This week’s banned book is Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Published in 1962 – during the period when there was a great push to deinstitutionalize mental health (for better or worse) – Kesey’s novel – and the film adaptation that won many awards and has stood the test of time – paints a grim picture of a state hospital filled with terribly ill patients, receiving harsh – and, often times, barbaric – treatments at the hands of a spineless doctor and a domineering, sadistic nurse.

This character, Nurse Ratched, has become so ingrained in modern culture that the name is now usually understood to mean a total battleaxe of a nasty nurse – even by those who have never seen the film or read the book.

For his part, Kesey seems to have written this novel drawing from his own experience as an orderly in a state psychiatric facility – as well as his extensive use of LSD, both for medical testing and recreational purposes – and, while it is not a pleasant read, it is definitely a memorable one.

From here, in our Banned Books, I’m onto Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

First, though, tomorrow, I have a fun book report on a true crime audiobook mini-project I did last week – and I have a few other posts I hope to share in the coming days as well. ❤

Wishing you all a lovely weekend and happy reading.

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.

Banned Books Read So Far:

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence

Animal Farm – George Orwell

1984 – George Orwell

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

A Separate Peace – John Knowles

Lolita – Vladmir Nabokov

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

LOTR – The Fellowship of The Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Song of Soloman – Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey