Comments on: Friday Favorite Banned Books

By: Unsympathetic reader

Unsympathetic reader — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 03:45:00 +0000

Does “Where’s Waldo?” count as dystopian fiction? Perhaps it’s banned because that series depicts a world too bleak and foreign for modern youth: A world where the reader searches over and over for the man, Waldo, who by some cruel turn of fate doesn’t have a cell phone, and thus cannot send a text message describing his whereabouts.

By: Weemaryanne

Weemaryanne — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:42:00 +0000

I remember “How to Eat Fried Worms” — I thought I was the only one! Thanks!

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:52:00 +0000

Dystopian fiction for the win! If we're going for genuine enjoyment and not just some measure of "historical importance", I'd nominate Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Lois Lowry's The Giver.The first third of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy — that is, the book sold as Northern Lights or The Golden Compass — is also terrific. The two later instalments were, I found, rather "spongy": they had lots of good stuff, but the overall structure wasn't so carefully managed as in the first book.

By: Cujo359

Cujo359 — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:58:00 +0000

I must confess to being something of a philistine. I haven't read all that many of those books, so what my favorites are would probably not be all that interesting. I got a kick out of Catch 22 - it was terrific satire. I'm surprised that Slaughterhouse Five is on the list. If one were inclined to object to sex and strange ideas in a book, it seems to me to be much less objectionable than some of Vonnegut's other books.I liked the Earth's Children series. The stories were so rich in the details of how people might have survived back then that it's worth it on that basis alone.

By: Chaos Lee

Chaos Lee — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:03:00 +0000

Two come to mind. Catcher in the Rye and American Psycho. I was overly-critical of American Psycho on my first reading (was about 21). Upon revisiting the book, I don’t believe there is a better criticism of unrestrained capitalism and the weird culture it creates. The book is horribly violent, and to many, reads as misogynistic, racist, ultra-violent. But with any smart book, it isn’t (well, it is ultra-violent). Rather, it portrays it. Of course, Brett Easton Ellis will be the first to tell you he can’t even bring himself to read the book and claims when writing it he would black out and find pages completed.