Banned Books Week '09

It's ALA | Banned Books Week and I say burn those bras! Oops, wrong era. Burn and ban those books! Nothing makes an item more popular than prohibition. Nothing makes people want to do something more than someone else saying "No you can't."

In junior high school, Julie Weitz's mother got a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover, smuggled into the country who knows how. Julie and I spent the night under the covers with a flashlight, giggling over all the underlined parts.

By high school, I'd graduated to finding my mother's copy of Peyton Place. I "borrowed" it, replacing the the slipcover with one from another book. Just my luck, she wanted to continue reading the scandalous exposé before I finished devouring it.

My college years introduced Lawrence Durrell's The Black Book and Alexandria Quartet and Henry Miller's Black Spring. I still have those paperbacks from the 60s.

Supposedly, I was all grown up before acquiring Lolita, but young enough to thrill to the idea of reading a forbidden pleasure. Later additions have included erotic books by Anais Nin and Pauline Reage's The Story of O (more distressing than naughty).

All of these have become practically de rigueur, and the uptight bluestockings are left with only children's books to castigate.

Simon & Schuster provides a striking image of a poem about BBW, Manifesto, by Ellen Hopkins, bestselling author of Crank and newly published Tricks. Also, the Banned Books Week website offers information and useful suggestions for how to celebrate honor events.

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