By Bob Gaydos

Banned books

In 1982, the American Library Association began celebrating Banned Books Week in the first week of  October. This is your reminder. It’s that time again. And make no mistake, the people who are waging wars on our freedoms have their sights constantly set on what we read as well as what we think and say.

The aim of this special week, according to the ALA is “to celebrate the freedom to read and to promote silenced voices.” The association keeps track of  books that are challenged or banned in schools and libraries and it has been kept busy since the Trump MAGA cult gained political power.

For the record, in 2024, ALA documented 821 attempts to censor library books and other materials across all library types, a decrease from 2023, when a record high 1,247 attempts were reported. It also recorded attempts to remove 2,452 unique titles in 2024, which far exceeded the average of 273 unique titles that were challenged annually during 2001–2020.

Traditionally specific reasons why books have been banned or challenged include: LGBTQ content, sexually explicit language, profanity, racism, violence, religious viewpoint, sex education, suicide, drug and alcohol use, nudity, political viewpoint and offensive language. Recently, Trump and MAGA groups have gone after recorded history.

Significantly, the ALA says data show that the majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators initiated 72 percent of challenges. Parents accounted for just 16 percent. It’s an organized MAGA attempt to control what we read, know and think.

The week is intended to fight that and to promote the freedom to choose what we read. Libraries across the country are sponsoring special events to do just that. My contribution of late has been to list banned books which I have read and to solicit the titles of other banned books from my readers so that we may share them. I am fortunate enough to live in a state that doesn’t go about banning books or deciding what teachers teach based on a few politicians’ ambitions. There’s also a Little Free Library right on Main Street in downtown Pine Bush.

Here’s my list, in no particular order, of banned books I have read. It’s compiled from a few lists I have found on the Internet and includes some books I had no idea were ever the target of attempted banning.

The list:

— The Catcher in the Rye

— To Kill a Mockingbird

— The Lord of the Flies

— 1984

— Lolita

— Catch 22

— Brave New World

— Animal Farm

— The Sun Also Rises

— Invisible Man

— Howl

— One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

— Slaughterhouse Five

— In Cold Blood

— Rabbit, Run

— Moby Dick

— Canterbury Tales

— Captain Underpants

— The Kite Runner

— The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

— The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

— Fahrenheit 451

— Moll Flanders

— A Farewell to Arms

I am currently reading “James,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Percival Everett’s brilliant re-telling of Huckleberry Finn’s story from the perspective of Jim, the slave. The author is expecting challenges to the book from states busy trying to eliminate slavery from our history. Florida, for example.

“Captain Underpants” is on my list because I have two sons, now grown. I also think school assignments for one of my sons wound up on the list. Kudos to the teacher.

Please, support your local library and share your favorite banned books with us. Join the fight to protect our freedom to read what we please.

By Bob Gaydos

Recent reading …

Remember books? You know, lots and lots of words on paper strung together in some sort of sensible, occasionally poetic, way to tell a story. No pop-up ads. Not textbooks. Book books.

I’ve been acutely aware of synchronicity in my life of late and books have played a part in it. Let me admit straight up here and now that my relationship with books had grown cool in recent years. Not a complete break, but sporadic at best. Technology lured me away.

Recently, though, life hit me head-on, leaving me mostly immobile and homebound. No TV. After a while, even I-phones and laptops lose their charm. I picked up a book: “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” by Tom Wolfe. Here’s some synchronicity: The only reason I had this book in my possession is that I had just finished reading Wolfe’s “Hooking Up,” which was one of several I picked up at the library’s used book store because my son, Max, said he was looking for something to read. “Hooking Up’’ reminded me that I liked Wolfe back when he was writing for the New York Herald Tribune. I also liked his “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

So I went back to the library and found “Electric, etc.” and “A Man in Full,” which I just finished and whose main character is an older gent recovering from knee surgery, like me.

I’m good on Wolfe for a while. Now, I’m reading “Contact,” by Carl Sagan, which I also found at the library store. I started thinking about my most recent choices in books and was thinking about asking friends for recommendations for some more recent books they found worthwhile.

Then, synchronistically, a Facebook friend in Seattle, Jim Bridges. posted an item informing me it was National Book Week. There were rules about finding a sentence from the book closest to you and posting it without telling the title of the book. So I did. Something from “Contact.” I also realized that Jim had just reminded me that, not too long ago, Facebook was regarded as social media, a place where people shared such information with friends as what they had for dinner and what book they were reading.

As far as I know, no one responded to my Book Week post. They probably thought it had something to do with, yes, politics. That’s just not right. Not long ago, when I started writing a blog for the Internet, friends routinely participated in discussions of whatever the topic was. Now, I feel a sense of frustration and fatigue on Facebook, which has become highly politically charged.

And so, I’m writing about books. Pay attention. I’m still looking for something to read after “Contact,” which I’m enjoying. As I said, my most recent reading — the past 18 months or so — has consisted of nothing new. Actually, nothing from this century:

“Slaughterhouse Five,” by Kurt Vonnegut; “A Prairie Home Companion,’” by Garrison Keillor; “1984,” by George Orwell (I had a suspicion.); “Hooking Up,” “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” and “A Man in Full,” by Tom Wolfe; and the current, “Awareness,” by Anthony De Mello and “Contact,” by Carl Sagan. Vonnegut and Orwell I read on Kindle, the rest on paper. I’m partial to paper, but not fanatical.

I would really like to know what you’re reading or have read recently that you would recommend. I plan to share the information in future columns, the way we used to do a while back. I’m also going to post it on Facebook and elsewhere at least often enough for friends to notice and have an opportunity to reply. You know, socially.

I have one other book-related item to share. My partner and I recently watched “Fahrenheit 453,” the 1966 movie version of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic tale of a society that burns books. (Again, I had a suspicion.) In the film, Julie Christie and other members of the secret resistance to the ban on books live together in a secluded community. Each member picks a favorite book and memorizes it so that the words will never be forgotten. The title of the book becomes their name. “Wuthering Heights,” meet “David Copperfield,” for example. They spend their days reciting themselves to each other and pass the books on to younger members before passing on. A living library.

So, friends, if you were a book, who would you be? I’m going with “Catch-22” for now. Joseph Heller. Please join me. Let’s be social again, at least until the impeachment.

rjgaydos@gmail.com