... to think we can extend this list a lot? Surely almost every book and film could have a content warning for something?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

The Times today reports that ^universities have started removing books from reading lists to protect students from “challenging” content and have applied trigger warnings to more than 1,000 texts, a Times investigation has found.
Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, have withdrawn books from course study lists, or made them optional, in case they cause students harm. The texts include the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, which has been “removed permanently” from a course reading list at Essex University because of concerns about graphic depictions of slavery.^

There are many serious and obvious things to say about this, but they're all in the article. The aspect that engaged me is that it gives the list in full. I am certain we could help out the university sector by pointing out other potentially distressing books.

Here are some of the examples:

The Ancient Mariner, S. T. Coleridge University of Greenwich Content warning: Animal death, human death, supernatural possession

Persuasion, Jane Austen Aberdeen Portrays views of gender and class identity that are rooted in the context of early nineteenth-century England

The Waste Land, TS Eliot Aberdeen Contains references to death and war

The Iliad, Homer Highlands and Islands Violent close combat

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens Royal Holloway Child abuse

Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson Aberdeen Kidnapping [No! I'd never have guessed it would cover this subject]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie Greenwich Contains murder [What! Shocked, I tell you, shocked]

And my favourite: The Bible York Shocking sexual violence

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/339af864-17ce-11ed-b1f4-627a202c7457 (Sorry, I don't have a share token for the article, but you can read it for nothing by signing up with your email address. That way you get to read a few free articles every month.)

So, what are your suggestions of content warnings for university students?

Here's mine:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - contains description of an eating disorder and consequent physical discomfort

A brief warning about themes is one thing.

This is about universities removing serious texts from their reading lists, which is quite another. No wonder students are complaining. They're also being stifled from having different views on interpreting texts.

The Nancy Drew series - TW: childhood trauma due to death of a parent, neglect by living parent, exploration of domestic staff

Her father leaves her to be 'raised' by a household servant, but she's allowed to run amok and get up to all sorts of trouble.

Taking The Underground Railroad as an example as I just read it so it's fresh in my mind:

Yes there is a lot of horrific content in it and I have no major problem with adding a warning, but I'd think anyone who'd read the blurb and knows it's about slavery should have a rough idea of what sorts of things happened then? I thought there was a whole push now to decolonise reading lists and include more books by black voices such as Whitehead, more reading on the unpleasant parts of history that tend to get whitewashed and glossed over, more education on the horrors of those times, more books about black history and historical figures? How are people supposed to learn about slavery if they can't read books that depict what it was like?

As I said, trigger warnings I don't really mind, but straight up removing a recent award-winning novel by a black author about Black history because it's upsetting is a huge shame and also seemingly missing the point of education.

Agree @Thatswhyimacat

On a serious note though, at age 10 we read a school text called Island of the Blue Dolphins (based on a true story). It contains themes like abandonment, isolation and involves a horrific death. It was incredibly sad and haunting and I still think about it to this day.

Wish we weren't so young when we read it.

I washing to suggest Black Beauty. I'm 63, must have read it 100s of times but I still cry at the fate of Ginger so definitely needs to go on the list to spare poor cherubs the trauma.
But you've gone and made me realise I haven't read it in while so now I will read it next and cry again. And afterwards I will go and hug my own black horse and remind him he's a lucky bugger.

Any memoir by a reality 'star', to warn that it is probably fictional.

Three little pigs. Animal cruelty, torture and death.

The Bible - infanticide, genocide, incest, murder - and that barely scratches the surface

They must have shat the bed when they came across the 'Mr Men' books.

Down With Skool! - unreliable narrator describes scenes of Fotherington-Thomas skipping like a girlie

Cinderella - child cruelty

Sleeping Beauty - sexual advance by male whilst she is sleeping

Snow White - offensive to those with genetic height difference

Hansel and Gretel - child abduction and torture

The Emperor's New Clothes - man exposes his genitalia

I read a book called Children of the Dust, when I was at school, as did some of my friends. It was about a post nuclear holocaust society.

My goodness it was terrifying. I can still remember details of it now and I'm nearly 50.

I don't know that I'd ban it though. It's an achievement, isn't it, printing words on paper that stick around in someone's mind for over 3 decades?

OMG - the entire Chalet School series would be banned. Child abandonment, child neglect, kidnap, classism, and other uncomfortable hierarchical structures, unrealistic models of easy international travel, and, conversly, depictions of violence and perilous escape across mountains. Numerous upsetting instances of child illness. Parental illness and death. Gender stereotyping. Exposure to extremes of temperature. Enforced darning.

Agatha Christie book with the word 'murder' in the title has a murder in it - shocker!

I feel like there might be a very few cases where a trigger warning is useful where the content is presented in a particularly graphic way, but some of these are just infantilising.

And surely the point of Jane Austen is we can still appreciate Anne Elliot's being talked into a bad decision by her family despite the long ago setting, changes in society etc. Amazing really. Books are amazing!!

Literal literary violence!

I adored the Chalet School, but I'd add dreadful things done to the grammar of other European languages. Also making parenting multiple children look too easy (Jo).

Save time and burn everything written pre c.20th because at that time female writers were largely excluded from published authorship?

I’ve lost two pregnancies in the last year and repeatedly found myself reading books that have baby loss or infant death as a key theme, with no indication from the cover. Like a pp I wouldn’t mind being forewarned so I can brace myself or put off reading that one for a while.

I'm very sorry for your losses. What, i think, would help anyone in your position (and many other things that may trigger people could be included) is if a website like Goodreads would have lists of books with triggers. No explanations, just "if you don't want to read about X don't read A, B, C etc"

So you could just look up the tag "miscarriage" and you'd get a list of books to avoid.

Because, of course, the absolute KEY point of some of these is the element of surprise, shock and disbelief that happens when they turn up in the text.
When reading the 5th Harry Potter book i didn't know about a character death - i knew nothing. So when it came it was BAM!
Reading the 6th, i knew there would be a character death and spent a lot of time wondering when i turned the page if This Was It. And it spoiled the book a lot.

Books used to have blurbs which gave a brief summary. The blurb has given way to gushing reviews that give you no clue what the book is about. It infuriates me. I don't want spoilers (I'm odd in that i don't even want to hear "oh it has a great twist" because my brain spends time trying to work it out in advance) but a general outline is always good.

Have just finished reading a page turner that i thought would be a relatively harmless thriller - turned out to be extremely violent in places. Totally works within the novel, excellently written, but if I'd known that was coming I'd have been waiting for it and the effect would have been ruined.

I was surprised when I watched the cartoon version to find that what I assumed were the mum & dad were actually the elder brother and sister. Think we can add leaving children with unsuitable care givers to the warning.

Moby D—k
say No more

Meanwhile, the same pathetically fragile, emotionally stunted students are downloading violent porn and staying up until 5am playing Call of Duty online.

The issue is they are fully aware of violence but they are becoming detached from the actual human cost of it. The consequences of human behaviour individually and at a larger scale.

Books that make you feel sad, mad, disgusted or anything else are doing the job intended by the author.

Trigger warnings for Jane Austin because of classism and sex inequality?
We're still fucking living it!

Why are these young adults being brought up thinking they must be protected from any, perfectly normal, negative emotions?

Also isn't the point of novels like Oliver Twist to provoke social change? Dickens kick started a lot of that with his accurate portrayals of poverty etc

The Emperors New Clothes could
bring about the downfall of modern society. Imagine if people got the idea of going around and staying the bleeding obvious!