U.S. schools pull more than 1,000 book titles in 'unparalleled' censorship bid, report finds

U.S. author Toni Morrison poses after being awarded the Officer de la Legion d'Honneur in Paris November 3, 2010. [Reuters]

More than a thousand book titles, most addressing racism and LGBTQ issues, have been banned from U.S. classrooms and school libraries in the last nine months, many under pressure from conservative parents and officials, the writers' organization PEN America said on Thursday.

PEN compiled a database of banned books that includes the first novel by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison and a memoir by actor and activist George Takei about being sent to an internment camp in California as a Japanese-American child during World War Two.