american experience. but make no mistake about that. the targeted efforts to ban these books, and it is targeted, wages a war on readers who shares the identities of those characters and the authors. books like that represent change. they illustrate new ideas, but the sort of change is not one that some americans are interested in embracing. there s an irony in that reading these books would actually help bridge that figure, as this year s band book week puts it, books unite us. censorship divides us. members of the velshi banned book club are familiar with all of this. today and together, we ve met different authors. we have grappled with different topics. we ve considered different texts and meetings. week after week, chapter after chapter, look at them all on the wall behind me. and yet, these meetings never lose their urgency or their immediacy. the, day we are not looking at one book or one offer, but banned book in this country as a whole, and i ve got a perfect guest. joining us
it s subway s biggest refresh yet! you d be forgiven for thinking this year s band book week was the first ever, and event inspired by the staggering uptick of challenged and banned literature, but you would be wrong. band book week is an annual event that has been going on for 40 years. that s more than four decades of banned books list of inappropriate topics of division of turning school libraries into battlegrounds instead of safe havens. but book banning goes way back, far earlier than the 19 80s. it s got a long and dark history. the first reported account of a book burning was in 2:13 bc, by notoriously brutal chinese emperor chen xi wong, which most copies of the confucian classics and many other books documented in history were destroyed. then, in the 1500, to see me hold my copy of the bible. it was the first copy of the holy book translated to english,
situation and get out of poverty easily. it does. thank you for having me on. it is good to see you in person. i was honestly surprised that it was a band book too. i didn t realize that, i wondered if mine was. i think that people don t like to hear about how people use our government systems and our safety net programs to make ends meet. in a lot of people s minds, those are supposed to be temporary and not something that literally supplements the wages that people are earning because our minimum wage is so low for the last 20 years. let me ask you something, sarah. i want to start with a quote from nickel and dime that has been widely circulated with barbara s passing a few weeks ago. they re working for, as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. they neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for. they live in substandard
this school library is a place where kids can find books that they need to answer questions for them, to give them some insight. a lot of the kids that read crank, they want the insight because it is not just for themselves, maybe they have lost a parent to attraction. maybe they have lost a friend. to addiction. they need these pucks. they need that insight the bucks can provide. school libraries are sometimes the only place where they can. from in september it ll be the annual band book week. in 2009 your poem, titled manifesto, was used as the weeks actual manifesto. it ends this way. it is uniquely relevant today. quote, a word to the unwise, torch every book, char every page, burn every word to hash. ideas are in combustible. and therein lies your real fear. i feel like this could be the
aligning, our politics and our policy. and by you to read richard s article that was published in politico this week. richard feldman, we appreciate you continuing to engage in this conversation. which one is a former lobbyist for the nra and here s the president of the independent firearms owners association. we have much more to discuss. he s also the author of an interesting book called ricochet, confessions of a gun lobbyist. we re now days away from the much anticipated public january six hearings, the committee says that, quote, no one is above the law that the hateful brittle of the roof of the house. we got a preview next. on this week s meeting of the banned book club, legendary author jodi picoult. we re going to talk about her band book, 19 minutes, a novel that follows the unfolding in aftermath of a school shooting. school shooting