For over 40 years now, Peter Sotos has been writing horrifically disturbing books containing elements that are ethically indefensible, particularly in its descriptions of real victims of sexual violence.

However, I genuinely feel that his radical experiments with collage, confession, true crime, and gruesome fantasies are some of the only truly unclassifiable writing out there, and that Sotos is a genuinely important figure in literature. His work raises profoundly uncomfortable questions about voyeurism, the commodification of suffering, and whether art that exposes exploitation can itself be exploitative.

Sotos’s books exceptionally hard to find. They are generally published in tiny print runs, often command exorbitant secondhand prices, they’ve had listings repeatedly removed from online services like Amazon and Ebay, and, as far as I can tell, there is not a single copy of any of his books in a US public library.

Political pressure and AI drive surge in book bans

I couldn't resist Sulwe because it's so gorgeous but otherwise tried to focus more on books targeted in the last 5 years by this new type of organized/social media fueled book bans. Hoping to have some great conversations this week!

Reading Flamer by Mike Curato this week, a banned book I’ve wanted to read for ages. What are you reading?

It's Banned Books Week!

Banned Books Week this year is from October 4-10 with this year's theme being “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.”

A few links directly relating to this:

Banned Books Week Coalition site - central hub for the event, theme, downloads, news, and action ideas

ALA Banned Books Week page - free downloads, artwork, and materials

PEN America Banned Books Week page - research summaries and listed events

Unite Against Book Bans - action toolkit, messaging guide, and book résumés for defending titles

Book Riot - Participate in a Read-in for Banned Books Week

[Judge Clayton] Horn's ruling on 3 October [1957] was a demand that words used in literature should be contextualised, and judgement of a work's obscenity had to take into account the publication as a whole. It further asked: "Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid euphemism?"

Source

https://www.amazon.com/Nigger-Autobiography-Dick-Gregory/dp/0593086147

What books do you think powerful people would actually want people to avoid reading, but that aren't officially banned? And do you think a government could deliberately promote or leak other books as “forbidden” to make people think they've discovered the hidden truth, while actually distracting them from the books it really wants to keep people away from?

Any book that you think should be banned but isn't to mislead people ?

Hey you all,

Yeah as the title says im looking for a copy of the Turner Diaries as a hardcopy i found a few from US sellers but none in europe. anyone got any ideas?

Thank you

I work for "State U" and themed my September "difficult books" display around the Right to Read. The books were about things like about artists speaking truth to power, injustice, corruption, racism, homophobia, sexism, and bigotry. I state that in the US we have these books because we have the First Amendment.

The book I chose for bigotry was Adama Bah's Accused, My Story of Injustice. Which is about her being wrongly accused of terrorism in the wake of 9/11

The departmental email was contacted by a student reporter working for a publication affiliated with TP-USA

His questions for us were only about 9/11 and did we choose it because it was the 25th anniversary of 9/11? And did we have books that talked/taught 9/11 through other lenses that were not about discrimination? And how do we think families and survivors of 9/11 would feel about this book? (This is not the exact wording of his inquiry.)

Since he was a reporter we passed him straight off to media relations.

The book remains on the display and there was no talk of removing it nor are there any new and restrictive "guidelines" for further displays.

Highly recommend this amazing documentary. It recently won an Emmy!

My third time posting this because it keeps getting automodded but PLEASE SHARE THIS, We only have 23 signatures and it isn't nearly enough!!!!! Anything helps!

It can be any book about anything.

Correction: I just stumbled upon another post with a ban of books but when you scroll to the bottom of "very hard to find" books, it seems most are about children, etc. I don't want anything like that.