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I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE, ANOTHER VERSION OF THE TRUTH FORUMS, BE THE HAMMER, 105TH AIRBORNE CRUSADERS, CONSOLIDATED MAIL SYSTEMS The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien Perhaps one of the world's most well-known novels, this book prefaces the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This epic fantasy has been found on most banned books lists. Text found by: morethanshapes "For your hospitality our sincerest thanks, and for your offer of professional assistance our grateful acceptance. Terms: cash on delivery, up to and not exceeding one fourteenth of total profits (if any); all traveling expenses guaranteed in any event; funeral expenses to be defrayed by us or our representatives, if occasion arises and the matter is not otherwise arranged for."  ANOTHER VERSION OF THE TRUTH: REVISIONISM A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn. The famous anarchist/socialist/Marxist political scientist and historian Howard Zinn chronicles American history from Columbus onward through the prisms of those groups generally ignored in historical books. Text found by: Disposition_on_Reflection "Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log."  US WIRETAP Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut A sharp, witty, and surreal tale of Billy Pilgrim, who has become "unstuck in time." Based somewhat on Vonnegut's own experience of the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany during WWII. (note: a portion of this text was also found on the AVOTT forums) Text found by: Warped909 "All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names. I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground. I went back there with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Müller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasn't much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes."  HOLLYWOOD IN MEMORIAM "Caution" by Walt Whitman One of Whitman's many celebrated poems in his famous collection, "Leaves of Grass," it cautions against unyielding authority. Leaves of Grass (note: no wiki-page for the text itself) Text found by: Skean "To: The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States, Resist much, Obey little; Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, ever afterward resumes its liberty."  SECURE BROADCASTS INFORMATICS The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank The tragic, true record of one Jewish girl and her family attempting to avoid the horrors of the Holocaust during WWII. Text found by: tuatara "Have you ever heard the term 'hostages'? That's the latest punishment for saboteurs. It's the most horrible thing you can imagine. Leading citizens--innocent people--are taken prisoner to await their execution. If the Gestapo can't find the saboteur, they simply grab five hostages and line them up against the wall. You read the announcements of their death in the paper, where they're referred to as 'fatal accidents.' - October 9, 1942"  SOLUTIONS BACKWARDS INITIATIVE Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain A very familiar tale to most readers, this slice of Americana displays a little bit of everything in rural Southern America from racism to politics. Often found on banned books lists. Text found by: lostivity "It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming."  THE WATER TURNED TO BLOOD Howl, Part II by Allen Ginsberg The middle section of Ginsberg's "Howl" is one of the crowning achievements of the Beat Generation, marked by rambling, peyote-soaked prose. The horrors of urban civilization are personified in Moloch, an ancient Canaanite idol. Text found by: kyle "Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!"  JUDSON OGRAM: JOHN FERMINGER The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Darwin's famous book detailing some of the first thoughts on evolutionary theory was groundbreaking in scientific fields and still resonates in various academic communities today. Has met much opposition from religious groups and finds itself on many banned books lists. Text found by: AngstyNerd "We shall best understand the probable course of natural selection by taking the case of a country undergoing some physical change, for instance, of climate. The proportional numbers of its inhabitants would almost immediately undergo a change, and some species might become extinct."  JUDSON OGRAM: MOIRA WAAG PT. 1 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels This relatively short tract sparked a new, revolutionary political philosophy that led to the rise of the Communist party in Germany, across Eastern Europe, into Russia and elsewhere around the globe. Text found by: justnine A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.  JUDSON OGRAM: MOIRA WAAG PT. 2 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. This dramatic (and erotic) retelling of the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz has been made into a very successful Broadway show. Text found by: KingMob4313 The decades - Fiyero thought, in love with her or at least so frightened for her that he could mistake it for love -- the decades looked on and didn't see her passing. They stared from their fixed mounts across at each other and didn't see the revolution striding between them, on her way to destiny.  OPERATION SWAMP 0000 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The quintessential "coming-of-age" story is of Holden Caufield struggling to find his place in the world and his off-kilter relationships with his peers and society in general. Frequently on banned books lists. Text found by: remisser "I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff— I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."  OPERATION CHIP SWEEP "The Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram An article written after Stanley Milgram's famous experiment on obedience, in which he found people will do just about anything (even harm others) if enough pressure is exerted by authority. The Milgram obedience experiment (note: no wiki-page for the text itself) Text found by: PrestonxSmith "The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' See [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'Year Zero Numbers] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.  Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."  CEDOCORE: HYCEPHAMITAMYN-η Collapse by Jared Diamond A relatively recent book (2005) concerning societal collapse due in no small part to environmental components, e.g. climate change, overhunting/fishing, erosion, toxic chemicals, etc. Text found by: digitalLotus "Will tourists someday stare bewildered at the rusting hulks of New York’s skyscrapers, much as we stare today at the jungle-overgrown ruins of Maya cities?"  MAILSTROM: GALLOWS 1984 by George Orwell. One of the most famous dystopian novels ever, describes a bleak future in which the world is constantly at war and the government has absolute control (even over reality itself). Text found by: vipbrj (portions of this text were also found on the MAILSTROM:NEEDLE page) "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him."  MAILSTROM: GASOLINE Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. A book in which Ehrenreich attempts to live on minimum wage for a month in both Florida and Maine and details the hardships that ensue. Text found by: cynicmuse "Mostly out of laziness, I decide to start my low-wage life in the town nearest to where I actually live, Key West, Florida, which with a population of about 25,000 is elbowing its way up to the status of a genuine city. The downside of familiarity, I soon realize, is that it's not easy to go from being a consumer, thoughtlessly throwing money around in exchange for groceries and movies and gas, to being a worker in the very same place. I am terrified, especially at the beginning, of being recognized by some friendly business owner or erstwhile neighbor and having to stammer out some explanation of my project. Happily, though, my fears turn out to be entirely unwarranted: during a month of poverty and toil, no one recognizes my face or my name, which goes unnoticed and for the most part unuttered. In this parallel universe where my father never got out of the mines and I never got through college, I am 'baby,' 'honey,' 'blondie,' and, most commonly, 'girl.'"  MAILSTROM: TUMBREL Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. A critically acclaimed novel involving racial tensions in 20th century America. Text found by: KingMob4313 "I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth."  MAILSTROM: WRETCHED Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. One of American literature's most famous essays, Thoreau argues for the right of citizens to disobey their governments should they become too strong. Text found by: cynicmuse "I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically."  MAILSTROM: WETWORK A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Another dystopian look at the future where roving teenage gangs terrorize communities, and the subsequent psychological problems involving rehabilitation. Made into a controversial, but excellent film by Stanley Kubrick. Text found by: nunzilla "He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a beschch, O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd drunk the old moloko..."  MAILSTROM: FRATRICIDE The Forever War by Joe Haldeman A sci-fi novel in which the human race is at war with an alien race, the Taurans, for hundreds of years. Text found by: cynicmuse "You couldn't blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored.  The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It was a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it."  MAILSTROM: BITTER A Seperate Peace by John Knowles A book told in retrospect about growing up during World War II. Received criticism by some for potentially being an anti-war novel. Text found by: nunzilla "I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky."  MAILSTROM: ATROPINE "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" by James Morrow. James Morrow (no wiki-page exists for the text itself) James Morrow is an author who frequently satirizes religion, but occasionally elements of humanism and atheism, too. Famous for his "Godhead" trilogy in which God is actually found dead and floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Text found by: KingMob4313 Take your cup down to the Caspian, dip, and drink. It did not always taste of salt. Yahweh's watery slaughter may have purified the earth, but it left his seas a ruin, brackish with pagan blood and the tears of wicked orphans.  MAILSTROM: PLIERS The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. An awesome novel-in-stories concerning the Vietnam War and soldiers' varying reactions to it. Text found by: Akumu "First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack."  MAILSTROM: CORRIDA Equus by Peter Shaffer. A play concerning a psychiatrist's efforts to treat a boy who has an unnatural fascination with horses. Apparently, the actor who plays Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is currently doing this play. Text found by: Akumu "There is now, in my mouth, this sharp chain. And it never comes out."  MAILSTROM: SLANDER Hiroshima by John Hersey. An article that appeared in the New Yorker in August 1946, one year after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It was later made into a novel detailing the lives of 6 Japanese people and how the bomb affected them. Text found by: Akumu "At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the girl office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk."  MAILSTROM: FLENSE Orientalism by Edward Said. Discusses how the Western world viewed the Orient as an "other," a threat to their collective political hegemony. Sparked the beginning of post-colonial theory. Text found by: tuatara "On June 13, 1910, Arthur James Balfour lectured the House of Commons on 'the problems with which we have to deal in Egypt.' 'These,' he said, 'belong to a whole different category than those affecting the Isle of Wight or West Riding of Yorkshire.'"  