Banned Book Club: "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

The Banned Book Club is led by Bryn, dedicated to reading and protecting the most important and threatened books for our generation. January's pick is Atonement by Ian McEwan - a modern classic about storytelling, guilt, and the irreparable consequences of a young girl's accusation. Set across prewar England and the horrors of WWII, the novel explores how power, class, imagination, and desire collide in ways that alter the course of multiple lives.

Atonement has been repeatedly challenged and removed from school curricula for its depictions of sexuality, trauma, and wartime brutality, often by groups seeking to sanitize literature of moral ambiguity and historical honesty. Its challenges are a reminder that the most complex and humane works of fiction are often the first to be targeted.

At once intimate and sweeping, Atonement asks who is believed, who is forgiven, and how stories (both true and invented) can wound, liberate, and outlive us.

We will meet in person in the loft at our store at The Mark, 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $19, which includes a copy of Atonement to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.

IAN MCEWAN is the critically acclaimed author of nineteen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

ABOUT BOOK BANS:

Books are under profound attack in the United States. PEN America's latest report, Banned in the USA: The Normalization of Book Banning, found that 6,870 books bans were enacted during the 2024-25 school year, across 23 states and 87 public school districts. And everywhere, it is the books that have long fought for a place on the shelf that are being targeted. Books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history. PEN America pushes back against censorship and the intolerance and exclusion that undergird it.

Check out some frequently asked questions about book banning: https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questions/