Episode · The Jordan Harbinger Show · 2026-11-08
Books mentioned on 1411: Banned Books | Skeptical Sunday
On this Skeptical Sunday, Nick Pell reads between the lines of banned book lists to show how outrage moves units — and what real censorship looks like.
Nick Pell recommended Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham with 12 Silly Sounds! by Dr. Seuss, and Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, discussed Bible, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and others, Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, Ulysses by James Joyce, The Worst of Boiled Angel by Mike Diana, Hit Man by Rex Feral, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Lawn boy by Jonathan Evison, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Maus I: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman, The Ordeal of Civility by John Murray Cuddihy, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and criticized The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Witches by Roald Dahl. Jordan Harbinger recommended I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max, and discussed Capital by Karl Marx, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling, And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Bible
Discussed“there are close to 60 countries where the bible is banned most of them are muslim countries north korea is a non-muslim country where the bible is banned”
Where to get it
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The Communist Manifesto
Discussed“there are several countries where the communist manifesto is either outright banned or heavily restricted how do you restrict to the communist manifesto it sounds silly the license thing”
Where to get it
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Capital
Discussed“i would actually love if some of our eastern european listeners would tell me what this means in their case can they just pick up karl marx or is that not available or is that even illegal”
Where to get it
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Mein Kampf
Discussed“mein kampf is kind of banned in a similar way in about a dozen countries around the world but i know this is true of fascist writings i believe it's also true of communist writings”
Where to get it
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Naked Lunch
Recommended“in fact there hasn't been a trial over the legality of a book since 1966 that was a case heard before the massachusetts supreme court over one of my favorites william burroughs naked lunch”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
Discussed“ulysses was banned in boston by james joyce lots of stuff was banned in boston and so if you wanted to like streisand effect your book into nationwide attention”
Where to get it
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The Worst of Boiled Angel
Discussed“mike diana he is a man who was put on trial in florida in 94 for his underground comic zine boiled angel i actually worked for the comic book legal defense fund right out of college who defended him at the time”
Where to get it
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Discussed“i think most people would agree that there are books that kids shouldn't read you don't let your kid read harry potter right was that it my son is mercifully uninterested in harry potter”
Where to get it
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Hit Man
Discussed“the fourth circuit court of appeals ruled in 1997 that a book called hitman a technical manual for independent contractors which is exactly what it sounds like was not protected by the first amendment”
Where to get it
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Gender Queer
Discussed“genderqueer by maya kobabe was a graphic novel so there's pictures right but it's not just words there were illustrations of one character performing oral sex on another who was wearing a strap-on dildo”
Where to get it
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Lawn boy
Discussed“and yeah like people didn't want their kids reading this at school having a lawn boy by jonathan everson had graphic depictions of 10 year olds having sex yikes okay yeah i can see how somebody might think that's a little too”
Where to get it
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A Clockwork Orange
Discussed“there's books that are super old clockwork orange for example which i read in high school or the bluest eye which like me and everyone else read in honors freshman english they do get spikes in sales”
Where to get it
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The Bluest Eye
Discussed“clockwork orange for example which i read in high school or the bluest eye which like me and everyone else read in honors freshman english they do get spikes in sales”
Where to get it
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Maus I: A Survivor's Tale
Discussed“sometimes we do have verifiable examples of spikes in sales so art spiegelman's mouse which i've read i assume you've read i assume a lot of our readers have read it it's a holocaust graphic novel”
Where to get it
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The Ordeal of Civility
Discussed“so an example of this is you could still buy john murray cutahy's the ordeal of civility on amazon but it's over 150 bucks because it's not in print publishers don't want to touch it”
Where to get it
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The Satanic Verses
Discussed“here is the satanic verses by salman rushdy for anyone under the age of 40 this is a book that allegedly reportedly offended muslims so i guess some muslims many muslims”
Where to get it
