The G&LR's Newsletter

Banned Books Week

Dear ,

With efforts at government censorship escalating in recent months, this year’s Banned Books Week (October 5 to 11) has a special resonance. Often the books removed from public libraries and school collections are titles that address LGBT rights and queer experiences, so this week we’re highlighting banned books and their authors. Included below are Gianna Holiday’s essay on expanded efforts to ban books, from our July-August issue on the current political situation, as well as pieces on books and authors frequently banned. We have reviews of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name and the stage adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, plus interviews with both authors. And because October is also LGBTQ+ History Month, we have our review of the frequently banned A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski. Please consider these essays food for thought on which histories and values are deemed “dangerous” to readers, and find time to read a banned book this week.

Jeremy

Jeremy C. Fox, Managing Editor

Banning Books is Back in Fashion

By Gianna Holiday    

EVEN BEFORE Donald Trump entered his second term in office, there was a resurgence of censorship in progress in public schools and libraries across the United States in the form of book-banning initiatives. Restricting public access to literature is not a new practice, nor is it unique to this administration or this nation. Throughout recorded history, literature that confronted uncomfortable truths or raised people’s awareness of human rights abuses has often been met with hostility. ...

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Call Me By Your Name

by André Aciman



Reviewed by Jack Miller

“Do I dare to eat a peach?” Read this book and the line from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” will take on quite a new meaning. André Aciman, who’s an authority on Marcel Proust, channels the master in the telling of this romance between 24-year-old Oliver, a graduate student, and the budding 17-year-old Elio—son of a professor with whom Oliver is working. ... Continue Reading

Fun Home

Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel



Reviewed by Rosemary Booth

If theater is a temporary rearrangement of life to spark discovery, the musical Fun Home, adapted from cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s bestselling graphic memoir of the same name, exceeds requirements, not only yielding insights but whipping up exuberance out of anguished chaos in the process. As seen in a recent production, the musical demonstrates how translation from visual to acoustic form can amplify and dazzle. ... Continue Reading

A Queer History of the United States

by Michael Bronski



Reviewed by Jim Nawrocki

This book is the first in a Beacon Press series, “ReVisioning American History,” that’s dedicated to exploring our nation’s past from the perspective of those “who have been excluded from the canon.” Bronski’s scope is ambitious: he stretches the definition of “American” to include everything from Columbus’ arrival in 1492 to the arrival of AIDS in the 1980s.  ... Continue Reading

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