While
recently purchasing a mug with a theme of showcasing famous books that have
been banned, I started to realize that we need to pay attention to what’s
happening to books today. The new form
of book bans comes from commerce in retail outlets, such as Barnes & Noble or from
social media outlets that won’t permit the discussion of certain books. It’s not so much a government, a school or a
library that bans books, though some still do, but it’s other powerful forces
that potentially limit which books get sold or which books the new digital
media permits awareness of.
Book
bans happen every day all around us. We may not be aware of them, but they
occur somewhere every single day.
The
mug features Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1984,
Animal Farm, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, Tropic of Cancer, The Catcher
in the Rye, Origin of Species, To Kill a Mockingbird, and other great
books. But some books that get banned
today do not become classics or best-sellers.
They die a quiet death because some entity decided a book’s content
offends someone or contradicts a value it holds to be higher. Books that are banned today are often not
seen. They go under not a loud storm of protests, but under a quiet click of a button.
I
like my banned books mug. It reminds me – and others – that books should not be
banned and that we can never think that someone, somewhere isn’t trying to ban
a book. Stories, organizations,
individuals, schools, libraries, and governments – for any reason, anywhere
will ban a book that it doesn’t approve of.
Even in this day and age, where books can be sold by anyone, anywhere,
we have attempts by the powers that be to shun certain voices.
Banning
books is nothing new. For centuries,
various powers wanted opposing voices shunned.
Religious, political, and business interests have always opposed certain
authors and books. We get offended, feel
challenged, or fear our values are being displaced by certain books, so we
respond reflexively and look to hide, dispose of, or admonish the voices that
contradict our views and beliefs.
Books
have long been censored. “Censorship was
present almost as soon as printing was developed by Gutenberg in the mid-15th
century, “says The History of the Book in
100 Books; the Complete Story, from Egypt
to e-book by Roderick Cave & Sara Ayad.
“Ironically, the first attempt was made in 1471 by the scholar Niccolo
Perotti, who proposed a system of centralized control to ensure that texts were
well edited, but the Utopian proposal was not accepted.”
Citizens
may lazily think book banning is a thing of the past. They assume that everything is available
online and that one way or another one can access what he or she wants. But what if you don’t know a book exists or
where to find it? What if the major
sites disallow a book’s sale or discussion?
It goes on today.
Barnes
& Noble has a Nook policy that gives it free range to not sell a book if it
doesn’t like the content. Facebook and
Twitter try to regulate speech and the content of posts. Campuses and libraries often don’t carry
certain books because they oppose specific content. It happens all of the time.
“The
most famous of the attempts to control reading through censorship was the production
of the Catholic Index Liborum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books)
promulgated in 1559 by Pope Paul IV,” said Cave and Ayad.
“It
forbade Catholics to read books on the index, unless given specific permission,
and it listed individual books and, frequently, the complete works of banned
writers. The lists of course, changed
over the centuries, the last edition was published in 1948, and the index was
formally abolished under Paul VI in 1966.”
Banned
Books Week is honored September 24-30 this year. It was launched 35 years ago in response to a
sudden surge in the number of book challengers in schools, bookstores, and
libraries.
Banned
Books Week is endorsed by Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. Contributors include Pen America, Project
Censored and ASJA. Sponsors include
American Booksellers Association, American Library Association, Association of
American Publisher, AG, DLDF, CBLDF, People for the American Way Foundation,
National Council of Teachers of English, and the Association of American
University Presses.
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Brian Feinblum’s views,
opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his
employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book
marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs
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