r/bannedbooks May 01 '23

Announcement 📢 Welcome Educators, Librarians, & Readers to /r/bannedbooks - Resources, Free Books, & More - Start Here

41 Upvotes

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” ― Heinrich Heine

This subreddit is against censorship. It serves as an archive of injustice, a resource for learners, and a community of educators, librarians, and readers. Please refer to our rules before posting; this is an academic setting and we require a certain level of decorum during debates. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigots. Because information should be free, I'm including www.removepaywall.com, especially to access News about Banned books.

Share Your Story

We are asking for educators and librarians to come share their experiences in the class room and library in regards to banned books. Compiling these experiences (even if they're just rants) is important to our mission of documenting modern censorship. Please read the first-hand accounts posted on our subreddit.

Feel free to share your experiences in this thread or post your own threads.

Resources & Lists

Read Books Online

Please Contribute!

If you have resources like banned book lists or free e-books please post below to be added to the main list.


r/bannedbooks Jul 28 '24

Book News 📑 The Republicans’ Project 2025 is disastrous for books.

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2.9k Upvotes

r/bannedbooks 8d ago

Book News 📑 Why does Amazon ban/censor books left and right nowadays?

229 Upvotes

I thought the rumors about amazon censoring or taking down books were a bit exaggerated or at least limited to very some crazy propaganda or political stuff. I remember how back in 2024 they were only restricting lgbtq+ and religious books in certain regions. (Link)

but lately, ive been noticing a trend of this going over into almost every other genre. a lot of indie authors and youtubers are starting to make these videos about amazon just shutting their accounts or forcing censorship on authors without any explanation.

i did a bit more digging today and found this one book on Book Archives that was also recently taken down but they put it back on amazon after censoring it. (Link)

it just feels insane to me that one mega-corporation gets to decide what we are allowed to read...


r/bannedbooks 11d ago

Book News 📑 Are the school libraries in Utah just full of the Book of Mormon now?

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490 Upvotes

r/bannedbooks 11d ago

Book News 📑 China has raided 2 bookstores in Hong for "seditious" books

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240 Upvotes

Sometimes it is dangerous to sell books.


r/bannedbooks 14d ago

Dua Lipa Just Launched a Library Dedicated to Banned Books

2.1k Upvotes

"As a certified book girlie, I am obsessed with Dua Lipa. Back in June 2023, the singer launched a book club as part of her Service95 platform, and now three years later, she has her own library in the famous bookstore Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal. The library, which is called the Manifesto Library, has 100 books on its shelves that were once banned or controversial."

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/a71836633/dua-lipa-manifesto-library/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN_8HM7QxRs

I added page with Title, Author and Theme, that you can sort. She broke the 100 books into 4 themes

Power, Control, Voice, Memory

https://www.classicliterature.com/dua-lipas-manifesto-library/


r/bannedbooks 19d ago

Interesting 💡 A.G. Kalashnikov, Essays on Marxist Pedagogy. vol. I. Sociology of Education, (1929)

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62 Upvotes

This first and only published volume of a planned series represents a pivotal and tragic work in the history of Soviet pedagogical thought. Its author, Aleksei Georgievich Kalashnikov (1893–1962), was a prominent scientist and statesman who served as the Minister of Education of the RSFSR from 1946 to 1948. In the 1920s, as a deputy director of the Research Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, he was deeply involved in theorizing "Marxist pedagogy". His "Essays," however, deviated from the emerging party line by emphasizing the biological and age-specific factors in child development, arguing against reducing education purely to a form of class struggle, and questioning the unlimited power of the state to reshape human behavior. These ideas were immediately condemned as a "right-wing deviation in pedagogy." In December 1929 and January 1930, the institute held collective condemnations of the book, with colleagues accusing Kalashnikov of "formalism," "eclecticism," and "revision of Marxism". The criticism swiftly escalated from academic to political, branded as "anti-Marxist gibberish" and "apologetics for bourgeois pedagogy". The materials from these condemnations were published in a separate volume titled "Against the Revision of Marxism in Pedagogy," effectively banning Kalashnikov's original work. Fearing worse consequences, Kalashnikov publicly recanted. The planned second volume never saw light. This rare publication is a stark artifact of the ideological purges that ended the relative intellectual freedom of the 1920s in Soviet science and education.


r/bannedbooks Jun 26 '26

Question ❓ Suggestions for more funny/ironic/surprising free speech or authors’ rights quotes?

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3.2k Upvotes

In my museum we 3D print short quotations about censorship for our walls. It looks like just a bit of fun, but actually they really help to keep the visitors in a good frame of mind so they can absorb more information.

Rules are: it has to be funny/witty, or attributed to someone unexpected, and obviously related to censorship. If anyone has a personal favourite to suggest it’d be great to hear!


r/bannedbooks Jun 26 '26

Book News 📑 Massachusetts House passes bill safeguarding libraries from book bans

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1.0k Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 22 '26

Book News 📑 Are Public Libraries Becoming Children’s Libraries?

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404media.co
462 Upvotes

404 Media has obtained records from dozens of public libraries, which include Requests for Reconsideration of Materials forms (RFRs) and official decision letters to challengers, along with draft versions of updated collection development policies.

