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Location: SC, USA | Hey Dave, Banned Books Week is coming soon. I am going to submit a Banned Books mini-challenge. I've compared the WWE list to ALA's lists from 2000-2013. There's only one missing book, L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time. Could you please add it to the WWE list? Thanks, Rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhondak101 - 2014-09-13 7:31 AM Hey Dave, Banned Books Week is coming soon. I am going to submit a Banned Books mini-challenge. I've compared the WWE list to ALA's lists from 2000-2013. There's only one missing book, L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time. Could you please add it to the WWE list? Thanks, Rhonda Done deal and a great idea! |
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| Cabell's Jurgen was the subject of a famous obscenity trial almost 100 years ago. This far predates the ALA lists, but, given that the book's printing plates were seized in the course of the case, I would think that this qualifies.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Engelbrecht - 2014-09-19 4:00 AM Cabell's Jurgen was the subject of a famous obscenity trial almost 100 years ago. This far predates the ALA lists, but, given that the book's printing plates were seized in the course of the case, I would think that this qualifies. I've added Jurgen to the Banned list and I'll get the cover image done at lunch. Thanks! |
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Location: SC, USA |
Engelbrecht, Good catch! Thanks Banned Books Week this year is focusing on comics. The press release is here. And here is the list of banned/challenged comics. So, you could add the Sandman series and Watchmen to the list as well since they are already in WWE. No pressure. I know you are busy. In a somewhat related note, graphic novels got some big recognition this week when Alison Bechdel was awarded a McArthur “Genius Grant.” And on a totally unrelated side note, Terrance Hays, an alum from my tiny college also won a McArthur Grant. He was here before my time, but we are still very proud. Fingers crossed that these links actually work. Rhonda
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | If I remember right, Jurgen was yet another case where the publicity surrounding the obscenity case led to a huge increase in sales for a novel that you wouldn't expect to have mass appeal. Cabell took advantage by satirically skewering the trial itself in the a revised version of the novel a few years later, which makes it even funnier that it already was.The satirical target must have been irresistible, since the "obscenity" could not be found in a literal reading of the novel, but only in the mind of the reader. Sometimes a sword is just a sword!
And thanks for the links, Rhonda. I've read most of those comics at one time or another, which must explain my current level of depravity. (The idea that someone would try to keep kids from reading "Bone" should remind us to be vigilant about this issue, and the CBLDF does great work challenging these bans, for anyone considering a donation...) The list understandably looks at more recent work, but the entire comics industry was nearly wrecked in the 1950s by the hysteria created by Frederick Wertham, a psychologist who claimed that comics were a cause of "juvenile delinquency." EC Comics ("Tales from the Crypt", "Weird Science", etc.--home to some of the most talented comics creators at the time) was decimated by the subsequently imposed "comics code", which publishers adopted in order to save themselves from further persecution/prosecution, and which required the surviving publishers to adhere to strict content guidelines, and which remained unchallenged until well into the '70s.
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Location: SC, USA | Dear Scott, I took look at your list of books you've read and see that you don't list Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I think you would enjoy it because it looks at the development of the comics industry and the novel ends with Wertham and the Senate hearings. It is a stellar book. Did I mention it won a Pulitzer? 
Rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhondak101 - 2014-09-19 11:27 AM And here is the list of banned/challenged comics. So, you could add the Sandman series and Watchmen to the list as well since they are already in WWE. No pressure. I know you are busy.
I put the first of the Sandman books on the list and the Watchmen. Thanks for those updates! |
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | @Rhonda. Thanks for the recommendation. As it happens, I recently picked that up as an audiobook in an Audible sale. Looking forward to it! |
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banned books week