Photo by Patrick Correia

In honor of Banned Books week I invite everyone to join me in picking up one of these wicked creatures, you know, what we call literature and others call kindling, and read a few pages, a chapter, take some time to exercise the freedom to destroy your mind with subversive ideas and salty language.

Warning: If you’re at home, make sure all the doors are locked and the shades are drawn. You don’t want the neighbors talking. If you’re going to do this in public you might consider wearing a disguise. Sunglasses, wig, mustache; yeah, even for the ladies.

Okay, once the necessary precautions have been taken, pick your poison off the list: Slaughterhouse-Five, Catcher in the Rye, And Tango Makes Three. And commence the reading (mind destruction). Doesn’t it feel great to ingest each sentence knowing we’re contributing to the downfall of society? To feel the burn of the coming apocalypse as we turn the pages of Brave New World, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Hunger Games?

Yes, the immediate instinct afterwards will probably be to take a shower and scrub off the immoral stain the First Amendment has left behind in our minds and perhaps on our bodies.

But really, what we should do is go to the nearest library and hug a librarian.