It’s Banned Books Week, a terrific time to appreciate our freedom to both read and write what we choose.

There was a time when booksellers feared for their livelihood at the site of law enforcement and Upton Sinclair took to selling a fig-leaf edition of Oil! on the streets of Boston.  Bookleggers smuggled Ulysses and Tropic of Cancer across borders.  Our country battled with the idea of who should decide what we, the public, should be allowed to read.

I learned all this and more at the  Harry Ransom Center’s Banned, Burned, Seized and Censored exhibit in Austin, Texas.  While the center’s trove of literary treasures never ceases to amaze me, the exhibit alone makes it worth a trip.  It  focuses on the interwar period when books were not only being burned in distant places like Germany, but were being censored in America by U.S. customs, the postal service, and organizations such as the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.  I scanned evidence of a history I hope never repeats itself.  In a corner Bennett Cerf, founder of Random House, appeared on a small television, expressing his views on what he would allow his children to read versus what the public should have the option to read.  Having fought a good fight to help pave the way for freedom of literary expression, not once did he or his interviewer, Mike Wallace, mention the role Cerf played in the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses.

Although it’s hard to imagine this type of hysteria over banned  books today, there is still a stirring of emotions and beliefs that certain books are not fit for society.  On the top ten list of the most challenged books of 2010 is The Hunger Games, a book I chose to spend a weekend with instead of family and friends.  It pains me to think that there are children who will have no access to a book that they could so easily relate and find revelation within its pages.  As C.S. Lewis put it, “We read to know we are not alone.”

There are many other challenged and banned books that hold a special place in my heart, but the one that keeps my heart beating is The Catcher in the Rye (the reason for the tattooed carousel horse on my chest).  It’s a favorite among many, and yet, it has had a bad rap for most of its existence.  It was the most censored book in high schools and libraries across the states from 1961 to 1982, and it has been associated with an assassination attempt…or two.  But had my high school English teacher not exposed me to the book that has reigned as my favorite over the years, well, I might not be working with books today.

So, this week take a minute to recommend your favorite once banned book to someone.  Here are some that our staff would go to bat for in a heartbeat:

Barbara – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Jessica – Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Kaila – The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Claudia – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Rusty – In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Lew – The Color Purple by Alice Walker