Readers’ Picks: Favorite Banned Books
As book bans continue to rise in the United States, it is becoming increasingly important to stand up to censorship and fight for everyone’s right to read, both individually and together. That is why we are so in awe of our reading community. When we recently posted on Threads asking readers to send us their favorite banned books, we were overwhelmed by the response. Each book on this list is poignant and prescient, showcasing a kaleidoscope of diverse characters and storylines. Enjoy with abandon!
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Add to BookshelfParable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
The radically speculative odyssey of a young Black woman in a post-apocalyptic America and the community she cultivates despite the horrors of climate change and social inequality, from the pioneering New York Times bestselling science fiction author of Kindred.
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$24.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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2
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Lady Chatterley’s Lover
by D. H. Lawrence
Constance Reid, Lady Chatterley, is a young woman trapped in an unfulfilling marriage to an aristocrat whose war wounds have left him paralyzed. After her husband demands that she provide him with an heir, she enters into a liaison with their gamekeeper, a working-class man named Oliver Mellors. As their illicit relationship grows in tenderness, mutual respect, and sensual passion, Constance discovers that true fulfillment requires a real connection of both mind and body. Famously banned for indecency, Lawrence’s final novel depicts one of the most notorious and passionate love affairs in literature.
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$28.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Kite Runner 20th Anniversary Edition
by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, the possibility of redemption, and an exploration of the influence of fathers over sons — their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Color Purple (Movie Tie-In)
by Alice Walker
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early-twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning nearly thirty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into a rich and memorable portrayal of Black women — their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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1984
by George Orwell
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Written 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is more timely than ever …
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous WWII firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a 23-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. Like Vonnegut, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Handmaid’s Tale (Movie Tie-in)
by Margaret Atwood
In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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8
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou’s memoir is a modern American classic, capturing the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity” (James Baldwin). Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read it.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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9
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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove — an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others — prays for her eyes to turn blue: So that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner — a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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10
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Looking for Alaska
by John Green
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words — and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps. Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked the arrival of #1 bestselling author John Green as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.
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$14.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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Out of Darkness
by Ashley Hope Pérez
New London, TX. 1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town’s divisive racism better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive. Can their love survive both prejudice and tragedy?
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$14.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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12
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Man o’ War
by Cory McCarthy
An achingly honest and frequently hilarious coming-of-age novel about an Arab American trans teen fighting to keep their head above water in a landlocked Midwestern town. What follows is a wrenching journey of self-discovery that spans years and winds through layers of coming out, transition, and top surgery, promising River a free life with so much more than happiness: a life full of trans joy and true love.
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$13.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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What Girls Are Made Of
by Elana K. Arnold
Sixteen-year-old Nina isn’t made of sugar and spice and everything nice. She is flesh and blood and desire, but she longs to know real love. Unconditional love. The kind her mother told her doesn’t exist … Raw, emotional writing and a frank portrayal of the world teen girls live in set this award-winning book apart as a stunning chronicle of self-acceptance.
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$9.99Buy from Other Retailers:
