There is a big article in the Independent this week outlining 25 banned books and the reasons why. But they range from to much sexual content, too much violence, arguments for and against various religions, politics etc.

It also talks about those authors ahd journalists that have been murdered because of their writing. For instance, Hrant Dink(we all know why), Anno Politkovsaya for her dogged research into the Putin governemnt, Litvinenko was about to publish a book about the provocation of the 2nd Chechnian war. Then there are the threats to life of Salman Rushdie and Orham Pamuk.

And of course freedom of speech is probably a far more dangerous proposition in this day and age. Anyway, here is the list of books (in no particualr order):

1) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
2) A Farwell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
3) Lolita - Vladamir Nabokov
4) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
5) Metamorphasis - Franz Kafka
6) Bortal Boy - Brendan Behan
7) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
8) One Day in the Life of Ivan Deisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
9) All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Ten) Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen
11) Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
12) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
13) Lady Chatter's Love - DH Lawerence
14) Naked Lunch - William Burrooughs
15) A Boy's Own Story - Edmund White
16) The Ginger Man - J P Donleavy
17) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
18) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
19) Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby, Jnr
20 The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
21) Sing from the Well - Reinaldo Arenas
22) The Vatican Cellars - Andre Gide
23) Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller
24) Shame - Taslima Nasrin
25) Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Now is there not a little something inside us that makes us want to go and read these books.

What I dont understand, and will findout, is why Tom Sawyer was banned when it was a series on TV when I was a teenager. I saw the film Clockwork Orange when I was 17 and read Lady Chatterly's lover (unexpurgated version) when I was around 17 too. Also that has been made into a TV film.

Yes, that is the one thing that is missing from the article - when and where. I thought exactly the same and of course by whom!

i can't believe that all of those books are banned and some of them I have no idea why..

and some are so well known that i wonder how they got away with it

I wasn't aware that Maya Angelou's book was banned at some point following its publication. I'll have to look into this.

It is a puzzle for us all to solve, especially as they are now on offer by the Independent News paper for the next 25 weeks! I already have a Clockwork Orange, free with Saturdays issue. The rest you have to pay for.