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It's Banned Books Week!

From the American Library Association:
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2006, marks BBW's 25th anniversary (September 23-30).

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.
Of course, as Malaysians, we don't have that much democratic or intellectual freedom, but we do have more of it than some nations. I guess that's something to be thankful for. More intellectual freedom would be nice though.

It'd be great if our government stopped treating us like children for once and let us decide what's good for us and what's not. John Ling says it's our own fault, we're the ones who voted for this government. But that's the thing - I didn't vote for the government we have now. (And at least I went to vote in the last election unlike most of my generation.)

Ranting aside, to celebrate the 25th Banned Books Week, Google Book Search has a list of banned books you can browse and search through. Pretty damn neat. More banned books on Wikipedia if you're interested in building your own library of banned books. Nice to know I've got quite a number of these banned books.

Via The Librarything Blog.
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Comments

  1. Anonymous25/9/06 2:24 am

    I have, unfortunately, never got my hands on any banned books before... unless you consider reading the first 12 pages of SHIT: 50 Alasan Mangapa Anwar... in a bookstore before the book disappeared forever...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun25/9/06 10:38 am

    You can find quite a number of supposedly banned books in stores actually, especially the bookstore that starts with a 'B'. Sometimes though the banned books aren't all that great anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Artemis Hunt25/9/06 12:57 pm

    At least you actually voted. I didn't even vote in the last election!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun25/9/06 1:03 pm

    Hehe... yeah... it's one of the few things in my life I'm actually proud of.

    ReplyDelete

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