To the editor:

Rich Lowry expressed great concern in his column last week: “Rewriting Books is Cultural Vandalism.” One of the authors he cited as getting a rewrite was Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. I remember reading all of Fleming’s Bond books in my high school chemistry class, an entertaining but costly exercise. Certainly there are misogynistic and racial tropes in those pages, but I agree his work should not be edited. Perhaps his work presents a teaching moment. I am more concerned by Mr. Lowry’s curious silence on major right-wing efforts to rewrite history and purge library collections. Censorship is censorship, regardless of justification or political affiliation.

Fred Atchison,

Lawrence