More Thoughts on Banned Books Week

As promised, I have more fun Banned Books Week content from the Open Road Media folks to bookend the week's celebration. Did anyone read a banned book this week? Anyone discover a book that's been banned or challenged that really surprised you? I think they stopped surprising me after I learned people have tried to ban Shel Silverstein's poetry from A LIGHT IN THE ATTIC for ridiculous reasons like, "A suggestive illustration that might encourage kids to break dishes so they won't have to dry them." Alrighty then.

But enough about my thoughts, let's see what our final three authors have to say about books that have been banned:

Loren D. Estleman is the award-winning author of more than sixty-five novels, including mysteries and westerns. His most enduring character, Amos Walker, has been featured in twenty novels and his adventure novel, The High Rocks was nominated for a National Book Award. Before “sounding off” on which banned books surprised him the most, Estleman thanked us for “sending the latest list of The Damned”.

I’m never surprised by any of the choices, however innocuous some of them may seem. There will always be pinch-brained bigots who aren’t satisfied just to take offense at a thing, but to keep everyone else from being exposed to it, and since these days the censorship comes from left as well as right, there’s no mystery of the length of the list.

I’ve read many, although, not most, of these books, and in some cases (1984, In Cold Blood, The Sun Also Rises) have re-read them more than once. The best ones make me reconsider my world or take me far away from it; but these are all my favorites if they spike the blood pressure – fatally, perhaps – of the human slime that would set a match to them.

I don’t waste time getting angry over the choices, because it infuriates me that any book should be banned for any reason. This is America. Our society was founded on the principle that no idea is as dangerous as any action taken to silence it. 

Edgar award-winning author Jonathon King is the creator of the Max Freeman crime series. A police and court reporter for twenty-four years with the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and Philadelphia Daily News, King talks about his favorite book on the banned list.

My favorite on the list is East of Eden, which I’ve read several times, and if it’s banned for some reason, pity. Louis L'Amour said: “Shakespeare's work has lived as long as it has because he dealt with normal human emotions; envy, ambition, rivalry, love, hate, greed and so on. These are the basic drives among us humans and are with us forever.”

Put all those things in a story and you’ve got East of Eden. If you want to ban literary depictions of those emotions, put your head in the sand because you’ve got nothing. 

Stephen Rebello is a screenwriter, journalist, and the author of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, which has been bought by Paramount Pictures and The Montecito Picture Company for production as a dramatic feature film. The horror film expert speaks out on the topic of banning books as it relates to Capote, Hitchcock, and more.

Banning books? What a pointless, wrong-headed, and flat-world pursuit. I’m with the much-censored Mark Twain who wrote, “the truth is, that when a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me.” One of my very favorites on the list of so-called “banned books” is In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s brilliant, bone-freezing nonfiction novel about the killing of the Clutter family in rural Holcomb, Kansas. The prose is beautifully lean and disciplined. Its documentary-like, you-are-there atmosphere is palpable. Evil has rarely seemed so banal, terrifying, and heartbreaking. I sometimes tend to bracket director RichardBrooks’ very good film version of In Cold Blood with certain aspects of Alfred Hitchcock’s film of Robert Bloch’s Psycho—a dark, nasty, despairing novel so many claim to have read but clearly haven’t. Both Brooks’ and Hitchcock’s films have eloquent, moody black-and-white cinematography, of course, but they also share a tough, bleak, unsparing view of the way the world works. They’re works of great outrage and compassion. Bloch’s novel has apparently never been high profile enough to land on “banned” lists, but Hitchcock’s notorious and phenomenally successful 1960 movie brought on cries for censorship by a number of church organizations and at least one publicity-happy, barnstorming psychiatrist who, rumor had it, Hitchcock cleverly and quietly bought off. All that said, nothing I’ve written to date has been banned. But rest assured, on my new stuff, I’m working very hard to rectify this oversight. 

While everyone has books they think are inappropriate or wrong, when we start banning books from libraries and schools and whatnot, there's no line or stopping point. Any book becomes fair game. The true power against things such as racism or sexism or violence isn't limiting access to books that might contain them, it's educating our young people. This week recognizes our citizens' rights to read what they choose to read. Many thanks to the authors of Open Road Media who helped us highlight this week and its importance to our society.

Happy Reading - because you CAN!

Banned Books Week 2011

If you've been reading this blog awhile, you may remember my Banned Books Week post here about To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm very passionate about my right to read what I choose to read. I'm also passionate about educating our young people so they know how to read and how to determine what's good and worthy versus what's destructive and wrong. If our energies focus on educating people, we shouldn't need to withhold anything.

It's Banned Books Week this week, and the wonderful folks at Open Road Media have shared some great content with me to celebrate this week. I'm going to divide it up so that we can start and end this week in celebration of our right to read uncensored.

So, today, courtesy of Open Road Media, we have bestselling authors speaking out on behalf of Banned Books Week by sharing their favorite banned books and more.

