While this post doesn’t directly deal with literature, writing, publishing or ebooks, I feel that it needs to be addressed. I’ve been a very strong supporter of free speech – it’s the cornerstone of an open and enlightened society. However, with free speech also comes responsibility. That can be a thin line to balance. But in the following case, the line has been crossed.

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I’m a little late covering Banned Books Week, but I figure better late than never. This is actually a very important event because it gives attention to the freedom to read what one chooses and not giving into demands by groups or individuals to restrict access to a books based on what they find as offensive content.

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The debacle over Amazon and their decision to remotely remove several George Orwell titles from their Kindle device, from customers who had paid for the books, has sparked a pretty fierce debate online. I’m actually a little surprised at the number of people who have come to Amazon’s defense and even applauded Jeff Bezo’s generic apology.

A lot of people, it seems, are getting hung up on the idea that the ebooks in question were illegally uploaded to Amazon’s system, and therefore, Amazon had every right to delete them from the Kindles and issue a refund. But I think there’s a deeper problem, and a danger lurking in the shadows if something isn’t done.

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Whenever a case of censorship, or attempted censorship of literature appears in the news, I try to write a post about it here. Sadly enough, I don’t have to wait long. In the most recent case I read about concerns a school district in my own backyard – the Antioch Community High School made headlines in Publishers Weekly after a group of parents tried to strike a young adult Sherman Alexie title off the required summer reading list for incoming freshman.

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I’m not afraid to admit when I might be wrong. Like many others, there are times when I jump to conclusions based on sketchy information. This is one of those times. I wrote this post about the Dubai Literary Festival allegedly censoring a certain book from the festival, and outright banning it from Dubai.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened according to this Guardian article:

The row began brewing on Monday, when newspaper reports emerged of a "ban" imposed by the festival on The Gulf Between Us, a novel by Bedell, because one of its characters, a sheikh in a fictional Gulf state, was gay. Bedell had been told by the festival organisers that her book was unsuitable for inclusion because they "[did] not want our festival remembered for the launch of a controversial book", she told reporters. Meanwhile, her publishers, Penguin, had been told by booksellers in UAE that the novel itself had been censored by the authorities.

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This story caught my attention for two reasons: First, it’s in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I have been to Dubai and it’s a beautiful, vibrant city with very nice, hospitable people. Dubai is also very much a "literary" city where poetry is very popular (much more so than here in the US).

The second reason why this story caught my attention is because it deals with censorship. I take a hard, unyielding stand on any form of literary censorship because I firmly believe that literature reveals fundamental truths about the human condition – and those truths cannot be suppressed.

The book A Gulf Between Us by Geraldine Bedell was rejected from the Dubai Literary Festival that is coming up next week. Bedell wrote this piece in the Guardian, obviously upset by her book’s exclusion from the festival. She first describes how her book is not offensive to the Arab culture and might even shed some positive light in that region:

The book certainly isn’t a PR handout for the region, but I suspect (even hope) that makes the overall warmth towards it that much more telling. The book is an affectionate portrait, and I rather expected readers to be surprised that there could be so much to like.

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When I think of banning books, I normally think about large piles of books being set on fire in the street, or even certain books being pulled from school libraries for one reason or another. But banning books hardly conjures up the image of a large bookstore chain canceling a book signing because a religious group threatens to cause a disruption.

Yet that is exactly what happened at Waterstone’s Bookstore today in the UK. According to this BBC report, a book of poetry that was considered "Obscene and blasphemous" by a group called the Christian Voice:

Patrick Jones was due to sign copies at Waterstone’s in Cardiff but the shop cancelled the event at the last moment.

Christian Voice said the book was "obscene and blasphemous" and called on the chain to remove copies from stores.

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I’m trying to avoid getting too political in this blog, because that’s not what this blog is about. Although the subject of literature and free expression tend to easily get pulled into the political arena, so I’m forced to confront these issues head on.

Many have rightly pointed out that the alleged book list I linked to in this post is probably not the list of books Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanted to ban from her small-town public library. In that post I expressed my doubts, as I could not find a reliable source to back the list up. For all we know, the only true list of books Sarah Palin wanted to ban from the library only exists on a lipstick-smeared napkin tucked between her bible and the corpse of the latest moose she killed.

All this attention given to Palin’s attempt to have certain books pulled from the library is finally catching the attention of the McCain Campaign, and they’re fighting back. Nothing surprising there. I did find this article on the Huffington Post blog about the issue and thought it raised some interesting points – despite there being no official list:

Certainly, there was no official list drawn up. However, in a fact the McCain email leaves out, Palin approached the librarian three times to ask about the possibility, which could legitimately appear to some as something of a pressure campaign (especially considering that Palin attempted to have the librarian removed afterward).

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All this talk about banned books (see my posts here and here about the controversy surrounding Republican VP pick Sarah Palin), got me thinking about ways to prevent books from being banned. There’s nothing worse than a government trying to censor what the public reads. Books are meant to be read.

And as many of you know, I’m a huge fan of ebooks. So I did a little research into how ebooks can help prevent those who want to ban books from public libraries, bookstores and other places, like Sarah Palin did, and keep books available for anyone to read. When you think about it, ebooks really are a perfect solution to keeping the power of choice firmly in the hands of the reader, where it belongs.

I came across this post from Epublishers Weekly from earlier this year that outlines 30 benefits of ebooks over print. And sure enough, at # 37, they hit the nail on the head:

Ebooks defeat attempts at censorship. All these works were banned: Analects by Confucius. Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Ars Amorata by Ovid. Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio by John Milton. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. Wonder Stories by H.C. Andersen. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Ulysses
by James Joyce. … Many of these books were confiscated, burned, or denied availability in libraries, bookstores and schools. Ebooks guarantee that readers maintain their right to read.

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And the hits just keep on coming! I only say that because the story about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanting to ban certain books from the library has taken root and is garnering more attention across the internet (especially the blogosphere). I wrote about it in this post, and generally felt disgusted that someone would want to actually deny the pubic specific books because that person found the books objectionable to his/her beliefs.

Then, this evening as I was blindly surfing the web, I came across a list of books Palin wanted removed from the public library. I emphasize the word "public" because that’s what is important – a public library that is supposed to serve the public, including people of all beliefs and creeds. If a book is found offensive by a person, then don’t check that book out!

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