Discover: The Best of Banned Books Week

Based on an notorious criminal case of the 1900s, Dreiser's epic class-struggle tragedy went from being banned in Boston for being "obscene, indecent, and impure" – a ruling that held up in the state Supreme Court – to inspiring the Montgomery Clift-Liz Taylor classic movie A Place in the Sun. Fun fact: The Nazis threw this one on bonfires because it featured "low love affairs." If it was good enough to piss... Hitler off, it's good enough for us.

It should come as no surprise that John "Ladies Gettin' Seduced by the Devil" Updike has come under fire for featuring some pretty explicit sex in his books. The surprise is that Rabbit, Run, the first in his critically acclaimed, double-Pulitzer-winner series about the life and trials of Harry "Rabbit" Engstrom, was the one to be banned in multiple countries upon its publication. Ireland wanted nothing to do with it, while parents... had to sign permission slips in for Maine high schoolers to get their hands on a copy. By the time Couples rolled around, we guess the censors just couldn't be bothered anymore.

Or, the case of the infamous N-word. Twain's free and unabashed use of the word – as someone's name! – brings into stark resolution the role of race in America and highlights how attitudes have evolved over the past century or so. No matter how post-racial you think you are, it will turn your blood cold to hear the word casually dropped in polite speech the way it is here. It's what... parenting books like to call a "teachable moment" – so why do they want to keep people from teaching about it?

Steinbeck's classic novella is a brilliant character study, both an exercise in symbolism and a faithful painting of the hardships of the migrant worker's life. Apparently a little too faithful – this quiet masterpiece has been banned in schools for its depiction of the treatment of the mentally challenged (what do people think spurred the Americans With Disabilities Act?) and its "morbid and depressing themes." You know, in the Depression.

Because people just can't wrap their heads around the idea of a dystopia – you know, a society not to be emulated? – they have objected to the book's depiction of an openly sexual, religion-free society where industrial logic and cold, hard science reign supreme. We'd like to challenge them to find a single reader who put this one down and said, "Now that's the life for me!"

Vonnegut, bless his soul, has pissed off, confused, unsettled and freaked out many a square in his day. His penchant for creating new, fantastically irreverent religions (see Bokononism in Cat's Cradle) has never made him popular with the Sunday set. But parents in Drake, North Dakota, were so upset by the phrase "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty'' in this work that they... actually held bonfires to rid themselves of copies of the offending material. Well played, sir.

Otherwise known as the book given to every gay teen by his cool older brother/aunt/drama club pal, which hasn't won it any fans among parents hoping to keep their kids in the dark, this MTV Books publication has been challenged for its discussions of drug use, bestiality and, oh yeah, that gay thing. While most attempts to ban it from schools have been successfully rebuffed, kids in Portage, Indiana, schools will have... to wait to see the upcoming movie adaptation in theaters – unless it gets banned there, too.

This scathing expose of the exploitative practices of the meat packing industry in the early 20th century was expectedly unpopular in Chicago and Boston at the time of its publication. Ironically, though, its sympathetic view of socialism (the main character becomes a socialist in protest of the capitalist system that has created the injustices he sees) also led to its ban during the Cold War from a number of communist countries, including... Yugoslavia and East Germany. We guess you're banned if you do, banned if you don't.