“The freedom to read is under attack.” There are, CBC reported in March, “more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before.” Book bans “arise from the impulse toward social control,” adifferentbooklist.com explains. So it is that, for conservatives and progressives alike, “the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation.”
washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com observes such efforts “are as old as time. We have always sought to silence those whose views make us uncomfortable.”
On Book Banning “builds upon the ideals of liberal democracy,” Foreword Reviews attests, “and identifies literary censorship as a threat to intellectual freedom and free speech.” Kirkus Reviews describes this work by Lethbridge native Ira Wells as a “reflection on why banning books damages the fabric of social belonging.”
Director of the free expression group PEN Canada, Wells has written “a masterful and provocative treatise about the nature of free speech and the power of the written word,” Winnipeg Free Press declares. “What emerges in this… powerful volume is the voice of a devoted reader,” Quill and Quire reports. “On Book Banning is a testament to the life-altering power of books and ideas.”
No wonder our national broadcaster heralds it as “both rallying cry and guide to resistance.”
On Book Banning
By Ira Wells
Biblioasis, 2025