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Original poster

Recommended reading - what books would be confiscated from your house?

88 replies

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 25/01/2022 19:32

Am slack jawed reading about the police removing a book from a woman's home which she believes was to "check" her thinking.

It gave me pause to look at my own bolshy bookshelf with scribbles of sedition.

What books have you read that some might consider "problematic" but which you found particularly helpful, interesting or challenging and which maybe led you to these boards?

Jenni's book is by Heather Brunskell Evans, I think it might be this one:
www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2020/11/27/book-review-transgender-body-politics-by-heather-brunskell-evans

I'd recommend Kathleen Stock, of course
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/material-girls-by-kathleen-stock-review-bkqxckqqr

Helen Joyce, this is the one that every MP was sent.
www.standard.co.uk/culture/books/trans-when-ideology-meets-reality-helen-joyce-review-b944183.html

Milli Hill - not about trans but about obstetric violence
(presumably this was reviewed before Milli said she thought that sex is a thing)
www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/give-birth-like-a-feminist-review

Maya Dusenbery's "Doing Harm" is a few years old and there are other versions by other authors examining medical misogyny, but, this is my favourite of them
therumpus.net/2018/04/doing-harm-by-maya-dusenbery/

Inferior by Angela Saini is similar but looks at the sciences in general
www.chemistryworld.com/review/inferior-how-science-got-women-wrong-and-the-new-research-thats-rewriting-the-story-/3008048.article

Who cooked Adam Smith's dinner by Katrine Marcal is a feminist critique of economics wbg.org.uk/blog/who-cooked-adam-smiths-dinner-a-review/

In Control by Jane Monckton Smith is about predictors for male violence which end in the murder of women www.college.police.uk/article/dangerous-relationships-and-how-they-end-book-review

The Mental Load by Emma (no surname) is a cartoon book about who does what in a home and why www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

The trouble with women by Jackie Fleming is hilarious and beautifully illustrated. www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/16/the-trouble-with-women-jacky-fleming-feminist-cartoons

There are others. If the police wish to remove my books I will expect a receipt and for them to be returned to me. Although, if they were a bit dog eared by the time I got them back because they'd been quietly shared round the stations, well, that would please me enormously.

For balance, I have read Juno Dawson, Shon Faye and have attempted Alok Vaid-Menon's three times now...honestly, I know you don't get as much time to read as you'd like, so I recommend saving those treasures until after you have read and reflected all of the books on your "oh, that looks interesting" list.

OP posts:
Deliriumoftheendless · 26/01/2022 20:42

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I've got a model clitoris on my bookshelf.

Is that an automatic penalty of "strip search and slagging off of saggy tits and hairy everything"?

Because I could try and hide it. I think I could blu tac it over my actual clitoris.

Well, they’d have to find it first.
EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 26/01/2022 20:40

@RoyalCorgi

I have an awful lot of the books mentioned in this thread - Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock, Abigail Shrier, Caroline Criado Perez for starters. That's not to mention the classics: Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millett, Dale Spender and so on. I think it would be too much for the Gwent police, though I'm rather enjoying the idea of them taking the books away and then sitting down and reading them to see what seditious material they contain.
Will they be sent to gulags after reading the books? Will they be able to claim for the intellectual harm incurred by reading facts and ideas that cultural relativism means were not dangerous at the time but are incendiary now?
AsTreesWalking · 26/01/2022 20:27

I not only have a lot of the books mentioned in my house, I have put some of them in my girls' school library ...
'The grace year', 'Trans', 'Testosterone Rex', 'Material girls', 'The second sex', Woolstonecraft, Rowling (Potter & Strike) and others. So much danger! Don't tell the other librarians, I'll be drummed out!

MiladyBerserko · 26/01/2022 20:15

They removed it because it had her notes inside. This is literally checking for WrongThink.
I assume her private notes will be used against her. I'm assuming some comparison to terrorism will be attempted.

Original poster
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 26/01/2022 20:06

I'm willing to donate a book or two to the station.

We could all send them something for quiet moments on shift. There must be loads of those if they have staff available to man handle women in the middle of the night.

OP posts:
RoyalCorgi · 26/01/2022 17:15

I have an awful lot of the books mentioned in this thread - Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock, Abigail Shrier, Caroline Criado Perez for starters. That's not to mention the classics: Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millett, Dale Spender and so on. I think it would be too much for the Gwent police, though I'm rather enjoying the idea of them taking the books away and then sitting down and reading them to see what seditious material they contain.

KittenKong · 26/01/2022 16:54

I’ve got an old London A-Z. Very concerned. Ask a 1970s ladybird edition of the Two Naughty Kittens.

Triphazards · 26/01/2022 16:33

You've got me seriously worried about my copy of The Cassell Book of the Austin A40.

ButtonSister · 26/01/2022 16:10

If you have small children you might want to hide anything they have dinosaur related; Harry and the Dinosaurs is a fine work of treason and sedition.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 26/01/2022 16:00

Maybe 1984 at a stretch. Depends what mood they’re in, no?

They might need to take it for some handy pointers.

Original poster
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 26/01/2022 15:53

I haven't read Fury yet.

I'll take it with me as my luxury item to the cell, though. I've put a pair of tweezers in as a bookmark, if I'm there for 10 hours I could probably manage to have a go at my tache and eyebrows.

OP posts:
Original poster
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 26/01/2022 15:52

I've also got Fury, a memoir by Kathryn Heyman. It's a novel about a woman who runs away to be a deckhand in Timor after a traumatic sexual assault trial.

Apparently about trauma and survival. I bought it as an adjunct to The Body Keeps the Score which is a popular science book about trauma.

I do have some Pratchett and poetry, not everything I read is a deep dive into female misery.

(though, come to think of it, the Pratchett is all the witches and gender bending dwarves and the poetry is all Hollie McNish, Wendy Cope, Carol Ann Duffy and Liz Lochead. So, yeah, maybe I need to re-read some Jackie Collins as a matter of urgency)

OP posts:
EsmaCannonball · 26/01/2022 15:43

Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. So good to have some arguments to counter some of the pseudoscience and (deliberate) misunderstanding of science on this issue. I shall keep it hidden in a trough of chickenfeed and excavate an area under the floorboards where I can read it in safety. Do we have to start wearing berets and trenchcoats yet?

Original poster
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 26/01/2022 15:40

I've got a model clitoris on my bookshelf.

Is that an automatic penalty of "strip search and slagging off of saggy tits and hairy everything"?

Because I could try and hide it. I think I could blu tac it over my actual clitoris.

OP posts:
EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 26/01/2022 15:31

@chilling19

A lot of the books mentioned above, plus radical notions and posters, stickers and artwork from Jess, a feminist rage poster in a frame, mugs and bags with feminist slogans on. Oh dear. The house must be lit up on the heretic map.
I'd overlooked my Sex Matters paraphenalia… Blush

And my FiLiA stuff, including the banner and Wrong Side of History teatowels.

www.filia.org.uk/filia-shop/wrong-side-of-history-my-arse-courage-calls-to-courage

TheFnozwhowasmirage · 26/01/2022 13:04

I have lots of books on horse/ livestock veterinary care and breeding, obviously transphobic as they refer to only two sexes and know which is which.
Dd1 is doing a zoology degree,which deals with genes, chromosomes, reproduction ect. Her books and materials are very transphobic as again,they teach biological truth,not woo woo feelz.
Let the burning commence!

CompleteGinasaur · 26/01/2022 10:42

Bugger. Trans Righteous, not Transphobic..

CompleteGinasaur · 26/01/2022 10:41

They could start the righteous inferno with lots of Adult Human Female T shirts, I expect. All printed matter, innit? Although what they'd do with my reverently preserved Playing With A Different Sex Au Pairs' T shirt (free iron-on transfer came with the album) I can't think - is it Gender Critical or Transphobic?

What do you think, boys women and girls?

NitroNine · 26/01/2022 10:36

Thankfully I borrowed it from the library a while ago so it’s not still in my possession because The Grace Year somehow managed to be published in 2019, despite being dystopian fiction where the society being described is ultra-misogynistic & the protagonist recognises this...

chilling19 · 26/01/2022 10:19

A lot of the books mentioned above, plus radical notions and posters, stickers and artwork from Jess, a feminist rage poster in a frame, mugs and bags with feminist slogans on. Oh dear. The house must be lit up on the heretic map.

CompleteGinasaur · 26/01/2022 10:13

@highame

All of your books will be evidence because they will all mention women and the implication will be that women means sex not gender.

I've just been out and burned The Curious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Never read the bloody thing but the title will be seen as ambiguous Grin

Oh, they've got us now - could there be anything more 1984 than getting us to where we've internalised the terror so much that we burn our own books?

Well done , Gwent Police, job done...!

Lancelottie · 26/01/2022 09:12

I have the style guides from several science publishers, pre-Stonewalling. Nearly all day something along the lines of ‘For social and psychological studies, use gender; for biological and medical studies, the relevant term is sex.’

I’m doomed.

highame · 26/01/2022 09:05

All of your books will be evidence because they will all mention women and the implication will be that women means sex not gender.

I've just been out and burned The Curious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Never read the bloody thing but the title will be seen as ambiguous Grin

TheMarzipanDildo · 26/01/2022 08:49

I have The Second Sex next to A Room of Ones Own next to my Strike collection on the shelf....

JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 26/01/2022 08:43

Who would have guessed that my copy of Mein Kampf would one day be less controversial than a kid's book about a school for wizards 🤷

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