This is a book about banned books in the U.S. - about reading them, teaching them, and lending them under the shadow of political pressure not to.

Banning Books in America features novelists on banning and being banned, arguments about the histories and politics of book banning, readings of banned books in national and international contexts, and responses to new legislation by anti-censorship advocates, teachers, and librarians. Together, these writers and educators provide a view from the trenches of the wars on reading. They offer, if not a single blueprint, models for how to think about what it means to ban books and how to fight back against the forces that would ban them.

This book shows that at the heart of this issue is the question of what books mean to people. Some Americans are determined to decide which books other Americans shouldn't get to read. Why these books? Why now? Anyone who seeks to answer these questions must examine the context, historical and current, in which Americans allow this to happen.

This is a book about book banning in America, and so it is a book about America.

This title views best in tablet-style eReaders.
This is a set of uncorrected page proofs. It is not a finished book and is not expected to look like one. Errors in spelling, page length, format and so forth will all be corrected by the time the book is published several months from now. Photos and diagrams, which may be included in the finished book, may not be included in this format. Uncorrected proofs are primarily useful so that you, the reader, might know months before actual publication what the author and publisher are offering. If you plan to quote the text in your review, you must check it with the publicist or against the final version. Please contact USPR@bloomsbury.com with any questions. Thank you!