If you could ban a book….

Completely a hypo. This question in no way implies that banning books is good. But if you were king (or queen) of the universe and could wave a wand and a book would blink out of existence. What books would you get rid of and why?

September 24, 2007 by Bibliofuture Uncategorized 7

SprogFree says:

September 24, 2007 at 10:06 am

Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About
I have stuck to my guns in not ordering this, despite numerous requests. It’s nothing more than a plug for Kevin Trudeau’s mega-scam web site. As I understand it, he’s faced numerous legal actions for fraudulent practices. A few others I could live without:

A Child Called “It”, The Secret, anything by Matthew Lesko, Ulysses, Walter the Farting Dog, Arthur books that focus on D.W., anything by Sylvia Browne.

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Lazygal says:

September 24, 2007 at 2:23 pm

Books I’d Ban
There are so many I could live without (Dan Brown’s entire output, for example) but I know that *I* read trash so who am I to decide that others can’t? As for the real “Must Be Banned”, like Mein Kampf, well, there’s some value to have those around.

On the other hand, don’t we all “ban” books when we do collection development?

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mdoneil says:

September 24, 2007 at 6:57 pm

Re:Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know Abo
Heck, then ‘my’ library would only have CDs and videos left if we got rid of all those. I finally ordered the natural cures nonsense book after getting more than 20 requests for it in a week. I couldn’t convince technical services to catalog it as fiction.

Me, I wouldn’t ban anything. If people want to write crap, people are certainly welcome to read it.

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Mary Ellen says:

September 25, 2007 at 7:39 am

If you could ban a book….
I’m sure there are plenty I could do without but the only 2 topics I’ve ever mentioned to anyone that I thought should be banned (in jest of course) are kids books on intelligent design and any book that depicts Santa Claus as evil. That’s a strange combination now that I think of it, lol.

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Anonymous Patron says:

September 25, 2007 at 4:36 pm

Feminist-inspired childrens’ historical novels…
Filled with “spunky” girls saying and doing what they never would have. (For the record, I would not actually ban anything short of obscenity.)

Really, the entire juv historical novel category has been ruined; there is a determined effort nowadays to put current (liberal) sensibilities into characters living in a time not our own. Or else it’s not really past-fiction, it’s “Dude, We Got Lost In The Museum And, Like, Time Traveled Or Something Back To, Like, Ancient Egypt!!!” In other words, using devices that allow the “bubble” of current (liberal) sensibilities to appear amongst (and lecture upon) the archaisms of a previous era in human history.

I call this “totalitarian children’s literature” because it so greatly fears other, prior perspectives and ways of living that it substitutes lies for historical truth. But then, as the patron saint of postmodernism once said,

“What is truth?”

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Anonymous says:

September 25, 2007 at 5:28 pm

If I Was King of the universe
There would be NO other authors, all books would be written about me, or by me. I’d make Turkmenbashi look like he was self loathing!

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Anonymous Patron says:

September 26, 2007 at 6:11 pm

Re:If I Was King of the universe
You mean you’d make Kim Il-sung look like dung? Joseph Stalin small as pollen? Adolf Hitler a whole lot littler?

“I’d command each thing, be it fish or fowl.
With a woof and a woof and a royal growl – woof.
As I’d click my heel, all the trees would kneel.
And the mountains bow and the bulls kowtow.
And the sparrow would take wing –
If I – If I – were King!”

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