Have you ever read a book that was 'banned'?

Lady Chatterley's Lover (D H Lawrence) and Fanny Hill (John Cleland).

They were passed around between excitable girls at school, but left me stone cold and convinced that sex with men is over-rated.

At about the same time I wrote a series of stories in the style of an Icelandic saga about a beautiful noble lady who surrounded herself with female warriors. That would almost certain!y have been banned had it seen the light of day 😊

Spycatcher - Peter Wright
Tropic of Cancer - Henry miller
Naked lunch - William S Burroughs
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Borstal boy - Brendan Behan
Fanny Hill - John Cleland
Last exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby jnr.

Possibly others

Very few books are actually banned in the literal sense of being illegal to possess. But an awful lot have been kept from school and public libraries.

There was a time when "Catcher in the Rye" was such a book. It was considered scandalous, and most libraries did not carry it, or would restrict access to it (keeping it behind the checkout counter and only allowing "respectable" people to check it out!)

Naturally, kids in my high school were getting hold of it and talking about it with each other!

I finally decided to read it when I was in my 30's. I guess I had become too old. I found it boring, and the incessant use of four-letter words struck me as forced and artificial. At least in my world, I have have never known anyone to actually talk that way. There was nothing about the plot that interested me, and I did not find any profound ideas to ponder.

Times have changed. That book eventually became required reading in some high school English curricula! And once, in a used book store, I found a Sparks Notes for it. I bought it, as a collector's item! Reading through it, the author of the Sparks Notes couldn't think of anything deep to say about the book either.

But Sparks Notes are mostly used by students who want to blow off the assignment and not read the actual book.

So, schools finally figured out a way to stop teenagers from reading a book. Instead of banning it, require it!

This book was banned briefly as 'customers' took the title too seriously.
It was a bit of a letdown.

Yes,two books by the Marquis De Sade..
'Justine' and '101 Days Of Sodom'.
Interesting reading.

Definitely! Look at all these books that were banned in Florida & Texas! It would be hard to not have read at least one of them! Personally I've read banned books by Toni Morrison and Sherman Alexie. And all 7 Harry Potter books were banned in a bunch of Texas school systems; I've read all of them.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/harry-potter-series-tops-list-banned-books-texas-according-aclu-report

Some books banned in Florida schools
https://www.theledger.com/story/news/state/2022/04/26/florida-school-book-bans-these-library-titles-being-reviewed-school-boards/9542938002/

"From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles."

https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/

Also see https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/book-bans-florida-public-schools/


I don't know WHY Florida banned so many math books, but they did.
https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2022/05/06/florida-bans-more-than-40--oif-math-books-after-review


Florida passed a law in 2022 that said educators could be prosecuted for 3rd degree felony if they display any unapproved books.

And nobody knows what's been approved.

So the only safe way for educators to stay out of jail is to HIDE ALL THE BOOKS!!!

Read catcher in the rye in highschool, that book was banned various times

The people who banned it are idiots and no, I couldn't get into the book. It was a chore to read

Banned by whom and where? If you mean like "banned in Boston", I grew up in the 1950's and that was a sought after marketing banner like "NY Times Best Seller", so yes I read them. I don't recalled anything actually banned locally or regionally out here in the hinterlands of the West, unless you mean it didn't get the seal of approval from the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency by the priests and nuns. Those landed at the top of the Must Read list of course.

Where I live, only Hitler's book is banned.

Mrs Thatcher banned one once. So I immediately read it.

Spy catcher by Peter Wright.

She also tried to ban the promotion of gay materials from schools.
I assume that meant Virginia Wolfe, Iris Murdoch, Joe Orton, Christopher Isherwood . etc.


I dont like DH Lawrence, so never read Lady Chatterley.

Nor do I like James Joyce, so Ulysses would not interest me.

I agree with @DrWatson

By the time I was of an age to want to read adult books (c. 11/12) they were freely available in England - I'm thinking of Lady Chatterley, Fanny Hill, The Ginger Man, Ulysses etc., which had originally been published in France.....

I only read Catcher in the Rye because it was.

Of course. I mean… several of the books we had to read for school were banned or burned at some point in their history.

Yes, after reading Lolita, I comprehended why it got banned.

A number of them that are proscribed in most libraries.

Try to find any of the Xanth series by Pierce Anthony in any library.

Oh I forgot one that's totally banned in the USA but not in the EU.

"Show me" by Will McBride 1975

Actually had this book as a kid before it was banned.

None where banned or proscribed until the 1990s however.

My father wrote one, and yes, I read it.

they haven't published mine yet...🤣

I’ve read 7 or 8 and 7 of them are some of my favorites. I didn’t enjoy them any more or less knowing they are banned, that’s purely childish. There are less than twenty books in the world that are dangerous and non of the banned books I read are dangerous unless you repeat words from it in mixed company.

"The Anarchists Cookbook" is one you Europeans or Aussies are unlikely to run across...🤔

John Olinger Does Lady Chatterley. So hot i had to wear gloves to read it!

I've definitely read books that have been on banned books lists, but I've never read a book because it was banned. So it really had no effect on my enjoyment of the book.

As far as I know no book is banned here (perhaps at most the Mein Kampf was, at some point).

So if you want to feel transgressive here you'll have to improvise something else, like moving the bible to the "Fantasy" section of the library

Yep! Most I read as a kid before they were "banned". Now I make it a point to find the new ones and read them. Especially the ones where is isn't the book, but the author who is trying to be erased. Mass ignorance and fear at its best.

yes; it likely just got me to read books I didn't want to, didn't particularly like, and wouldn't have even found without the ban.
I aim to misbehave.

I read them before banning them was a thing. FYI Playboy magazines biggest subscriber is Uncle Sam

One of my favorite books is Brave New World.

I have no idea. Possibly. If I got it, I didn't care if someone banned it at some point or not.

I had the anarchists cookbook in the mid 1980’s. It was a good read .

Does my manifesto count as a book? 🤔

At the time, I don't know if I knew they were banned.

catcher in the rye is boring AF...

Yes

Bunches.

I think the Bible is banned from school I think.

I have but books are usually banned for stupid, underwhelming reasons. So it doesn't add much to the experience.

Most of the books I read by black civil rights activists when I was in school are now being banned by conservatives trying to rewrite history. 🙁

With everything going on these days after reading your question it made me wonder if Hitlers Mein Kampf was still on the banned list?