Celebrating the Right to Read

"To ban a book is to gag the writer and blindfold the reader. Neither is acceptable in a country where freedom of speech is treasured." - Wally Lamb

Wally Lamb will read from his acclaimed novel She's Come Undone on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013, at the annual Banned Books Readout sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, Hartford Public Library and the Law and Government Academy at Hartford Public High School.

Other readers will include Cathy Malloy, executive director of the Greater Hartford Arts Council; Tom Condon of the Hartford Courant; local musician Lorena Garay; Wilfredo Nieves, President of Capital Community College; Rebecca Duncan, a student at the Law & Government Academy; and Stan Simpson, host of Fox TV's The Stan Simpson Show. John Dankosky, news director of WNPR radio and host of Where We Live, will serve as moderator.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. at Hartford Public Library's Mark Twain Branch in Hartford Public High School, 55 Forest St. Light refreshments will be available at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

She's Come Undone, Lamb's first novel, was briefly banned earlier this month at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, where Lamb volunteers and teaches a writing course. A review board objected to what it described as "graphic content" in the best-selling 1992 novel, which follows a troubled young woman's path to redemption. The ban was quickly reversed after a public outcry, as was the decision to review a collection of inmates' writing edited by Lamb.

The readout will feature several other books that have been challenged, censored or banned, including Alice Walker's The Color Purple, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez, Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers and George Orwell's classic 1984.

"Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship," said Matthew K. Poland, chief executive officer of Hartford Public Library. "While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read."

Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut said, "The government's urge to censor has not abated, as the Connecticut Department of Correction recently demonstrated. We must strive to protect the right of all people, including prisoners, to read, learn and confront new ideas. And we must also confront a more subtle and insidious threat to our right of free expression - the pervasive, universal and secret government surveillance that compels people to guard their words, stifle their ideas and chill their free expression."