Dunham overshares about going down on her rug

If you read one book this week

The Secret Place by Tana French (Hodder & Stoughton) R240

It's not just the titles' similarity, but critics are comparing this, the fifth in French's superb Dublin Murder Squad series, to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. A year previously, the body of a teenage boy was found on the grounds of an exclusive girls' school. His killer wasn't found, but now a young girl wants the case reopened. The investigation that follows reveals a mess of tangled secrets.

The issue

We missed it, but last week was Banned Books Week, an American festival now in its 32nd year. According to executive director Joan Bertin, the event "is a necessary reminder of Thomas Jefferson's admonition that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".

Here then, according to The Guardian, are the most "frequently challenged" books of the last year, with the reasons they were targeted: Bone , a comic series, by Jeff Smith (political viewpoint, racism, violence); Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (occult, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit); The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (drugs/alcohol abuse, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group); Looking for Alaska by John Green (drugs/alcohol abuse, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group); A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone (drugs/alcohol abuse, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit); The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group); Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James (nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group); The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (drugs/alcohol abuse, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group); The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (offensive language, sexually explicit, violence); and, topping the chart, the Captain Underpants children's series by Dav Pilkey (offensive language, violence, unsuited to age group).

Crash course

It's a well-worn path by sassy young women. One thinks of Caitlin Moran (How to Be a Woman), Tina Fey (Bossypants), Sara Silverman (The Bedwetter) and Nora Ephron (Crazy Salad). Now comes Lena Dunham's hilarious Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Girl Tells You What She's "Learned" (Fourth Estate).

Dunham, the creator of the HBO comedy series Girls, is excellent with the over-share stuff: "Mike was the first person to go down on me, after a party to benefit Palestine, on my dorm room rug. I felt like I was being chewed on by a child that wasn't mine."

The bottom line

"Of the original 'three Rs' - reduce, reuse, recycle - only the third has ever gotten any traction since it allows us to keep on shopping as long as we put the refuse in the right box. The other two, which require we consume less, were pretty much dead on arrival." - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane)