Freed Between the Lines - #Censorship #FreeSpeech #BannedBooksWeek

This week, the American Library Association is “celebrating” Banned Books Week (https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned). I use quotation marks, of course, because there’s nothing at all to celebrate. It’s appalling – not to mention embarrassing – that at this stage in civilization, people are trying to suppress books whose content, premises or authors they find objectionable.

In 2023 alone, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 1,247 efforts to censor books and other resources in libraries—an increase of 65% from the year before. In total, 4,240 unique book titles were targeted. As you can see from this year’s “top 10” (again, a dubious label), many of these efforts are attempts to silence the voices of LGBTQIA+ individuals and people of color.

https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Want to do something to oppose this trend? You’ll find a list of concrete actions you can take here:

https://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/activity

Censorship attempts have increased sharply over the past few years. According to the ALA's statistics, almost a third of the requests come from political pressure groups. Given the increasing polarization in the U.S., this does not surprise me, but it does not bode well for the future.

As a reader I find book bans offensive and dangerous. As a writer – they’re terrifying. We writers have stories to tell; if a book is banned, it’s as if we’ve been gagged. Since much of what I personally write is sexually explicit, I’m more at risk than many of my colleagues, or so it would appear. But if even if you write sweet romance, don’t get complacent. Any of us could become a target, if somebody doesn’t like our politics or our sexual identity or our themes.

 

For example, one of my favorite books from my childhood, Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful tale A Wrinkle in Time, has been subject to repeated ban attempts. This is so absurd that I could almost laugh, except that it’s too scary to contemplate.

Anyway, I hope that this week you’ll give some thought to how you’d feel if you wrote a book that wasn’t allowed on the bookshelves... or if a book you really wanted to read wasn’t available because of censorship.

And if you want to do something to fight back, why not buy one of the books on the top ten list?