Here's the ALA's listing of the top 100 banned books. Shame, shame: I've only read 5 or 6 (memory fails!) of them, though I'm reading 2 more right now. Maybe because an extraordinary number of them are children's books? So, no doubt, I could knock out another half a dozen any evening in the children's section of my local library. Somehow Lolita didn't even make the top 100. It may be the best of the banned books I've read, though Of Mice and Men is extraordinary in its simplicity and in its message. Some I need to get to: Slaughter House Five, The Handmaid's Tale, and Brave New World. Two of those I have on my shelf and still haven't gotten to--among a whole host of other books. I started American Psychoonce, but actually did think it was crap, so I put it down. The graphic violence in some passages was certainly imaginative, but lapsed heavily into the lurid. I've read a lot of Bret Easton Ellis, and he's a brilliant writer, but he can also be tedious, sensationalistic, and a terrible name-dropper. Still, the movie version was suitably horrific and I can't imagine anyone outdoing Christian Bale in the role. Maybe I'll try it again some time.
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