University Libraries

Join Journalism students as they read excerpts from a selection of banned or challenged books from the list of the Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century compiled by the Radcliffe Publishing Course.  

Tuesday, September 25
2:30 – 4:15 p.m.
First Floor Rotunda
Adler Journalism Building 

1. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

 2. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

 4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 9. 1984 by George Orwell

 12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

 11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

 15. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

 18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 

 21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

 24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

 28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

 29. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

 49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

 53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

 97. Rabbit Run by John Updike

 And Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

The numbers represent the book’s ranking on the top novels list. 

Readers are students in Law, Media and Current Issues, a course taught by Carolyn Stewart Dyer, professor of journalism and mass communication.  Banned Books Week is the American Library Association’s celebration of the freedom to read.

Iowan Mildred Armstrong Kalish will read from Little Heathens, her memoir about growing up during the Great Depression, at 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 17, in Shambaugh Auditorium of the University of Iowa Main Library.

The reading is free and open to the public. A crew from University of Iowa public radio station WSUI AM910 will be on hand to record the readings for future broadcasts. Live broadcasts will be available on The University’s Writing University web site.

Kalish, who grew up in Garrison, taught English at several colleges, including The University of Iowa. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser says of Kalish’s memoir, “This lovely book, so unaffected and so generous, opens the door to a past I knew as a child in Iowa, and I wept with joy and recognition as I read it.”

In the fall of 1967 a handful of writers from around the world came to Iowa City to participate in a unique writing experience: The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. From those very early days through this year’s 40 plus invited participants, writers from East Asia have been an integral part of the program which aims to promote world literatures as well as international understanding.

To celebrate IWP’s anniversary, the UI Libraries presents “East Asia in the Midwest: 40 Years of East Asian Writers at the International Writing Program” in the North Exhibition Hall of the Main Library. This exhibit highlights prominent authors from China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan who participated in the program.

Of the over 1100 IWP novelists, poets and essayists, nearly 150 writers have come from these three East Asian countries. Until a diplomatic relationship resumed, Iowa City was one of a very few places where an encounter between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese writers and intellectuals could occur, after thirty years of mutual isolation. And this inspiration is felt by all the writers in the program. Much literary collaboration continues long after IWP writers leave Iowa City and return to their home countries.

“The IWP brings the world to Iowa, and there is no more important part of the world to learn about than East Asia,” says Christopher Merrill, Director of the International Writing Program. “The writers featured in this exhibit give us the inside stories about places crucial to our understanding of what it means to be alive today.”

A reception and reading by distinguished visiting Chinese-language IWP alumni is scheduled for Thursday, October 11 from 5:00-6:30 p.m., in the Main Library. Information about other anniversary events can be found on the International Writing Program website.

The exhibit, held through October 2007 in the Main Library’s North Exhibition Hall, will be open during regular library hours. Admission is free.

For more information about the exhibit, please visit the UI Libraries website .