Book Discussion Group Celebrates Freedom to Read
On September 26, the Town Council will adopt a proclamation declaring September 24-October 1 to be Banned Books Week in Chapel Hill. Since 1982, the American Library Association (ALA), the American Booksellers Association (ABA), and libraries and bookstores across the nation have set aside the last week of September to celebrate our freedom to read and to remind us not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. More information about Banned Books Week is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek.
"Books Sandwiched In" participants initiated the proclamation earlier this month when they kicked off the reading year with a discussion of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The Board of Trustees of the Chapel Hill Public Library and the Executive Board of the Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library subsequently and enthusiastically adopted the proclamation.
Bradbury's cautionary tale about book burning provides us with an opportunity to think very seriously about our fundamental right to seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. The group will continue its conversation about censorship and intellectual freedom on Wednesday October 5th, when all are invited to discuss Asne Seierstad's The Bookseller of Kabul. For more than 20 years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities -- whether Communist or Taliban -- to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places.
Join us on Wednesday October 5th at 11:30 am in the conference room on the lower level of the Chapel Hill Public Library.