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Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Francis Kelland and you're listening to the Vision Australia Library Radio Show. On today's show, we're talking about books that have been banned. So we've got a sample of some books and a little bit of a potted history, very potted of banned Books week that is celebrated this time of year over in the United States. I hope you enjoyed the show. When people think about librarians, they don't often associate activism with librarians, though that's becoming more and more a reality as more books come to contention and debate about whether they are worthy or whether they are wrong to be in libraries. This week in the USA it is Banned Books Week, and this is an annual awareness campaign promoted by the American Library Association and Amnesty International that celebrates the freedom to read, draws attention to banned and challenged books and highlights persecuted individuals. The first Banned Books week was in 1982, and that was organized by First Amendment and library activist Judith Krug. Krug said that the Association of American Publishers contacted her with ideas to to bring banned books in quotes to the attention of the American public. After a slew of books had been banned that year, a librarians have been accused of being anti-family because they don't censor books that parents think are age inappropriate for their children, and that can be content that is violent, sexual in nature, promoting a sexual agenda or dealing with issues such as suicide or depression that parents feel are too heavy a topic for their children to be reading. Just to give you a bit of an idea about the history of some of the books that have been banned. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. That was banned years ago, ultimately due to themes of death and the fact that the main characters are talking animals. The Great Gatsby was banned once upon a time for sex, violence, adultery and language, Green Eggs and ham. The Dr. Seuss classic was banned in China in 1965. What was the reason? Apparently it portrayed Marxism in a bad light by showing the Sam-I-am character force his possessions green eggs and ham onto somebody else, and the list goes on. The Wizard of Oz was banned once upon a time. Catcher in the Rye of Mice and Men. Animal Farm. The Color Purple. Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's also worth mentioning we have all of those books here in the Vision Australia Library, if you'd like to borrow any of them. The amount of challenged books. So these are books that people put forward saying they don't want these books in libraries. That has grown enormously over the past few years. Last year there were 1269 demands to censor library books and resources. And this is up from the 729 book Challenges reported in 2021 in the USA. Of the record, 2571 books challenged for and targeted for censorship. Most were by or about Lgbtqia persons and black indigenous and people of color. So the theme for this Banned Books week is Let freedom Read. When we ban books, we're closing off readers to people, places and perspectives. But when we stand up for stories, we unleash the power that lies inside every book. We liberate the array of voices that need to be heard and the scenes that need to be seen. Let freedom read, and I'm quoting here from the website Banned Books Week, October the 1st to October the 7th, and librarians all around the world have stood up for books and reading and the freedom to read. And I was just doing some research this week. And in 1959, there was a librarian, Emily Read, who stood up against political pressure and refused to remove the book, The Rabbit's Wedding from Her Libraries. The Complaint. The book featured a black rabbit and a white rabbit getting married. And in 1959, that was a serious matter. Emily Wheelock Read was the director of the Public Library Service Division of Alabama State. Senator Eddins wanted to speak about several books in the public libraries that he thought dealt with segregation and communism, read, compromised and placed the book The Rabbit's Wedding, in a special section, which was for racially controversial materials, a section that remained on open shelves and accessible to the public. But then she again evoked anger by adding Martin Luther King's book Stride Towards Freedom, along with the rest of the American Library Association's list of notable books of 1958 into the collection. So read battled on. And while she wasn't fired from her job, she did leave Alabama for a position at the District of Columbia Public Library in 1960. She reflected back on the incident, saying, I couldn't believe that anybody would get excited about rabbits for. Heaven's sake. And that was from the American Library Association Archives website. In an article entitled The Rabbit's Wedding, Emily W Read and the Freedom to Read. I've been concentrating on the US of A but in Australia we've had our own book bans and sometimes looking back you can think why? Why