MAILSTROM: SPORE "The Fate of an Honest Intellectual" by Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky (no wiki-page exists for the text itself) An essay by one of the 20th century's most outspoken philosophers. Text found by: Akumu "He's now living in a little apartment somewhere in New York City, and he's a part-time social worker working with teenage drop-outs. Very promising scholar—if he'd done what he was told, he would have gone on and right now he'd be a professor somewhere at some big university. Instead he's working part-time with disturbed teenaged kids for a couple thousand dollars a year. That's a lot better than a death squad, it's true—it's a whole lot better than a death squad. But those are the techniques of control that are around."  MAILSTROM: SICKLE Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman A children's book written in 1989 about a girl who grows up with lesbian parents. Frequently found on banned books lists. Text found by: KingMob4313 "Heather's favourite number is two. She has two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, two hands, and two feet. Heather has two pets: a ginger-colored cat named Gingersnap and a big black dog named Midnight. Heather also has two mommies: Mama Kate and Mama Jane."  MAILSTROM: REGRET Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling The sixth in the ever-popular Harry Potter series. Consistently found on banned books list for "black magic" and "sorcery." Text found by: silver zero "Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one..."  MAILSTROM: VENOM The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. Based on Mailer's experiences in the South Pacific during WWII. Text found by: _brokenhalo_ "But the compassion lasted for only a few minutes. He understood it all, knew he could do nothing about it any longer, and was not even tempted. What was the use? He sighed and the acuteness of his mood slipped out with his breath. There were some things you could never fix. It was too mixed-up. A man had to get out by himself or he became like Hennessey, worrying over every gimcrack in his life."  MAILSTROM: INFARCTION Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein A famous sci-fi novel about one human's migration from Mars, where he was raised, to the unfamiliar Earth. Text found by: Deamos "Christ was crucified for preaching without a police permit. Sweat over that, instead!"  MAILSTROM: WIDOW M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang A successful play (that was also made into a movie) about a French man falling in love with a Chinese opera star. The play deals with cultural stereotypes of the Eastern world and was mentioned in another one of our "mined" texts, Edward Said's Orientalism. Text found by: silver zero "GALLIMARD. Butterfly, Butterfly...(He forces himself to turn away, as the image of Song fades out, and talks to us.)The limits of my cell are such: four-and-a-half meters by five."  MAILSTROM: CLEANSING Beloved by Toni Morrison. Text found by: KingMob4313 A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written in 1987 about the legacy of slavery. Was recently voted by a panel of 100 contemporary novelists as the best contemporary novel. "The Women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were it's only victims."  MAILSTROM: BELLADONNA Angels in America by Tony Kushner A play made into a popular TV miniseries about Prior Walter, a homosexual who sees angels that claim he is a prophet, and Joe Pitt, a closeted Mormon Republican clerk. Text found by: TimA “I see the universe, Joe, as a kind of sandstorm in outer space with winds of mega-hurricane velocity, but instead of grains of sand it's shards and splinters of glass ... You ever feel that way? Ever have one of those days?”  MAILSTROM: PARASITE Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides A Pulitzer-Prize winning coming-of-age novel about a Cal, an intersexual person suffering from a genetic mutation. Text found by: Lulah "But I was beginning to understand something about normality. Normality wasn’t normal. It couldn’t be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself. But people—and especially doctors—had doubts about normality. They weren’t sure normality was up to the job. And so they felt inclined to give it a boost."  MAILSTROM: CLEAVER The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier A popular book describing one boys attempts to uncover a secret society at a high school. #4 on the ALA's Banned Books list for its protagonists' musings on sexuality and use of Anti-Catholicism. Text found by: Disposition_On_Reflection "They murdered him.  As he turned to take the ball, a dam burst against the side of his head and a hand grenade shattered his stomach. Engulfed by nausea, he pitched toward the grass. His mouth encountered gravel, and he spat frantically, afraid that some of his teeth had been knocked out. Rising to his feet, he saw the field through drifting gauze but held on until everything settled into place, like a lens focusing, making the world sharp again, with edges."  FREE REBEL ART, EXTERMINAL Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King Stephen King's famous novella about false incarceration, institutionalization, freedom, and friendship. Made into a very famous and critically-acclaimed film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Text found by: Dianne "Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time."  GRACE THE TEACHER, RED HORSE VECTOR Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Considered one of the pioneering works of the environmentalist movement, Carson explores the problems of pollution and pesticides in particular. The catalyst for the banning of the pesticide DDT in 1972. Text found by: Nunzilla "The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of fall mornings..."  ONE COUNTRY AT A TIME Pleasantville by Gary Ross A 1998 film where two kids get trapped in a 1950s sitcom and teach the button-down vanilla town of Pleasantville the values of diversity, criticism, and nonconformity. So far the only screenplay to appear on the mined texts list. Text found by: silver zero "BOB: [to David/Bud and Bill] 'You are charged with descration of a public building and the intentional use of prohibited paint colors in violation of The Pleasantville Code of Conduct and "Laws of Common Decency." Do you admit that on the night of May 1 you did consciously and willfully apply the following FORBIDDEN paint colors to the North Wall of the Pleasantville Police Station: Red, Pink, Vermilion, Puce, Chartreuse, Umber, Blue, Aqua, Ox Blood, Green, Peach, Crimson, Yellow, Olive and Magenta?'"