do.
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Of course they do - where else are you gonna store all those Bibles?
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Good god; voilence, terrorism, fratricide, sex, rape, a whole section devoted to love poems - writen by a self proclaimed polygamist!, calls to vigilante justice. We just can't be letting anyone read that book!
Nope, of any of the books I've seen people protest over, the bible has more & worse.
Re:Where the hell is Mein Kampf? (Score:5, Informative)
"To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It's hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned."
Only those 42 books are online right now. Remember that the headlines are misleading (the thought that
Of course, as pointed by the parent, and pointed in other posts, a lot of significant works have been banned : Mein Kampf, Mark's Capital, the Bible, etc... but they are not in the top 100 NOVELS of the century.
Plus, may I be the first to say, that putting online all books that have been banned at one time and at one place in human history would be a very huge work and probably would result in a digitalization of the entire litterature.
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I believe digitization of our entire literature is the goal. Think big.
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Re:I don't see how they are banned books... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously: So many of the books on this list are completely and totally harmless. I can understand the challenges to "My Dad's Roommate" from a Christian perspective (Don't agree, but understand). But WTF is wrong with Waldo? "How to Eat Fried Worms" is a nice, innocent book. My mother is a conservative Mormon, and she loves to read it to her First Grade class every year.
The fact that many of these books make these lists says a lot about the mentality of people who want to ban books.
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Re:I don't see how they are banned books... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see how these are banned books... they might even choose at a community level not to stock your book at the library, that doesn't mean that your book has been banned.
If the government at any level forbids a library from carrying a book, it has been banned. In addition to that, books have been banned for ownership in certain localities.
Heck most libraries don't carry everything anyway, I can't go get Hustler and Playboy at my Library. At my local library I can't find copies of the Jane's Reference books, or many other books.
The difference is, is it the choice of the library or of an external influence? When some of the most popular and requested books, like the Harry Potter books, are not carried by the library because the city council has passed a law preventing the library from carrying them, then they are effectively being censored. This is a common occurrence and something everyone should be aware of.
There are good books on that list, but you don't need to hype them by saying that they have been banned or censored by "the man." You should take the books as what they are.
The point is, they have been banned and burned and what is being celebrated is victory over that. The fact that anyone can go online and find a way to get these books is worth celebrating.
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I disagree. I think that these books merely represent a list of books that were banned at some time and place and are currently not banned in this time and place. It does not mean that there aren't other books that are currently being banned. It does not mean that censorship as a concept has been defeated, only that the tastes of society have changed.
I think if someone wrote a book like "Lolita" today, they would prob
1984 Edgy? (Score:2)
It's just a rather blunt warning on freedom of speech and propaganda.
It's just in a story, rather than a simple explanation of why free speech and free thought are important.
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What I can't see is why anyone would want The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney banned.
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True enough, but it's worth pointing out on this forum that 1984 was a warning against socialism, not McCarthyism. Ingsoc is "English Socialism" [wikipedia.org].
(It's also worth pointing out that while McCarthy may have been overzealous, he was largely right, as declassified KGB records have shown; there were Communist operatives everywhere doing what damage they could, much of which we're still sufferring from. Research it.)
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King's very good, but "the best"?
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If you want quality, serious science fiction, check out Gardner Dozois's "Year's Best Science Fiction" ongoing anthology. There are no Star Wars stories in it, but you WILL find a lot of great MODERN science fiction writers who raise many interesting questions about present-day humanity.
-Eric
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He's never written anything contraversial. Never challanged any established ideas. IT was entertaining, but it doesn't have a political message or force us to re-evaluate how we define 'crazy.' It doesn't warn us of the dangers of certain ways of thinking like 1984 does or Brave New World.
Honestly, how could someone even think any of King's books are even in the same league.
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But...
Let me remind you that the Islamic-Fascist's go one better: attempt to kill the author.
Salman Rushdie and the cartoonists that drew the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark have had to live in hiding, Theo van Gogh was silenced forever by them.
