Double your donation when you buy a book for BtP during Banned Books Week, Oct 5-11 2025
- doughathaway5
- Sep 26
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 29
“Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” That's the theme the American Library Association and the Banned Books Coalition have chosen for Banned Books Week 2025. Their focus is on censorship in public places like schools or libraries. But many more books are censored in the relative privacy of a prison mailroom.
Censorship in schools and libraries centers on the words and pictures in the books. Books are often censored for content in prisons as well, but also for many unrelated issues. Is the book bound with a hard cover or a plastic spiral binder? Does it have a price sticker? Did the previous owner take notes in the margins or highlight sections of text? Did it come from a registered vendor?
A growing number of prisons only accept new books. Our model of giving people in prison books at no charge depends on lots of us on the outside donating used books. That's why new book drives are so important. We can get these books inside to people we couldn't serve otherwise.
During Banned Books Week, a donor will match the amount of money you spend on books from any of the wish lists or display tables our store partners have put together. That money will be earmarked for the purchase of more new books from the same store.
Our emphasis this time will be on fantasy novels. This may be an opportunity to introduce someone in prison to one of your favorite authors.
You don't even need to go outside to shop our online wish lists:
or support these independent bookstores in person:
Couth Buzzard - year-round wish-table - 8310 Greenwood Ave N
Left Bank Books - year-round wish-shelves - 92 Pike St.
Charlie's Queer Books - 465 N 36th St
Phinney Books - 7405 Greenwood Ave N.
Queen Anne Book Company - 1811 Queen Anne Ave N.
Third Place Books - three locations:
