That Book is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing - by Adam Szetela

When I was in high school, back in the 1980s, we were required to take a civics class. In addition to learning about the three branches of government, and checks and balances, and how the electoral college functioned, we also learned a theory of politics that, rather than seeing Democrats and Republicans on a linear spectrum (that stretched from left to right) put them on a loop continuum, that eventually would meet. 

I thought about this lesson a few years later when I was in college and learned about Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist who, along with Catherine MacKinnon, fought against pornography. The two made strange bedfellows to right-wing Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell. All were active in an a lobbying effort to censor pornography in the 1980s.

More recently, attempts to ban Harry Potter books also demonstrate how the right and left mirror each other. While conservative Christians (literally) burn the books because they see them as espousing witchcraft, crusaders on the left likewise throw the works into the fire because of author J.K. Rowling's anti-trans views.

Szetela's book is unusual in that its focus is on how the left is censoring books. While I see a lot of news articles and reports about the crisis in book banning in schools and public libraries, these are almost exclusively about threats from the right (from groups such as Moms for Liberty, and No Left Turn in Education). To be sure these are real and serious threats that seek to remove books written by authors with BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or other historically underrepresented identities. Books that feature characters from marginalized communities are also often targets.

With the exception of PEN America almost no one is reporting on how the left is censoring materials. In some ways the methods are the same as those from the Moms for Liberty crowd. We see in both camps: 

• Paternalistic condescension: insisting on "protecting" children (and adults) from "harmful" books
• Not actually reading the books they want banned
• Calling for physical violence (including issuing death threats) against the authors and their publishers 
• Insisting that what they are doing isn't censorship because if people want to read the books that have been removed from the library they can simply buy them

Attacks from the left, however, may not get the same press as those from the right because some of their tactics are a bit more stealthy. Rather than challenging books that have been published, and are already on library shelves, what we see on the left is the use of social media to prevent books that don't adhere to very narrow guidelines (of what might be considered inoffensive) from being published in the first place. Online book reviews, many (most) of which are written by people who never read the book are shared by an increasingly large community. It is ironic, but not surprising, that it is often authors with the same marginalized identities that the right targets who are targeted by the left in these cases. Likewise, some of the mob have thrown stones only to find that they are living in glass houses themselves.

One of the things Szetela writes about that I found particularly curious is the proliferation of sensitivity readers. While those of us in academia are (fairly) admonished not to ask people with marginalized identities to be spokespeople for all in their communities, sensitivity readers have created a rather lucrative business marketing themselves to do just that. This has gone so far that "...even sensitivity readers have their work read by sensitivity readers".

I want to be clear that I absolutely agree that there is a need for more diverse books (for readers of all ages). I do not believe that any one person (or group) should be the arbiter of what should be published, or be found on library shelves. Every reader will bring a different interpretation to a particular book based on their own experiences. It is not for anyone else to determine how any book speaks to another reader. Additionally, books roles as "windows and mirrors" are part of their appeal to me. But not all books need to reflect my experiences, nor do they necessarily need to have a moral lesson, nor develop empathy. Some books are thought provoking, others are just fun, or silly, or simple escape. 

It may be time for all to revisit the Freedom to Read Statement adopted by the American Library Association in 1953 which, in addition to other things, reminds us that books should not be censored for author viewpoint, and that readers should be trusted to make their own choices (emphasis mine). 

Readers of this post can be assured that I did indeed read Szetela's whole book before writing my review!

The Dissidents Podcast: Don't Get on the Banned Wagon

Posting my recent podcast for Banned Books Week. Ironically, the hosting organization (the Institute for Liberal Values) received an email suggesting that I not be dropped from the speaker list for repeating the trope that JK Rowling is transphobic". It is not what I said, and even if I had suggesting that I be banned is completely antithetical to the message of the podcast.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dissidents/id1537516628

Forever, Interrupted - by Taylor Jenkins Reid

After eloping with her boyfriend, librarian Elsie Porter finds herself a young widow when her husband is struck by a car ten days into their marriage. 

The fact that Elsie was a librarian was almost not relevant to the story. It is clear that she likes her job, but isn't passionate about it. A few scenes do take place at the library, including a plot-turning episode in which she punches out a patron, but I imagine any employer would have put her on leave after such an incident. There is also an almost "between the stacks" moment, right there in the World Religions section.

I found it noteworthy that she lives in a nice apartment that she is able to afford on her own. It was refreshing to read a story that doesn't harp on low pay. Some librarians actually do make decent money.