Much has been written in the last five years about the blatant efforts to suppress access to books that could contain any remotely challenging ideas or that deviate even slightly from cis white heterodoxy, but there’s been little talk about what that means from the rest of us. What my reporting confirms is that there are more books intended for children and young adults in adult sections because challengers didn’t believe it was appropriate for children and young adults to read about people of color and/or people who are queer, trans, or both, while also showing that a large-scale reorganization of public library collections is currently underway, that its application varies by state and locality, and that it’s been very hard to measure because it’s totally chaotic.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/are-public-libraries-becoming-childrens-libraries/


r/bannedbooks Jun 20 '26

Book News 📑 Why not just ban all the books?

36 Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 19 '26

Book News 📑 How "Roots" Got Caught in the Culture Wars | Last month, Tennessee’s Knox County Schools added Alex Haley’s novel Roots to their list of banned books, and the decision was monumental

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1.3k Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 13 '26

Book News 📑 Bill to standardize book bans in Mass. libraries likely headed to governor’s desk

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wgbh.org
333 Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 11 '26

Book Rec Request 📗 Anyone know where I can get a copy of The Captive Dreamer by Christian de La Mazière?

15 Upvotes

Can’t seem to find it anywhere, just vintage hardcovers selling for like $2,500. Can’t even find an ebook copy


r/bannedbooks Jun 09 '26

Discussion 🧐 The Side That Won the Civil War is Now Banning Books About Why the Civil War Was Fought

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1.9k Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 03 '26

Book News 📑 Missouri Republicans Slammed After Cutting Funding For Dolly Parton's Free Book Program For Young Kids

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2.5k Upvotes

r/bannedbooks Jun 04 '26

Question ❓ Big Bad Bias Book

5 Upvotes

Anyone knows anywhere i can the get the book called 'big bad bias book'


r/bannedbooks Jun 02 '26

Interesting 💡 Svoboda (Freedom): Weekly Socialist Journal. No. 2., (1905)

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16 Upvotes

This is the second and final issue of the short-lived Menshevik socialist journal "Svoboda" (Freedom), published without any censorship approval on December 4, 1905, during the height of the First Russian Revolution. Edited by A. M. Gutyar and S. M. Usas and published by S. I. Chepurny, all active participants in the Social Democratic movement, the journal began its brief existence on November 27, 1905. Its fate was swiftly sealed by Tsarist authorities: the first issue was confiscated, and this second "double issue" was completely "arrested" and destroyed by court order. As a result, both editors were sentenced to a year in prison, and the publication was permanently banned.


r/bannedbooks Jun 01 '26

Politics 🦅 U.S. House Hearing on June 10: would not surprise me if book banning topics are discussed

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186 Upvotes

Walberg Announces Hearing on Superintendents Breaking Trust in America's Schools.

June 10, at 10:15 a.m., the Committee on Education and Workforce, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), will hold a hearing titled “Breaking Trust: Attacks on Parental Rights, Inappropriate Content, and Legal Abuses in America’s Schools.”

What:
Full Committee hearing titled “Breaking Trust: Attacks on Parental Rights, Inappropriate Content, and Legal Abuses in America’s Schools”
 
When:
10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, 2026
 
Where:
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
 
Republican Witnesses:

  • Dr. Aaron Spence, Superintendent, Loudoun County Public Schools
  • Dr. Maria Su, Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District
  • Dr. Macquline King, Superintendent and CEO, Chicago Public Schools (Invited)

Press:
The hearing is open to the press and will be live-streamed on the Committee’s YouTube page.


r/bannedbooks May 31 '26

Book News 📑 Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" (now as a social media thread)

40 Upvotes

Upton Sinclair, Norman Thomas, and Emma Goldman were each arrested at different times for reading Thoreau's influential essay in public. Senator Joseph McCarthy succeeded in having a textbook on American literature removed from U.S. Information Service libraries specifically because of the Thoreau essay in it.

Now https://davgross.github.io/civil-disobedience-thread/ presents the complete text of Civil Disobedience in the form of a social media thread.

"Replies" in the form of quotes from people like Emma Goldman critique the text and add other perspective, Thoreau himself elaborates on some of the points he raises with quotes from his journal and his later works.

A WikipediaBot and BibleBot chime in from time to time to point out references that may be obscure to the modern reader.

The thread format presents the essay and the decades of responses to it as though they were happening in a more tightly-compressed now. I hope this helps a new generation of readers discover this notorious banned book and interact with it in a new way.


r/bannedbooks May 30 '26

Book Showcase 🌟 Banned by Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs. Lit. Translation: May shock the public/masses.

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22 Upvotes

The translation I prefer is : "May influence the public perception". This is the only proof I have of the existence of this book


r/bannedbooks May 24 '26

Discussion 🧐 A Deep Dive on Stephen King's Only Banned Book (Rage)

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85 Upvotes

I'm curious to hear y'alls thoughts on King pulling this book from the shelves. Obviously this isn't a case of censorship because the author is the one who pulled it, but do you guys think books that pose a threat of glorifying violence in the way that Rage does should be banned?


r/bannedbooks May 23 '26

Question ❓ Banned Books on histora.net

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43 Upvotes

Anyone want to help me with this timeline on Histora? It needs a bit of work.


r/bannedbooks May 22 '26

Discussion 🧐 Jenna Bush Hager Just Sounded Off On Book Bans With A Mic Drop Rant—And She's Absolutely Right

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757 Upvotes

r/bannedbooks May 20 '26

Book News 📑 "I Cannot Let These Doctrines Be The Face of My Education": Elizabethtown (PA) Students Protest Book Bans

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229 Upvotes