Yes Virgina, evil exists and it wants to kill you.
Re:Banning a book is ok! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me remind you that the Islamic-Fascist's go one better: attempt to kill the author. Salman Rushdie and the cartoonists that drew the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark have had to live in hiding
I find the news coverage and people's opinions of the cartoon issue very interesting. Certain rabble rousers intentionally tried to cause trouble over the cartoons, the the point of sending ones they created and which had never been published anywhere to newspapers and to religious zealots in many countries. And yet, I saw not in one place, but in many, Muslim clerics placing themselves between an embassy and a mob throwing stones and trying to calm the situation and prevent violence. Islamic culture won big points in my mind that day.
I just picture a bunch of hicks from rural America showing up at an Iranian embassy after the widespread publication and promotion of pictures of jesus being sodomized. Then, to put it in context, I picture this happening in Texas, months after an army of middle easterners had conquered Mexico, bombing cities and sending frightened refugees to hide in the USA. Where each of these hicks knew some old friend or relative or friend of a friend or friend of a relative who had lost a mother or son or child to the bombings. And then I pictured all this happening after the President of Iran had made comments about how they should invade the US too, since the US had aided Mexico and all those christians were violent sodomites. With this picture in my mind, I wondered how many local pastors and priests in texas would be there, placing themselves between the rocks and the mob, and the Iranian embassy.
Yes Virgina, evil exists and it wants to kill you.
I don't approve of censorship or murder, but I do understand why people are convinced that both are right in certain circumstances. Lets just be sure not to pre judge people based upon religion or ethnicity. A catholic, muslim, or atheist is equally capable of promoting fascism.
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Listen to yourself - you are equating a funny picture showing the real state of affairs (i.e. the trend of Islamic states heading towards terrorism) to an intentionally offensive one of showing a religious head performing sexual acts.
Did they show Allah making out with a naked guy? All they did was have a comic commenting on Islamic terrorism
Re:"Islamo-Fascists" (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascism is also a good description of the ideology of the Neo-Cons here in the US. It's almost funny how we have one group of fascists calling another group fascists. It brings to mind that old quote from Huey Long:
When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag
Or, Long's response to the question of whether or not Fascism would ever come to the US:
Yes, but in America, we'll call it anti-fascism.
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I've also addressed this issue before [jroller.com].
I can't go so far as to claim that the United States has become totally Fascist (yet), but I stand by my claim that the neo-con ideology is
moving us in the direction of fascism. I'll even go so far as to say that "Neo-Con" is just a euphemism for "Fascist."
Re: Google China and Banned books, Irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a Black and White issue. (Score:4, Interesting)
I read this book in high school, and I came away from it with a new appreciation for the horrors of racism and injustice. How the hell is it degrading? By showing just how fucked-up the law was in regards to nonwhites?
Some black parents in my school district recently tried to have Mockingbird removed from the curiculum (but not from the library) and my first reaction was similar to yours. The media reports made it sound like their whole objection was that the book uses The 'N' Word and discussing it in class was offensive to them. When I went to the meeting however, I quickly discovered the issue was more complex. The main problem is that mostly white teachers choose this 46-year-old book by a white author to teach students about racism. 46 years ago, a novel by a white author was about the only way such a message could reach a wide audience, but in 2006 there have got to be better ways. Any black author knows far more about racism than Harper Lee (despite Mr. Lee's best intentions), and it's time for the curiculum to reflect that.
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The same thing goes on constantly with "Huckleberry Finn" - at least I assume it's similar - it is always presented in the press as being motivated by use of the N-word, but is perhaps more s
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A "ban" would typically refer to a law or ordinace passed which either removes said book from libraries, or prohibits its sale. Due to the way our Federal government works a lot of power devolves on states and on small municipalities, which aren't always run by the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean. They can ban or attempt to bad all sorts of stupid stuff for the most trivial of reasons. Getting something like that overturned on