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The Handmaid's Tale
Critiqued“and it does it makes me angry that people want to posture as dangerous outlaws because they're reading the handmaid's tale yeah there was like what like a six season long television series based on it”
Where to get it
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Fahrenheit 451
Recommended“the thing is it wasn't even privately funded libraries it was specifically the united states information service libraries which is like a military thing this was not fahrenheit 451 which by the way you should go read that”
Where to get it
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Robin Hood
Discussed“a member of the indiana state textbook commission during the same time period demanded the removal of robin hood from school books because his philosophy of robbing the rich to give to the poor was the communist line”
Where to get it
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Discussed“there's some attempts to remove books that preach racial tolerance there are some attempts to remove books like huckleberry finn and call a mockingbird where people use racial slurs”
Where to get it
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Discussed“there's some attempts to remove books that preach racial tolerance there are some attempts to remove books like huckleberry finn and call a mockingbird where people use racial slurs”
Where to get it
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Discussed“the supreme court ruled that a new new york school board could not remove books like kurt vonnegut's slaughterhouse five because it and other books like it were allegedly anti-christian or anti-american”
Where to get it
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And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street
Discussed“but then you start talking about stuff like dr seuss's publisher removed six of his books from circulation during the madness of 2020 and 2021 really i don't really remember this so what was that all about”
Where to get it
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Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham with 12 Silly Sounds!
Recommended“one of which is my personal favorite dr seuss book and to think that i saw it on mulberry streets excellent book whether you have children or not i love the idea of people panic buying green eggs and ham”
Where to get it
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Green Eggs and Ham
Recommended“one of which is my personal favorite dr seuss book and to think that i saw it on mulberry streets excellent book whether you have children or not i love the idea of people panic buying green eggs and ham”
Where to get it
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Discussed“and on the one hand the left wanted to remove or edit books that like you said they were deemed racially insensitive or outside the cultural norms of the day of modern day and then on the right yeah there was a kind of counter-reformation”
Where to get it
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The Witches
Critiqued“the punchline to all this is that roald dahl raging anti-semite his book the witches is like the fisher price my first protocols of the elders of zion oh my gosh really i didn't know”
Where to get it
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I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
Recommended“remember tucker maxx and how oh yeah his blog went crazy because people were like you got to read this and then it was like oh we're going to publish a book and then he did and it got it was just enormous”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (10) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“i was just in a bookstore last sunday and i was terrified the entire time that the american gestapo was going to burst in at any second and start arresting people for reading harry potter”
Passing The Communist Manifesto
“books that are banned around the world i'm just using these as examples because i assume that everyone knows roughly speaking what's in the bible the communist manifesto and mind comp”
Passing Leaves of Grass
“what are some other books that have been historically banned either in boston or elsewhere oh some of my favorites are on here leaves of grass by walt whitman”
Passing A Farewell to Arms
“oh some of my favorites are on here leaves of grass by walt whitman hemingway is a farewell to arms james joyce ulysses”
Passing Ulysses
“oh some of my favorites are on here leaves of grass by walt whitman hemingway is a farewell to arms james joyce ulysses”
Passing Fifty Shades of Grey
“so basically it carves out a giant loophole where a book can be sexy but as long as it has some other redeeming quality it's not porn it's not pornography no idea how 50 shades of gray sneaks in under that”
Passing The Poor Man's James Bond
“uncle ragnar's dirty improvised explosives using household chemicals poor man's james bond the anarchist cookbook was like the basic one in there but there was all this stuff like rolling thunder”
Passing The Anarchist Cookbook
“the anarchist cookbook was like the basic one in there but there was all this stuff like rolling thunder how to modify your car to have like guns on it”
Passing Rolling Thunder
“there was all this stuff like rolling thunder how to modify your car to have like guns on it and like bulletproof the important parts”
Passing Trust Me, I'm Lying
“so ryan holiday who's been on the show like 10 times or something he did some of the marketing for this and one of the things he did this is i'm going off memory here i think this is in his ancient book trust me i'm lying”