Courtesy of Laila Lalami (a very good Moroccan writer who also keeps an interesting blog on many things Maghribi and literary, though not always both at once), the American Library Association is, uh, "celebrating" Banned Book Week right now. It's designed to raise awareness of book banning -- and burning -- that's gone on in the course of world and American history.
Here's the list of previously banned books. It's -- how to put this -- pretty shocking. Can you conceive of a world where Huckleberry Finn or The Color Purple were not essential high school reading but rather banned? How about Catcher in the Rye? As recent as 2007, these books were on the top ten most frequently banned books list.
Billy Bragg and Wilco - "All You Damn Fascists"
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