In preparation for Freedom to Read week, which runs this year from February 24 to March 2, I've been looking at lists of banned and challenged books. Have a look through Freedom to Read's list of Banned and Challenged books for more details on specific challenges in Canada and the outcomes.

The most interesting thing I notice about these types of lists is it's often those books that receive the widest critical acclaim that are also the most often challenged or banned. Incidentally, two of YOUR chosen favourites from "Calgarians Choose a Century of Great Books" are also titles that have caused complaints, requests for banning, and even a book-burning! (Well, book-cover-burning...) Since these two titles are also two of my all-time favourites, and both by fabulous Canadian authors, I'll feature them here with a few suggestions for further reading:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This book is considered a modern classic, chilling and yet believable in its portrayal of a future in which infertility is reaching crisis proportions. And the fallout from this situation is horrifying for the average woman...

From the book's description:

It is the world of the near future, and Offred is a Handmaid in the home of the Commander and his wife. She is allowed out once a day to the food market, she is not permitted to read, and she is hoping the Commander makes her pregnant, because she is only valued if her ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she was an independent woman, had a job of her own, a husband and child. But all of that is gone now...everything has changed.

We love dystopian fiction here in the Readers' Nook and have posted about it before. Read more from Atwood: Oryx and Crake (also a "Century" title) and The Year of the Flood both explore the same near-future world, a disturbing place in which "[t]he triple whammy of runaway social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event." (Publisher's Weekly)

Oryx and Crake is told from the point of view of Snowman, who introduces the strange world he finds himself in, alone, starving and bewildered; the story gradually reveals how he came to survive, and what lead to the cataclysmic changes in the world. What is most fascinating to me is how Atwood builds a believable near-future in which we can recognize all the disturbing trends of our own world which have snowballed and grown until daily life is both unrecognizable and eerily familiar.

The Year of the Flood revisits this before-and-after time again from a different perspective: a group of followers of a new religion, God's Gardeners. We are introduced to the characters in the "before" time, and then follow some of the same people years later, as they try to survive in the bleak "after" world. It's difficult to describe in detail without giving too much away... Both Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood can be read as stand-alone novels, but plot points and characters overlap, and if you read them as a pair, each one enriches the other.

Other great dystopian visions you might enjoy:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Seed by Rob Ziegler

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Lovestar by Andri Snaer Magnason

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

This riveting work of historical fiction follows the life of Aminata Diallo from her childhood, through her life as a slave, and later as an associate and speaker for slavery abolitionists in London. It is the most powerful and memorable novel I've read in a long time, and it highlights some little-known corners of Canadian history, one example being the document from which the book takes its controversial title.

From the book's description:

Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle--a string of slaves-- Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic Book of Negroes. This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own. Aminata's eventual return to Sierra Leone--passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America--is an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey. Lawrence Hill is a master at transforming the neglected corners of history into brilliant imaginings, as engaging and revealing as only the best historical fiction can be. A sweeping story that transports the reader from a tribal African village to a plantation in the southern United States, from the teeming Halifax docks to the manor houses of London,The Book of Negroes introduces one of the strongest female characters in recent Canadian fiction, one who cuts a swath through a world hostile to her colour and her sex.

For more from Lawrence Hill, try his novels Any Known Blood and Some Great Thing.

If you've already read these and are looking for other epic historical fiction that transports you to a time and place, I will recommend a few more favourites:

What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin

The Tiger Claw by Shauna Singh Baldwin

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

March is a huge month for television this year thanks to the much anticipated return of AMC’s Mad Men. About to begin its fifth season, this show has got everything I love about a good TV drama – great character-driven storylines and tons of style.

If you’re a fan of the show then you can probably empathize with the agony I’ve been going through during its 2-year hiatus, especially since the fourth season ended with such a punch to the chest. I'm not going to lie -- it’s been tough to fill the Don Draper-sized void in my life, but thanks to DVDs from our collection my heart has had a bit of a reprieve. Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked about the season premiere coming up in just a few days.

So, in celebration of Mad Men’s return to my PVR, I present to you a list of related reads. If you love Mad Men, then there’s a strong possibility you will love these books too.

The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing - not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives. She becomes obsessed by the story and hopeful that it can resurrect her faltering career. Perhaps if these lovers had a happy ending she will find one to her own complicated love life, too. Ellie's search will rewrite history and help her see the truth about her own modern romance.

The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

It is the middle of the twentieth century, and in a home economics program at a prominent university, real babies are being used to teach mothering skills to young women. For a young man raised in these unlikely circumstances, finding real love and learning to trust will prove to be the work of a lifetime. In this captivating novel, bestselling author Lisa Grunwald gives us the sweeping tale of an irresistible hero and the many women who love him. From his earliest days as a "practice baby" through his adult adventures in 1960s New York City, Disney's Burbank studios, and the delirious world of the Beatles' London, Henry remains handsome, charming, universally adored-and never entirely accessible to the many women he conquers but can never entirely trust. Filled with unforgettable characters, settings, and action, The Irresistible Henry House portrays the cultural tumult of the mid-twentieth century even as it explores the inner tumult of a young man trying to transcend a damaged childhood. For it is not until Henry House comes face-to-face with the real truths of his past that he finds a chance for real love.

The Learners by Chip Kidd

Set in the early 1960s, the Learners is the story of Happy, a young graphic designer who lands his first job at a wacky advertising firm in New Haven, Connecticut. Among his colourful co-workers is Sketch, the lovable, aging illustrator whose finely-crafted drawings of potato chips are regarded by Happy as near masterpieces; Tip, the quick-witted copy-writer who's always hunting for the next snappy slogan; and Mimi, the cold, eccentric matriarch, who treats her enormous dog as if he's her husband. Happy fits right in among these likable eccentrics, and together, they struggle to hold onto their most important client, Cringle Potato Chips, and land the new and lucrative Buckle Shoes account.

That Mad Ache by Francoise Sagan

That Mad Ache, set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960’s, recounts the emotional battle unleashed in the heart of Lucile, a sensitive but rootless young woman who finds herself caught between her carefree, tranquil love for 50-year-old Charles, a gentle, reflective, and well-off businessman, and her sudden wild passion for 30-year-old Antoine, a hot-blooded, impulsive, and struggling editor. As Lucile explores these two versions of love, she vacillates in confusion, but in the end she must choose, and her heart’s instinct is surprising and poignant. Originally published under the title La Chamade, this new translation by Douglas Hofstadter returns a forgotten classic to English.