Banned Books Week is an annual initiative of the American Library Association, who campaign for the universal freedom to read with Unite Against Book Bans in the USA. A wider coalition includes in the UK Index on Censorship.
Read the Index on Censorship report of August 2024 on the increasing pressure put upon librarians and educators in the UK to restrict and ban texts.
Book bans are not something to be taken lightly and we are joining in this year, with an election in the USA as well as in the UK, to celebrate the right to read. In Banned Books Week itself we are pleased to dust off some books from our library, present some online readings and host some online talks with Treadwells London.
The image chosen shows the boarded up Sorcerer’s Apprentice bookshop in Leeds, which came about after a second Leeds branch of the bookshop was fire-bombed by Christian Fundamentalists on Sunday August 13th 1989.
Other offerings will be added to this page but include updated examinations of Aleister Crowley’s Banned Lecture, Conversations with the Angel Galvar, Gilles de Rais, The Sworn Book of Honorious and Zora Neale Hurston.
A full programme will be added below later this week.
