Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

Use this Topic to discuss books you are reading or that fit the 10th Scavenger Hunt task.

Task 10: Read a book that caused a scandal when it was published or has been banned.

Fanny Hill.

Sadly I already read it in 2022 to fill the prompt for a book mentioned in another book.

Taylor wrote: "Fanny Hill.

Sadly I already read it in 2022 to fill the prompt for a book mentioned in another book."

It's been on my bookshelf for several years -- might finally get it done this year.

I plan to read either Tropic of Cancer or The Satanic Verses.

I'm going with The Cathedral, which was banned in the Soviet Union for a while. I already put a link for it on the "independently published" thread but here it is again for all interested:

http://sites.utoronto.ca/elul/English...

Nana by Émile Zola, the story of a burlesque actress and unapologetic prostitute.

Rushdie's The Satanic Verses should certainly qualify- nearly got him killed.

We (by Yevgeny Zamyatin), Doctor Zhivago, The Master and Margarita and The Gulag Archipelago are all books by Russian authors that were banned in Russia at one time for political reasons.
I'm reading The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge and I think it was probably banned in Russia when published (1948) but am unsure. I know he was previously in jail in Russia. The Guardian website says "He was released and turned to writing fiction and history. Not writing the kind of fiction or history that appealed to the censors, he was arrested again in 1933."

There are a few by women that fit this challenge:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley,
The Awakening by Kate Chopin,
The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall,
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee,
The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien,
The Bluest Eye or Beloved by Toni Morrison
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Handmaids Take by Margret Atwood

For this task I read The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

There's a list of books on Wikipedia that have been banned by various governments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Most of them aren't Boxall list books though. They're listed by country where banned.
I was planning to use The Case of Comrade Tulayev. for this task but I haven't turned up any documentation that it was banned in the USSR/ Russia. It probably was though.
Instead I'll use Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan, a memoir which was banned in Ireland for some time. It's not easy to find but the university library here has it.
Satanic Verses is apparently banned by more countries, currently, than any other book.

I was excited about reading The Satanic Version for this challenge. Unfortunately I don't like mystic realism. I couldn't get past the first 100 pages. Instead I read "A Dry White Season" by Andre Brink. It was banned in South Africa.