Are there any books that are actually banned, or made illegal, in the US?

18 comments

1. When someone says a book is “banned” in the US it usually means that some library somewhere in the country removed it from their shelves. You cannot ban a book in the USA, it’s against the first amendment.

2. The only one I can think of that comes close to this is the Anarchist’s cookbook. Even then it isn’t *illegal* to buy/download, it just puts you on a watchlist. And that I believe is a rumor

3. Can’t really ban a book, so what they try to do is have books removed from the school curriculum and libraries in certain towns.

4. Child porn books.

5. [Wikipedia has a list.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments#United_States) I don’t know that it’s complete but it’s definitely non-zero. Most of them were banned by obscenity laws that have since been overturned, but there are some newer ones.

6. There is no book that, by name, it is illegal to own. Some books may, by their content, fall under various criminal laws such as child pornography.

7. I was looking it up and as I thought, books in the US are only banned in select schools, but not completely banned. The 1st amendment protects any rights of press and expression. However, “During the first half of the 2022-23 school year PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles, an increase of 28 percent compared to the prior six months, January – June 2022.”

8. Interesting question, banned probably, made illegal probably not

   Books have been pulled from the shelves after losing IP and libel cases. The books themselves aren’t “illegal” but their publication is legally prohibited so people are asked to return their copies but the government doesn’t round them up.

   There’s a doctrine with US speech law called “prior restraint” which refers to courts granting an injunction to prevent publication. In short, courts will almost never prevent speech from being published but they will clean up afterward.

   That said, if you wrote a book exposing state secrets, it’s sale and possession would likely be made illegal. To offset this issue, people with experiences that might broadly fall under the category of state secrets have their books screened by the government prior to publication.

9. As far as I know the only thing that can make a book illegal is having actual images of child pornography besides that nothing will make a book illegal.

   The issue is that people are against books being in school libraries. Government funded entities, proximity to children, and culture war bs makes it a heated matter.

10. I think the Turner Diaries is pretty hard to come by but I don’t think it’s outright illegal

11. The only thing that I can imagine would be illegal, would be a book containing illegal images such as CP.

12. This brings to mind https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Progressive,_Inc. When the US government tried to keep *The Progressive* magazine from publishing an article on atomic bombs, and had a how to build your own nuclear bomb.

13. Up until 1959, the United States regularly banned books on the basis of being “obscene” through the Comstock Law. Under the Comstock Law, it was illegal to give or receive the Canterbury Tales, or Candide by Voltaire (among many, many others).

    Books have been banned by states after the Comstock Law was overturned. Notably, Naked Lunch was illegal in Massachusetts for many years. There’s plenty of cases of books being illegal for years before eventually being overturned. People certain keep trying to ban books while the books will eventually be made legal to sell or own again after lengthy court battles, they are certainly banned for that period of time.

    Additionally, there a few books that are illegal in some form for reasons other than obscenity, or portraying the state of California negatively (you couldn’t buy the Grapes of Wrath for years at one point).

    A book called “The Federal Mafia” is illegal to buy or sell by judicial order because it supposedly contains fraudulent information, but its not illegal to obtain a free copy of the book online. A unauthorized sequel to the Catcher in the Rye was written and “Salinger succeeded in obtaining a court injunction which indefinitely banned the publication, advertising or distribution of the book in the United States.” The Confederacy also banned Uncle Tom’s Cabin, though that one doesn’t really count in my book. Further, there were books that were illegal back when we were colonies.

14. I’d say a book calling for the death of the president probably would. I’m not aware of any examples or if it has been an issue, just an assumption

15. No. If you want to find a book badly enough…you’ll find it. We don’t actually ban books.

16. I have one! It’s called [“60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_David_California) and it was written by a guy who continued the story of Catcher in the Rye without permission from Salinger.

    I’m curious to see how close to the voice of Salinger the guy got so, I got it from a friend in the UK. It’s illegal to publish this book in the US and Canada. There’s one copy on ebay where the seller is asking about $100 for it. (LOL) I think my friend spent $15 with shipping included.

    Apparently, the author of this often takes well known works and changes them into something else to sell. This makes him a controversial author for sure.

17. Books can be illegal if they infringe on copyright, but nothing is banned nationwide for original content no matter how offensive or problematic it might be.

18. None. Doesn’t mean the government should buy every book published. However, the selection of books should be “viewpoint neutral.” If you have public libraries or public school libraries, the choice of books bought should not emphasize one viewpoint over another.