Demon Copperhead - by Barbara Kingsolver

Over the course of about four weeks three different friends recommended three different Barbara Kingsolver books to me. First up was a recommendation by a fellow librarian - Demon Copperhead. She not only suggested I read it, but also expressed a desire to get together over Zoom so we can discuss it. I've finished by book, discussion is pending.

Based on Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (which I have not read) Kingsolver's book takes the reader into a world of poverty, foster care, hunger, and drug abuse. Nevertheless, throughout the despair libraries bring hope. Young Damon (aka Demon) longs to see the ocean. He has seen pictures and a "hypnotizing screen saver of waves rearing up and spilling over on a library computer". Fellow foster Tommy Waddles was "the type to make the best of things, mostly by reading library books and ignoring the fact of people hating him". Years later when Demon and Tommy meet up again Demon discovers that Tommy's understanding of pop culture is slim - Tommy having "squandered his youth on library books and had zero experience with cable TV."

As a recovering addict Demon recognizes that living in a city, even if you're poor, has some benefits including having a library within walking distance of his halfway house. He describes the "Halley Library branch on the north end of Knoxville" as "the other half of [his] halfway life". It was here that he met Lyra a "hot librarian" (is there any other kind?) "...with a full sleeve tattoo representing the book of Moby Dick". Lyra, however was not just another pretty face and sexy body, she taught Demon how to use the library's scanner and "rocked [his] marbles" by "turning [him] on to the adult comics and graphic novels section of library".

Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service - edited by Michael Lewis

Each essay in this collection features an unsung federal government employee. People we've never heard of who go to work daily and keep the government going. These profiles of humble yet remarkable workers include number crunchers, data keepers, and health workers. Of special interest to me was Sarah Vowell's essay on one of her fellow Montanans Pamela Wright of the National Archives aka "The Equalizer". Wright intends to digitize all documents available in the National Archives so that anyone can access them online no matter where they are in the world, and so that they are preserved for future generations. Presidential records, maps, censuses as well as original documents including the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are all part of what is preserved in the National Archives. That is unless a convicted felon steals them and puts them in a private bathroom. 

It is noteworthy that this book was published in 2024, before Trump's second term and before the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established. Since its writing Trump has fired Dr. Colleen Shogan, the National Archivist without cause.

I recommend this worthwhile and accessible read to all.

Calm - by S.J. Baker

I picked up this YA Dystopian novel from a local Little Free Library. In this fool's paradise the government has drugged the water supply to keep everyone lulled into a sense of complacecny and from having any feelings (good or bad). Of course books in this world are also hard to come by. And as with any dystopia there are resistors. Tiegan, a young dyed-in-the-wool Resistor who is running from the Servants remembers that her own home had a "little store [of books]...hidden in the cupboard...even though their very presence in the house meant danger."

Something else worth mentioning about this book it that it recognizes that when on the lam menstruating people may have trouble managing their periods. It was frankly refreshing to read a book that appreciated this problem.

Apex Hides the Hurt - by Colson Whitehead

A nomenclature consultant is paid to name things, mainly products, but in this satire the unnamed hero is hired to pick a new name for the town of Winthrop. Winthrop has a hotel, a bar, and of course a library. In fact one of the town's former librarians wrote a history of the town. This is provided to the consultant who supposes that "writing your town's local history was the librarian version of climbing Everest". Maybe so, as long as it doesn't get too badly edited for not being "ass-kissy" enough. 

While the consultant does meet one of the librarians (Beverly) and has some between-the-stacks type fantasies about her, he doesn't really get to use the library as it is being moved from one building to another during his visit.  Descriptions of the nearly empty space have a definite dystopian air

The place was a husk. The books were gone. Where he would usually be intimidated by an army of daunting spines, there were only dust-ball rinds and Dewey decimal grave markers. As if by consensus, all the educational posters and maps had cast out their top right-hand corner tacks so that their undersides bowed over like blades of grass. Nothing would be referenced this afternoon, save indomitable market forces.

Even the globe was gone. Over there on a table in the corner he saw the stand, the bronze pincers that once held the world in place, but the world was gone.

One would be forgiven for thinking that this was a description of a contemporary library once Moms for Liberty had their way with it. 

Beverly "a young white chick with dyed black hair [and] twenty or forty bracelets on her wrists...made an unlikely librarian, stereotype-wise". Nevertheless the consultant decides that she must be wearing "one bracelet for every shush".

A quick fun read that I picked up at my local library.