Real Books that belong in the Restricted Section
Most of you will be familiar with the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library. The books within contain dark magic, and you will need a professor’s written permission to gain access.
The Catholic Church also had a List of Prohibited Books. The Church selected books that went against Catholic beliefs; both theological and secular. Most notably this list butted heads with growing scientific discoveries, like the heliocentric astronomical model in the 17th century.
I’m sure you’ve also heard of Banned Books Week. A special week consecrated by libraries across America as a time to focus on the closed-mindedness of some people. Libraries parade banned books in front of their audiences to show how harmless they are and give more information about the reasons for their banning. It is a good yearly reminder to keep your heart and mind open.
According to the American Library Association the top three reasons that books are banned are:
- the material was considered to be “sexually explicit”
- the material contained “offensive language”
- the material was “unsuited to any age group”
As a former librarian I joined in these Banned Books Week and I favor freedom of expression as a default. However, some books truly belong in the restricted section of the library.
Below are my picks. I have selected them based on the physical danger they pose, their corrupting influence on society, or their use to disseminate information or falsities to harm people.
They are not organized in any particular order.
Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide
Richard Huckle‘s unpublished pedophile manual.
Named Britain’s worst pedophile Richard Huckle is thought to have raped and sexually abused up to 200 Malaysian children.
Huckle posed as an English Teacher and traveled within Christian circles to gain the confidence of his victims’ families. He took pictures and videos of his victims and crimes to later share with other pedophiles. Police authorities found his laptop to contain thousands of encrypted files with evidence of his crimes.
Though never published, this manual makes the list for one of the wickedest books ever written.
Read more with these articles from the Guardian, Metro, and the BBC.
This manual was selected it teaches how to groom and manipulate children for sexual abuse.
Books bound in Human Skin
In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong in using human skin to bind a book (so long as the original bearer consented at the moment of their death.) Skin is like leather, perhaps it’s more fragile, I don’t know. The fact is that millions of books are bound in leather and that doesn’t bother anyone (maybe we should question that too.)
However, when thinking of the person who skinned a real-human being and tanned their skin to make a book cover, as well as the tacit participation of the reader, my judgement goes from neutral philosophizing to unquiet distaste; almost horror.
There are perhaps dozens of these books in the world but because they are rare and particular there is no one place where they all reside. See a selection of human-skin-bound books in this BBC article, or start a descent into your own internet rabbit hole with this Wikipedia article.
These books belong on the list not because of their content but because of their character.
CIA Torture Training Manuals
I was a teenager when the Abu Ghraib photos were publicized. Unfortunately, Abu Ghraib was not the first time that America condoned torture or instructed in its use. Probably, other countries have also created torture manuals but without specific information, I won’t list them here.
Between the 1960s and early 1990s, the CIA distributed a number of training manuals instructing in interrogation (torture) methodology. They became public information as a result of several Freedom of Information Act requests by the Boston Sun; article here.
The information in these manuals was probably used to torture prisoners of war, suspected terrorists, and political opposition members in the Middle East, Latin America, East Asia, as well as in the US government’s various Black Sites (secret prisons hosted outside of US territories.)
These manuals are included in the list because of their use to harm people.
Marie Curie’s Lab Notes
Marie Curie was a renowned two-time Nobel-winning physicist and chemist who conducted early scientific studies on radiation. She died of Aplastic Anemia as a result of her radiation studies.
Her Lab Notes were also affected by the radiation and to this day must be stored within special lead-lined boxes lest they pose a danger to the people nearby.
See more with this Gizmodo article or this Business Insider article.
This work features on my list because of the physical danger it may pose to readers.
The Turner Diaries and Hunter by William Pierce
The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel by William Pierce that depicts a race war in America. It uses racist, anti-semitic, and sexist language.
A copy was found in the vehicle of Timothy McVeigh after he bombed a federal office building in Oklahoma City. It has also inspired white supremacists and those on the far-right; both in their acts and world-views.
The Anti-Defamation League describes this book much better than I have here.
Hunter is another novel by Pierce written in 1989. It follows a white supremacist as he assassinates mixed-race couples and politicians.
I have read both The Turner Diaries and Hunter in contrast to most books on this list. After reading them, the N-word was running around in my thoughts unbidden and it took a while to remove. Strange the effect books can have on you.
These books were selected because of their corrupting influence on society.
The Game by Neil Strauss
The Game is a 2005 book by Neil Strauss that sold 2.5 million copies. In it he tells a story of how he went from timid man to pick-up artist (PUA.)
Some people really read this book to model themselves as PUAs. It has inspired other similar titles seeking to teach men how to pick up women. Sometimes they make wise psychological observations, sometimes they teach detestable psychological manipulation tactics like ‘negging;’ insulting a woman so that her confidence is lowered and she begins to seek your approval. With this mixture of wisdom and poison, unhealthy ideas can more easily insert themselves into one’s mind.
If you decide to read this book, please put some emotional armor on and follow up by reading another book with healthier ideas; just to balance yourself out.
As a starter, you can read this thoughtful piece by Sirin Kale at the Guardian as she follows a few men who have paid to be trained by a pick-up coach.
The Game was placed on this list because of its corrupting influence on society.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fake document that purportedly details the plans of Jewish men intent on world domination. It was first published in 1903 in Russia and was spread internationally at the beginning of the last century.
The Anti-Defamation League discusses its implications here.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is listed here because its false information corrupts society. That corruption in part fueled support for the Holocaust, thus harming many people.
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are two popular novels by Ayn Rand that champion individualism and outline her objectivist philosophy. So far so good.
These books will probably be the most controversial on this list. Many people love them and have even taken them for the basis of their political and philosophical beliefs.
So what are they?
The Fountainhead was published in 1943 and follows a fictitious architect who refuses to compromise his ideals or bend to the status quo. Society at large is depicted as corrupt.
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. It tells the story of steel developer Hank Reardon and railroad executive Dagny Taggart who are confronted by a corrupt society that continually tries to take their hard-earned productivity gains.
I fell into the orbit of Ayn Rand and Libertarianism during my college years. I still find a lot of fertile ideas in Libertarianism even if I now know how blind it is to many of society’s problems.
It took many years to refocus my political philosophy more towards the ideals of compassion and tolerance.
Rand’s books are listed here because of their corrupting influence on society and because the ideas within have informed the political actions of men such as Paul Ryan, and Alan Greenspan, among others.
Malleus Maleficarum
A work authored by Heinrich Kraemer in the late 15th century that encouraged the belief in witches and witchcraft. It details what witches are, describes how to identify them, and describes how to conduct witch-craft trials. Both Catholics and Protestants were susceptible to the book’s arguments. It was republished 28 times in its first 120 years.
Encyclopedia Britannica entry here.
In the following centuries tens of thousands of women, and to lesser extent men, were put on trial, tortured, and killed. One can only imagine the terror this could cause to onlookers and women everywhere. Society was without question changed for the worse as women would have sought to keep their heads down to avoid spurious accusations of witchcraft.
Malleus Maleficarum makes it onto this list because of its historical role in encouraging witch hunts and corrupting society. And for its encouragement of torture and that role in the harm of innumerable people throughout time.
What are your thoughts? Any books you’d put in the restricted section? Do you disagree with any of my choices?