Banned or Challenged Books: Recommendations for Adult Summer Reading 2025Like this list

20 items

• Beloved

  a Novel

  Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019,

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  Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed.

• The Color Purple

  Walker, Alice, 1944-

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  Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence.

• Gender Queer

  a Memoir

  Kobabe, Maia,

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  Started as a way to explain to Kobabe's family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, "Gender Queer" is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• To Kill a Mockingbird

  Lee, Harper

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  The explosion of racial hate and violence in a small Alabama town is viewed by a young girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape.

• Invisible Man

  Ellison, Ralph

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  An African-American man's search for success and the American dream leads him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility.

• The 1619 Project

  a New Origin Story

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  This ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began on the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery reimagines if our national narrative actually started in late August of 1619, when a ship arrived in Jamestown bearing…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Things They Carried

  a Work of Fiction

  O'Brien, Tim, 1946-

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  Heroic young men carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness.

• Fight Club

  a Novel

  Palahniuk, Chuck,

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  In a confusing world poised on the brink of mayhem, Tyler Durden comes up with an idea to create clubs in which young men can escape their humdrum existence and prove themselves in barehanded fights.

• The New Jim Crow

  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

  Alexander, Michelle,

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  Alexander argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.

• Brave New World

  Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963

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  Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.

• Lolita

  Nabokov, Vladīmir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977

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  Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.

• Black Boy

  (American Hunger) : a Record of Childhood and Youth

  Wright, Richard, 1908-1960

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  Wright traces his coming of age in the Jim Crow-era South, a period during which he struggled to survive while journeying from innocence to adulthood.

• A Clockwork Orange

  Burgess, Anthony, 1917-1993,

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  In Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology.

• The Kite Runner

  Hosseini, Khaled,

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  The unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son is told in this tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

• The Glass Castle

  a Memoir

  Walls, Jeannette

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  Walls, the child of a scholarly, alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother, discusses her family's nomadic upbringing from the Arizona desert, to Las Vegas, to an Appalachian mining town, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Of Mice and Men

  Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968

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  The tragic story of the friendship between two migrant workers, George and mentally retarded Lenny, and their dream of owning a farm.

• Nineteen Minutes

  a Novel

  Picoult, Jodi, 1966-

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  In the aftermath of a small-town school shooting, lawyer Jordan McAfee finds himself defending a youth who desperately needs someone on his side, while detective Patrick DuCharme works with a witness, the daughter of the judge assigned to the case.

• Fun Home

  a Family Tragicomic

  Bechdel, Alison, 1960-

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  A darkly funny family portrait that details Bechdel's relationship with her father, a historic preservation expert dedicated to restoring the family's Victorian home, funeral home director, high-school English teacher, and closeted homosexual.

• Animal Farm

  a Fairy Story

  Orwell, George, 1903-1950

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  Orwell's classic satire on totalitarianism depicts farm animals that overthrow their human owner and set up their own government.

• Adult Summer Reading 2025

  View on bpl.org

  Visit our webpage to learn more about the Adult Summer Reading Program, which runs from June 1 to August 31.