on earth? And then sometimes you think, Oh yeah, I can see that would have been banned because of the times it was published in, for instance, the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, published in 1353. It was banned in 1927. It became unbanned in 1936, but then got banned again from 1938 to 1973. Believe it or not, the 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Saad and this was published in 1789. It was banned in 1957 for obscenity are droll stories by Honoré de Balzac, and that was published in 1837 and banned in 1901, then banned again in 1928 for obscenity. Again, Lady Chatterley's Lover, one of the most famous banned books worldwide, I think that was published in 1928, banned in 1929 and not unbanned until 1965. And here's a book that I've never heard of. It's called Rowena Goes Too Far. It's by H. C Astley, published in 1931. Banned in Australia because of the Customs Department believed that it lacked sufficient claim to the literary to excuse the obscenity. There are others here. Brave New World, The Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan. Even actress Hedy Lamarr was banned for ecstasy and Me, which was her autobiography published in 1966, banned in 1967 and released from that ban in 1973. It's just a fascinating look at things that were unacceptable at the time. Also, these two books, The Anarchists Cookbook by William Powell, published in 1971, was Banned and How to Make Disposable Silences. This was published in 1984 by Desert and Eliza Flores, 1984 and banned because, of course, promotes or incites or instructs in matter of crime or violence. Now, I thought I'd have a look at some of the books that we have in the collection that were once banned, and I'm going to start off with one that became a brilliant movie that I remember very well with Linda Darnell, and it was called Forever Amber. This is by Kathleen Winsor A Story of Romance, Adventure and Intrigue in Restoration England at the Court of King Charles. This was published in 1944, banned in 1945 because it was a collection of baldness amounting to sex obsession. Let's hear a sample now narrated by Rosemary Davis.
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Mary Green did not change in 16 years. It had changed little enough in the past 200. The Church of Saint Catherine stood at the northern end of the road like a benevolent godfather. And from it the houses ran down either side half timbered, cottages with overhanging upper storeys and thatched with Heather or with straw. That had been golden when you then had turned slowly to a rich brown and now was emerald green with moss and lichen. Tiny dormer windows looked out, wreathed with honeysuckle and ivy. Thick untrimmed hedges fence the houses off from the road, and there were small wooden gates. Some of them spanned by arches of climbing roses. Above the hedges could be seen in the confusion of blooming flowers, delphinium and lilacs, both purple and white hollyhocks that reached almost to the eaves. An apple or plum or cherry tree in full blossom. At the far end from the church was the green, where on festive occasions the young men played football and held wrestling matches and all the village danced. There was an inbuilt of soft red brick and showing the aged silver grey oak and timbers of its frame. A great sign painted with a crude golden lion swung out over the street on an elaborate wrought iron arm. Nearby was the blacksmith's cottage with his adjoining shop and the homes and places of business of the apothecary, the carpenter and another tradesman or two.
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That was forever. Amber by Kathleen Windsor. Kathleen is Katie h. L. E. N. K. E. T h l double e. N. Windsor is w i n s o r Windsor. Kathleen Windsor was born in 1919 and passed away in 2003. Best known for her for her historical novel Forever Amber, the novel racy for its time, became a runaway bestseller. And a little bit of trivia here. She was married. She was the sixth wife of big time bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw. And this was despite the fact that two years previously, Shaw had castigated his then wife, Ava Gardner, for reading such a trashy novel as Forever Amber. She did write other novels, but never matched the success of Forever. Amber In 2000in the year 2000, a new edition of Forever Amber was published with a foreword by Barbara Taylor Bradford. Fast forward a few years and you have the banning of the book The Stud by Jackie Collins. This was published in 1969 and banned in 1969. London, 1969. The hottest, hippest, wildest domain of hedonists where swingers swarmed the clubs and discos in high stakes quest to live for the moment, at the center of this decadent scene, one man plays all the angles, never missing a chance to score with the beautiful women who desire him, and walks the line between ecstasy and overload. Now the woman he wants most knows his number and may just call his bluff. Laodicea A sample of the Stud by Jackie Collins. It's narrated by Oonagh Byrne.
