On Book Banning (trade paper)

Description

A lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages.The freedom to read is under attack. There are, today, more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before. The supposed dangers posed by books includingThe Handmaids Tale,Gender Queer,Huckleberry Finn, and the works of Dr. Seussleading children down a path of sexual deviance, or harming them with racist language or non-inclusive narrativesfuel the puritanical zeal of De Santis Republicans and progressive educators alike.On Book Banningargues that todays culture warriors proceed from a misunderstanding of literature as instrumental to the pursuit of their ideological agendas. In treating libraries as sites of contagion and exposure, censors are warping our childrens relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is cancellation or outright expurgation.On Book Banningprovides a lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the agesfrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome, to the Catholic Churchs attempts to tamp down religious dissent and scientific innovation, to state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ literature in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout, Ira Wells demonstrates how todays book bans stem from the ineradicable human impulse toward social control. In a whistle-stop tour of landmark legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, we discover that the freedom to read and publish is the aberration in human history, and that censorship and restriction have been the rule. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization,On Book Banningis both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who reject the conflation of art and propaganda, for whom books remain sacred vessels of our shared humanity, and who will always insist upon reading for ourselves.Praise forNorman Jewison: A Directors LifeNorman Jewison: A Directors Life[is] a fascinating story told with verve and authority.Toronto StarTo readNorman Jewison: A Directors Life, is to wonder why this most consequential of directors wasnt better known. A big thanks to Ira Wells for giving biography treatment to a major Hollywood creator who strangely never became a legend.ForbesIra Wells makes the persuasive case that Jewison deserves more fame than he has received, and along the way delivers a rollicking tale of Hollywood during Jewisons most active years and plenty of backstage trivia.Air Mail[A]n exhaustively researched look at the career of the countrys most prolific, but least understood, filmmaker. The book is an ambitious, and frequently essential, endeavour.Globe and MailA thoroughly enjoyable and detailed look at a memorable life in film.Library Journal