Read a Burned Book

Ironically, my 15 seconds of what passes for fame has fallen right in the middle of Banned Books Week. To mark this event, the FREADOM blog has a terrific suggestion that I wholeheartedly endorse:

To mark this year’s celebration of Banned Books Week (BBW), a nationwide group of librarians is encouraging readers to protest cases of censorship and human rights abuses by reading literature that has literally been burned.

But first a quiz.

“What do The Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., the US Constitution, certain works by José Martí, The Power of the Powerless, by Vaclav Havel, Your Body is Yours, and Time magazine have in common?”, asks Steve Marquardt, the co-founder of FREADOM, and Dean of Libraries at South Dakota State University.

“They are among the hundreds of books, pamphlets, and personal papers that have been judged ‘subversive’ and ordered burned by Cuban authorities in recent years in their crackdown against independent libraries and independent thought,” says Marquardt, a long-time human rights activist.

FREADOM, a 2-year old group of librarians, writers, and human rights activists, is calling on libraries to display these and other burned books during BBW, and is asking patrons to read such literature to celebrate American liberties.


Please read the rest.