Are You Reading the Banned Book Blog?

ABFFE President Chris Finan has begun a special Banned Books Week Tour for his new book, From the Palmer Raids to the PATRIOT Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America. And while he's on the road, he'll be writing his Banned Book Blog, sharing thoughts and highlights from the tour over the next week on BookWeb.org's Omnibus blog.

Here's a look at the first two entries (make sure to look for further blog entries at http://www.bookweb.org/blogs/aba):

Thursday Sep 27, 2007

The Banned Book Blog... Day 2

Bookstores play a critical role in preserving free speech. Books inform the debates that are at the very heart of a democratic society. But booksellers do more than sell books. Every day, at hundreds of events around the country, they give authors an opportunity to find an audience for their ideas. Many of these authors are celebrities who draw huge crowds, but some of the most remarkable things happen at events for local authors.

For example, following my reading at Fact & Fiction in Missoula Tuesday night, two professors from the University of Montana told me that it was there, in Barbara Theroux's store, that a discussion launched a campaign to win pardons for the 78 Montanans who had been convicted of seditious speech during World War I. Nationwide, there were more than 2,000 prosecutions for speech critical of the war. One man was charged for calling President Wilson a "fat head." Rose Pastor Stokes, a Socialist, was prosecuted for sending a letter to the editor that said, "I am for the people; the government is for the profiteers." More than 1,000 protestors were convicted....

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Wednesday Sep 26, 2007

The Banned Book Blog...

So, here I am, sitting in a coffee shop in Missoula, Montana, wondering what I have gotten myself into. A couple of months ago, I began calling bookseller friends and asking them if they would be interested in booking a talk about my new book, From the Palmer Raids to the PATRIOT Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech. I had done some traveling in the spring when the book was published by Beacon Press. But I couldn't resist the idea of....

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