Express Your Freedom to Read

CJSW may be a radio station, but that doesn't mean we don't pick up a book every now and again. In fact, we are proud to support Freedom to Read Week. This annual week supporting intellectual freedom has run annually for more than twenty years. The reason? Every year books are removed from the libraries in schools, books are held at the border, internet sites are forced to remove content and journalists' stories are rejected by editors for being too controversial.

Calgary independent booksellers celebrate this week with special events that give special focus to banned and controversial books. The University of Calgary bookstore displays controversial books for the month of February. McNally Robinson (120 8th Avenue SW) has a Freedom to Read Week 24-hour Marathon. For an entire day excerpts will be read from books that have been banned from Canadian bookshelves including a reading from this years choice of challenged book: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

So, what can you do to support your freedom to read? There are several suggestions on the Freedom to Read website including "freeing a banned book." It's simple, and anyone can do it. Check your bookshelf for any books that have been banned like Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, Philip Pullman's The Golden Campus and many more that you can find listed online. Go to BookCrossing.com, print off a book-sticker and register your banned book. Now free your book into the community! Drop it off at a charity or used-book
store. Now more people can enjoy literature that has been censored.

You could also pick up one of Calgary's numerous independent publications. In Calgary we are fortunate to have both FFWD magazine, Calgary's popular News and Entertainment weekly, and the University of Calgary's Gauntlet. These two publications highlight alternative opinions on current events that affect our community. Alberta wide you can also pick up Alberta Views for political, social and cultural debate. Another great source of arts, culture, media and activism is Eleventh Transmission, an online publication based on Calgary's issues.

Finally, make sure to tune into CJSW's book and writing focused programming Off The Page, The Gauntlet's radio show airs Tuesdays at 6pm and Writer's Block is Thursdays at 6pm.