Or take your kids to the library
They're unfortunately not something that can be relied on exclusively for an indefinite future.
This is not an imaginary threat: https://www.al.com/news/2024/08/this-alabama-library-had-to-...
It's the definition of an imaginary threat.
The books that are actually banned, the ones that were forced out of print, not available in public libraries and cost hundreds or thousands for a used copy? They are right-leaning politically.
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/roughly-300-books-were-r...
Browsing the list of in rem cases in the US turns up quite a few cases where the US actually seized several pornographic books such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, which is perhaps a little more in line with what you were thinking about.
The last guy's alluding to right wing books though. I remember Axios reported that the Turner Diaries and Camp of the Saints are going for hundreds now, because printing has been ended: https://www.axios.com/2021/01/28/racist-novels-skyrocket-in-... But books are now available on Amazon for cheap and pirating is easy, but here are some which libraries don't seem to have stocked and mostly aren't purchasable.
I imagined Holocaust denial etc. are effectively banned/not stocked by most libraries. Googling, I found discussions about My Revolutionary Life by Leon DeGrelle, Into the Cannibal's Pot by Ilana Mercer etc. But things from other movements too like an Ulster loyalist Ian Paisley's Messages from the Prison Cell or Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Pinochets memoir is also inaccessible.
Then there are books about bombs or e.g. Put em Down, Take em Out by Pentecost about knife fighting ($60/now used). In the UK, a nazi was jailed 13 years for having a pdf the White Resistence Manual: https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-08-31/prison-officer-...
I'll stop there. There are long lists, with about half the entries seeming plausibly banned.
I miss bookstores.
And likely other parts of society as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challeng...
I expect many books are on the radar of would-be opponents because they are either a) revered classics that are often part of school reading lists, or b) books that are popular. Though I can understand wanting to restrict books with instructions for harming others or oneself (even if such information is readily available on the internet.) I can also see why many revered but subversive children's books might be opposed (but of course that's what makes them so great!)
My take is that the greatest threat to public (and university) libraries (along with budget and hour reductions, a general decline in reading, etc.) is copyright law, which currently does not permit a first sale doctrine for ebooks or non-physical digital media and generally stands in the way of building practical and sustainable digital library collections. Innovations such as scanning printed collections and making them available remotely as ebooks or audiobooks, or making music or video collections available remotely, are also prohibited.
It's not the right's fault that I now have to wonder if a given copy of Matilda is as it was written or if it's been 'sanitized'. It's not the right that challenges Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird for their depictions of racism. Harry Potter, once feared by the hyper conservatives for witchcraft, is now under fire because of the political opinions of the author.
We all need to get better at dealing with difficult ideas, and that includes books whose contents and authors we disagree with. This is a systemic problem across the entire US, not one unique to one wing.
They don't have to. Publishers caved to cultural pressure from the left and were originally planning on stopping publishing of the original editions. That plan would have phased out Dahl's work without having to force anyone to do anything—as libraries replaced damaged books their shelves would become sanitized.
Left-wing destruction of history and suppression of difficult ideas isn't better for the world just because it finds non-legislative means like silent publisher edits and massive grassroots cancellation campaigns.
Florida is awful, and I'm not condoning their legislature's behavior. But so are those who yank Harry Potter because Rowling is loudly not liberal enough for their tastes. It's just different tools to accomplish the same odious end.
People deciding not to support an author is not censorship. Despite malicious right-wing claims trying to muddle it, being "cancelled" is just people exercising their right not to support you. No one's facing jail time for stocking Harry Potter in a library. You can't say that about right-wing crusading.
The left isn't better from a moral perspective just because they suppress their taboo ideas by quietly influencing school curricula and sanitizing books at the publisher level rather than hamfistedly legislating the "problematic ideas" away.
Both are reprehensible, but one is less competent. I honestly view the left as more dangerous when it comes to censorship precisely because it's not hamfisted.
I don't say that hatefully or anything, it's what happened. It was a tiny library chocked full of shelves. Then some were removed to add six or so computers. The last time I went in, over half of the shelves were gone and replaced with computers.
I don't mean to pearl clutch here, I fully support libraries and always will. I do not support a government subsidized internet cafe.
Libraries have books, magazine, journal subscriptions, children's books, music, movies, art. They host clubs, they host discussions or community events, they help people find all sorts of information.
Maybe it's just its ephemeral nature. In 1000 years if someone came across an old library they could see and learn so much. Not so much if it's just a pile of computers that don't work anymore.
Which library burns books, more precisely 1/3rd of their children’s collection because fairy tales represent toxic masculinity, including The Little Red Hood?
Ah yes, the library of Barcelona. Not what I’d consider “under attack by conservatives”. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/barcelona-scho...