Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2008, marks BBW's 27th anniversary. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.Wondering what to read? Here's a list including my favorite book of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird
Wondering what you can do? Here are some ideas.
And if you live in Portland, you can go to this event.
Saturday, October 4, 1–2:30 p.m. - Central Library, U.S. Bank Room
Please join us for Banned Books Week, an annual celebration that highlights the importance of intellectual freedom and reminds us to cherish this precious democratic right. Lawyer Steven T. Wax will be our guest speaker. As head of the Oregon Federal Public Defenders' Office, Mr. Wax was responsible for representing inmates at Guantánamo. He also represented Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer who was falsely linked to the Madrid train station bombing. His book, Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror — A Public Defender's Inside Account, examines this and other cases and the erosion of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11.
2 comments:
That's funny. I had the library event on my list of things to do. I really want to read his book.
NPR did a little BBW story the other day about the banning The Grapes of Wrath. They said the reason it was banned in some places was that it cast in a negative light those in power who took advantage of or failed to help Dust Bowl refugees, but those in power used the classic profanity argument to get the masses behind them when they banned the book, including getting a Dust Bowl refugee to burn the book while the press looked on.
Thanks for the reminder to be grateful that we live where ideas are free.
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