451 Degrees Away From Education
September 13th, 2006 Ryan Jones
Google is celebrating our freedom to read with their addition of Banned Books to Google Book Search. (yet they still haven’t added Internet Slang Dictionary)
Take a look at the list though… I remember distinctly reading over half of these books in high school and college. To Kill a MockingBird is still one of my favorite all time books. If you haven’t read it, now’s a good time.
1984, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and The Sun Also Rises (along with some non banned books like The Stranger and Death of a Salesman) helped shape the very person I am. Without these books my mind wouldn’t be open to the things it is today.
To ban the books on this list is a travesty. None of these books deserved to be banned, they deserve to be mandatory reading for all Americans; 1984 especially.
How many of these books have you read? I Myself have read 9 (and seen 2 movies). Do you think any of them deserve to be banned? Let me know in the comments.
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1 Comment
1. Vaughan | August 15th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Personally, I’ve read 6 and seen 1 on the screen. The thing I wonder is what are the reasons for challenging them? Actually, I don’t really wonder at all. I’m pretty sure that most of them boil down to fear. We’ve gotten to be such a coddling, ‘nurturing’ society, that reality and realism (even when shown in a fictional setting) is seen as too scary (or enlightening?) for the general masses. I recently reread a few of these books, and it’s amazing how much more my eyes were opened this time through. In high school, 1984 was a good book. Six months ago it scared the hell out of me. Society can’t accept a look in the mirror. That’s why these classics are being shunned. Society is hiding from itself.