Banned Books Week 2024: Adult FictionLike this list

71 items

• A Clockwork Orange

  Burgess, Anthony, 1917-1993

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  Banned for "objectionable" language.

• A Farewell to Arms

  Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961

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  Banned/Challenged for being a "sex novel"; Crude language, sexual content, violence.

• Bless Me, Ultima

  Anaya, Rudolfo A.

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  Banned/Challenged for mature content, being profane and anti-Catholic.

• The Naked and the Dead

  Mailer, Norman

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  Banned in Canada (1949) and Australia (1949).

• Christine

  King, Stephen, 1947-

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  Banned for "unacceptable language"; "offensive passages", violence, and explicit sex.

• Fair and Tender Ladies

  Smith, Lee, 1944-

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  Challenged for crude words; too graphic for teens.

• Nineteen Eighty-four

  a Novel

  Orwell, George, 1903-1950

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  Challenged as "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter."

• My Sister's Keeper

  a Novel

  Picoult, Jodi, 1966-

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  Banned/Challenged for drugs, suicide, violence, sexism, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, offensive language, being sexually explicit and unsuited to age group.

• The Clan of the Cave Bear

  a Novel

  Auel, Jean M.

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  Banned for being sexually explicit.

• Cracking India

  a Novel

  Sidhwa, Bapsi

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  Challenged for "pornographic material."

• Fifty Shades of Grey

  James, E. L.

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  Banned/Challenged for nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being sexually explicit, and being unsuited to certain age groups.

• As I Lay Dying

  Faulkner, William, 1897-1962

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  Banned/Challenged for "offensive and obscene passages referring to abortion and using God's name in vain"; profanity, and questioning the existence of God.

• In the Time of the Butterflies

  Alvarez, Julia

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  Banned/Challenged because of a drawing of a homemade bomb.

• Lolita

  Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977

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  Banned/Challenged for addressing the themes of pedophilia and incest.

• Novels & Stories 1963-1973

  Vonnegut, Kurt

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  Cat's Cradle. Banned with no stated reasoning; described as "completely sick" and "garbage."

• Heart of Darkness

  And, The Secret Agent

  Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

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  Banned for violent content and racial slurs.

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

  a Novel

  Kesey, Ken

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  Banned/Challenged because it "glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles and contains descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination."; promotes "secular humanism."

• The Learning Tree

  Parks, Gordon, 1912-2006

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  Challenged for advocacy of atheism.

• Song of Solomon

  Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019

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  Banned/Challenged because passages from the book are "filthy and inappropriate"; Complainants referred to the novel as "filth," "trash," and "repulsive."

• The House of the Spirits

  a Novel

  Allende, Isabel,

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  Challenged: "defames" Catholic faith; contains "pornographic passages."