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There's something very exciting about the beginning of the evening. Well, the beginning of my evening, usually about 1030, 11:00. Every night at Hobo is like a party. A great party where everyone knows and likes everyone else. They start coming in slowly. First, the ones that want to be sure of a good table. Then the watchers. Usually this whole group is stacked neatly out of the way on the wrong side of the room, or if they are really rough in the back room. We got a closed membership, but a few managed to find their way in. Then everyone sits around waiting for the swingers at about 1230, 1:00. They start arriving. Golden haired girls in cowboy outfits, Indian gear, boots backless topless see-through dresses. The wilder, the better. Their escorts, varying from the longhaired mob of rock groups to the latest young actors. Elegant young Debs in full evening dress with chin lis wonder escorts. The older society group, the rich Greeks, the even richer Arabs. Little movie star, an odd MP or visiting senator. Anybody famous who's in town? Young writers, dress designers, photographers, models. They all come to look and be looked at and to see their friends. It's like a build, an excitement. Reaching a breathless climax at around 2 a.m. when the room is so jammed you couldn't get anyone else in except perhaps Frank Sinatra or Mick Jagger.
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That was the start by Jackie Collins, published in 1969. That book goes for seven hours and 54 minutes, so nearly eight hours there. Jackie is spelt Jack, i.e. Jackie Collins is co Dublin's co Dublin's. If you want to borrow the stud, you can. But there's also other books by Jackie Collins, including her very successful Hollywood Wives, Hollywood Divorces, The Power Trip, Poor Little Bitch Girl, which is the story of Lucky Santangelo. And that's actually a long series beginning with chances. So that's number one in the Lucky Santangelo series. And I'm sure there was a miniseries. But yes, she might be a bit of fun band. Back in 1969, Jackie Collins always maintained that her books were based on people she knew, even the stud. She said, Yes, it's written about a particular person, and the movie of the stud featured her very own sister, Joan Collins and Oliver Tobias, who was a bit of a hunky actor from England who also starred in an Australian television series called Luke's Kingdom. Jackie Collins died of breast cancer on September the 19th. In 2015. She'd kept her illness a secret. She believed in an afterlife. She had no regrets, and she felt she had emulated Frank Sinatra in that. I did it my way. Norman Lindsay was also banned for his book The Cautious Amorous, and that was published in 1932. But then the ban was lifted in 1953. We don't have a copy of that book in the collection, but there is another book by Norman Lindsay called A Curate in Bohemia, and he was always controversial for his paintings and his lifestyle. In a curate in Bohemia. He wrote this in conjunction with Alfred Williams. It follows the path of a young man considering the priesthood who instead spends his time and money on alcohol and food with some artists. Let's hear a sample of a curate in Bohemia by Norman Lindsay and Alfred Williams. It's narrated by Harper Wilson.
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About this time the curate had a moment of great illumination. Cripps was deliberately keeping him out of the society of Benson's girl. He had been doing it the entire evening. This discovery made the curate frightfully indignant. He glared horribly at Cripps from behind a glass of claret He was aware of Florey seated in gloomy seclusion on the couch, but he refused to regard her in his mind. He harbored treachery towards Miss Gimlet. He had asked her to join the dance and she had pushed him in the face. Very good. It was not to be borne. And besides, Munson's girl was very, very beautiful. He had another illuminating thought he would take Munson's girl home in a cab. How much did cabs cost? 5 or 6 shillings, perhaps. At this stage he bore unsteadily down on Cripps and Munson's girl incoherence. He had overtaken his speech, but he was unaware of it. Nor did he connect the smashing of a bottle with a generous curve of his transit. As it was, he fetched up against the opposite side of the room with a crash and knocked a picture off the wall. Using the momentum of his recoil, he slanted off in the direction of Miss Swift, clutched a chair back and came at once to the point call a cab, he said regarding her fixedly, the company being notably ignorant of his recent train of thought, received this communication with some amazement. Now you have done it, spuds, said Cripps at length. You have an awful hit on you tomorrow.