Susan Isaacs is a New York Times bestselling author of mysteries and literary fiction. Her first mystery, Compromising Positions, was a runaway success and adapted into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. The former president of the Mystery Writers of America, she is also the winner of several awards including the John Steinbeck Award. Ms. Isaacs shares her favorite on the Banned Books List.

My favorite banned book is Huckleberry Finn. It's famous for its depiction of race and class in America, but what I love most are the characters. They are so human -- courageous, venal, funny, cruel -- and seem more alive than half the people I meet every day. Yes, the escaped slave is called Nigger Jim, but that was the truth of the time, the offhand viciousness Suppressing that fact to save feelings from being hurt is the cowardly way out.

I don't want anyone else judging what books I can read. I don't need to be protected. Anyway, who is fit to judge? A Supreme Court justice? A librarian? Whom do you trust to ban books for you or your kids? And if the person you'd choose is too busy, or not interested in being a censor, who gets the job?

I am never surprised at any book being banned. Everybody has a sore spot, some idea he or she thinks is dangerous to let out. We want to shut up racists, gun advocates, gay advocates, blasphemers, and mega-church preachers. If we can ban Merchant of Venice or Catch-22, the world will be a better place. Wrong. Shut up a neighbor and next week or next year it's your favorite book's turn to get muzzled Weenies ban books. They're scared of new thoughts and tough words. Be brave. Fight censorship. And buy a banned book.

Jon Land, bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty-five novels shares with readers his favorite banned book along with which book on the list surprises him the most.

I'd have to say my favorite banned book is Huckleberry Finn. It's not only one of my favorite books, but also arguably the greatest American novel ever written. To even consider taking it from shelves, and restricting its teaching by teachers, risks denying young people a coming of age tale that pictures America in the last moments before the Industrial revolution, capturing an innocence that in Twain's mind was always a sham. Huck himself remains one of the great American heroes of all time and his character provides countless life lessons of loyalty, friendship, heroism, and sacrifice that are denied to those who reach up to grab the book only to find it's not there.

As far as which surprises me the most? Well, the truth is any and all of them. But I'm going to focus on The Diary of Anne Frank because to deny access to this book, in any way, shape, or form, is to risk denying the horrors perpetuated on humanity by the most vile monsters in modern history. And to deny those horrors is to risk the very real possibility that such monsters could return in a different age with a different target. Could the banning of a single book cause such a thing? Of course not. But the mentality that would allow such a book to be banned could definitely allow, if not encourage, a new wave of monsters and the heinous acts they perpetuate.

New York Times bestselling Dame Ruth Rendell has written more than seventy books and sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, including her popular crime series featuring Chief Inspector Wexford. Dame Rendell, who lives in the U.K. was surprised to hear any of these books had been banned.

I'd no idea any of these books were banned anywhere. My two favourites would be Orwell's 1984 because it is, in my opinion, the best science fiction ever written, and a wonderful cry for freedom and expose of what we have to fear in the modern world, and Alice in Wonderland because I first read it when I was about five, because it is funny and witty and clever, which most children's books are not and it stays with you in all its details for the whole of your life. 

So now it's your turn. What is YOUR favorite banned book? Or what surprised you the most when you heard it had been challenged or banned? I will have another group of authors sharing their thoughts on banned books Friday, so check back!

Monday Mystery Backlist - IN COLD BLOOD

As I mentioned yesterday, this is National Banned Books Week. In honor of this, I decided to highlight a banned book for the Monday Mystery Backlist title. Last year I reviewed TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for Banned Books Week, which in my opinion is one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, crime fiction book. This year, I'm highlighting a book by an author who was actually represented in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. For those that don't know, the character of Dill was inspired by Harper Lee's childhood friend, Truman Capote. Harper Lee also worked with Truman Capote to research the crime that became the basis for IN COLD BLOOD.

IN COLD BLOOD, banned as recently as 2000, is a true crime novel about the 1959 brutal murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife and their two children. The crime takes place in Kansas and the novel chronicles not only the Clutter family but also the lives of the two men convicted of the horror, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, and the effects on the community. IN COLD BLOOD was originally published as a four-part serial in THE NEW YORKER in 1965. It was then published in book form by Random House in 1966.

IN COLD BLOOD was banned for a short time in a high school in Savannah, Georgia, when a parent complained about "sex, violence, and profanity" in the book, which was a part of the schools AP English program. Luckily, a community protest resulted in a reversal of the ban.

IN COLD BLOOD has subsequently been adapted into several feature films and a miniseries.

Presently, IN COLD BLOOD is available from Random House in a hardcover edition (ISBN: 978-0375507908) re-released in 2002 as well as a Vintage 1994 trade paper edition (ISBN: 978-0679745587). For the audiophiles among us, there is an unabridged version (ISBN: 978-0739333648) from Random House Audio produced in 2006.