10 Staff Favorites to Honor Banned Book Week

The Glass Castle: A Memoir

Since 2005, Walls’s gritty memoir of her upbringing in a dysfunctional family has often showed up on the top 20 most banned books in America. But her story of resilience and courage has been an inspiration to millions.

The Bluest Eye

The American Library Association ranked the Nobel Prize winner's beloved first novel as the 10th most banned book from 2010 - 2019.

Angela Davis: An Autobiography

Angela Davis has long been an outspoken critic of the American prison system and a self-described prison "abolitionist," so it perhaps not shocking that her autobiography has been banned in prisons all over the United States.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story

This true-crime classic about a killing in 80s Savannah, Georgia was briefly banned in the North Dakota school system after parents complained that the book was "pornographic."

Last Exit to Brooklyn

This novel which depicts the unfiltered lives of a group of transgressive New Yorkers was banned by British courts in 1967, only for that decision to be overturned following the appeal of many notable literary figures, including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

This book, which was banned in an Illinois high school, follows a young boy's journey through New York in the aftermath of September 11th as he looks for information about his father, who perished in the World Trade Center.

The Handmaid's Tale

Atwood's iconic Handmaid's Tale presents a dystopian near future American where a fundamentalist religious sect, which treats women as property of the state, has assumed total control over society. The book has been banned numerous times allegedly for its sexual overtones and profanity, but many see the bans as a reaction to the book's supposedly "anti-Christian" messaging.

The Things They Carried

This collection of short stories is based on O'Brien's experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This classic coming-of-age story, which was adopted for film in 2012, offers a poignant look at high school with unflinching depictions of drug use, sexual abuse, and LGBTQIA+ issues.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong's debut novel was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction. The book is told in the form of a letter from a son to his mother who cannot read. It offers a retelling of the family's history, probing the traumas tied to the memories of the Vietnam War.