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That was a curate in Bohemia by Norman Lindsay. Norman is n o m a n n o r m a n. Lindsay is lindesay y l i n d c. That book goes for five hours. A Curating Bohemia was also made into a TV play in 1972, one of a series of adaptations of Lindsay's works. It had Reg Livermore in it, Brian Davies, an Amazon, An Amazon reviewer, gave it four stars out of five, saying the four stars are for Norman Lindsay's comic novel, which is a Roy starring tale of a clergyman sucked in. Into a bohemian lifestyle. But he's talking about the hardcover of the book, which was accompanied by the illustrations by Lindsay as well. But a little bit of Australian history. They're not a book that's been published very recently in 2023. It's called A Court of Mist and Fury. It's been banned and challenged for being sexually explicit. And this is over in the USA again now. So we've moved back there. It was challenged and removed from Virginia Beach City public School libraries. We have the book in the library collection. It's part of a series by very successful author Sarah J. Maass. The synopsis is Fair Survived Amaranth clutches to return to the spring court, but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the high fey, her heart remains human and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tomlin's people. Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand High, Lord of the feared night Court as fair navigates its dark web of politics, passion and dazzling power, a greater evil looms, and she might be key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future and the future of a world cleaved. In two letter, a sample of a Court of Mist and Fury, one of the banned books for 2023. It's narrated by Jennifer Ikeda.
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I want to go.
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No.
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I crossed my arms, tucking my tattooed hand under my right bicep and spread my feet slightly further apart on the dirt floor of the stables. It's been three months. Nothing's happened. And the village isn't even five miles. No. The mid-morning sun streaming through the stable doors burnished Tomlin's golden hair as he finished buckling the bandolier of daggers across his chest. His face ruggedly handsome, exactly as I dreamed it. During those long months he'd worn a mask was set his lips a thin line. Behind him already atop his dapple gray horse, along with three other Fay Lord sentries. Lucian silently shook his head in warning his metal eye narrowing. Don't push him, he seemed to say. But as Tamlin strode toward where his black stallion had already been saddled, I gritted my teeth and stormed after him. The village needs all the help it can get. And we're still hunting down Amaranth as beasts, he said, mounting his horse in one fluid motion. Sometimes I wondered if the horses were just to maintain an appearance of civility. Of normalcy. To pretend that he couldn't run faster than them. Didn't live with one foot in the forest.
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So that is a Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah Jane Mars. And that's it goes for 23 hours. Sarah is SRH, srh, middle initial J and then last name m a s m a s. So if you want to start on that series, Court of Thorns and Roses, you can start with the book A Court of Thorns and Roses. Sarah Janet Mars was born in 1986. She's an American fantasy author and this is her best known series. You started writing Throne of Glass when she was 16 years old. In an interview with writers and artists, Mars said that movie scores and classical music are her inspiration as a writer. And she said that surreal, written by Garth Nix and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley began her love for reading fantasy and writing it. Her character development has been lauded as one of her best qualities for storytelling, with morally grey characters and strong worldbuilding. The next book that has been banned has is surprising. It's been a worldwide bestseller and fairly modern book. It's The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini. The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. Let's hear a sample of The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini. It's narrated by Khalid Hosseini.
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One day last summer, my friend Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. He asked me to come see him. Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear. I knew it wasn't just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of Unwritten, since after I hung up. I went for a walk along Spreckels Lake on the northern edge of Golden Gate Park. The early afternoon sun sparkled on the water, where dozens of miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp breeze. Then I glanced up and saw a pair of kites red with long blue tails soaring in the sky. They danced high above the trees on the west end of the park, over the windmills, floating side by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call home. And suddenly Hassan's voice whispered in my ear. For you a thousand times over. Hassan, The hare lipped Kite Runner. I sat on a park bench near a willow tree. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up. Almost as an afterthought. There's a way to be good again. I looked up at those twin kites. I thought about Hassan. I thought about Baba Ali. Kabul. I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 1975 came along and changed everything. And made me what I am today.
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That was The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini. Khalid is spelled k h a. L e. D. K h. A. L e. D. Hosseini is h o w s e. I n i h o double s e i n i. That book goes for 12 hours. This book continues to be challenged and removed from library shelves every year since 2008. The reasons given that parents believed the novel's depictions of sexual assault, depression and attempted suicide were inappropriate. Thank you for joining us on here this today. I'm Frances Kelland and I look, I know I've missed a lot of books. Ulysses Classic banned book. We have that in the collection. There are many, many books in the collection that we have that historically have been challenged or banned. If you can think of a book that you've particularly enjoyed that has been controversial, which would mean that it's at least been challenged or banned. Let us know so you can call the library on 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library at Vision Australia. Org. That's library at Vision Australia. Org. Lovely to be with you. And we'll be back next week with more here this.
