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

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

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.

The gendered brain by Gina Rippon

she did a great savage mind's interview in the summer btw

Well I’ve got 3 Germaine Greer books on the bookshelf over there, but I’ve got a Margaret Atwood on the coffee table so I might just get a stern telling off.

Most of mine are so old they are probably aren't mentioned on the Fahrenheit 451, Danger,Will Robinson shitlist, but I'd begin with Man Made Language and The Dialectic of Sex - the titles would give them away, you see...

Bugger, redundant 'are'.. Blame the Mother's Ruin. (Perfect brand name , if anyone ever gets around to producing this MN [Gin] I keep seeing around here..)

Does this count?

I have bought, but have yet to read:

Trans - Helen Joyce
Irreversible Damage - Abilgail Shrier
Inventing Transgender Children - Michele Moore and Heather Brunskell Evans
Invisible Women - Caroline Craido Perez
Why Women Are Blamed for Everything - Dr Jessica Taylor

I need a holiday somewhere secluded where I can settle down undisturbed and binge read.

And I have on my shelf but I have read - all of the Strike books.

From Wiki, @NancyDrawed

"sundoku
Tsundoku (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang."

@Deliriumoftheendless, Atwood. What a fucking disappointment that has been.

Still, I won't hear a word said against THMT.

I do have "Femlandia" by Christina Dalcher which looks like a decent feminist dystopian tale, but I haven't started it yet on account of the rage.

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

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

From Wiki, *@NancyDrawed*

"sundoku
Tsundoku (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang."

Crikey.

I need to get strict with myself!

Luckily I have lent out my Irreversible Damage and Trans to two different friends! Will keep passing them round

The Silence Of The Lambs, Robert Harris.
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks.
Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett.
I do have some Poppy Z Brite too, so maybe that would show balance.

They'd probably round us both up on the basis of dd1's igcse Art sketchbook.

She did rather a good portrait of me surrounded by swirly suffragette colours & shouty quotes. Some of them decidedly GC.

Bless her, I'd prefer her not to see the inside of a police van for painting a picture.

We must surely be into Extinction Burst phase now? The whole thing is just too ridiculous & soon we can all wake up?

@CompleteGinasaur

Most of mine are so old they are probably aren't mentioned on the Fahrenheit 451, Danger,Will Robinson shitlist, but I'd begin with Man Made Language and The Dialectic of Sex - the titles would give them away, you see...

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind

All my Mary Daly or Audre Lorde…

Currently reading Men who Hate Women, thats a 12 stretch easily

Some of the above but can I add The End of the World is Flat? Hardly a seminal feminist tome of course, but my thinking could be checked for that!

Also all the Strikes, every Potter book, The Ickabog and The Christmas Pig!!

(I do have some books with big words, honest!!)

I’ve got 1984 and Animal Farm amongst Atwoods, Greers and others on the bookshelf. In the ‘currently reading’ pile the Manningtree Witches and Invisible Women and I’ve just remembered all the Radical Notions in the magazine rack - eeeeeek!

@CompleteGinasaur

Most of mine are so old they are probably aren't mentioned on the Fahrenheit 451, Danger,Will Robinson shitlist, but I'd begin with Man Made Language and The Dialectic of Sex - the titles would give them away, you see...

I've got a much treasured copy of Man Made Language which I bought 2nd hand when I was about 18 and it was one of those. books which started me on the path to feminism.

I have all 4 of last year's Radical Notion and their 'This Witch Won't Burn' poster on my wall. Also Rachel Rooney's 'My Body is Me'. Then we have 'The Weaker Sex' by Antonia Fraser, 'Invisible Women' by Caroline Criado Perez, 'Reproductive Rituals' by Angus McClaren, 'The Female Man' by Joanna Russ, 'The History of Women's Bodies' by Edward Shorter, 'Sex Matters' by Allyson J McGregor, Gina Rippon's 'The Gendered Brain', 'Words & Women' Casey Miller & Kate Swift, 'The Mythology of Sex' by Sarah Dening, 'We Should All Be Feminists' Chimananda Ngozie Adichie, Betty Friedan's 'The Problem That Has No Name'. Douglas Murray's 'The Madness of Crowds' which has a chapter on trans which would be 'problematic', I have no doubt. Helen Joyce's 'Trans' is safely out on loan. Of course some fiction has a feminist bent, which wouldn't be obvious to your average plod, such as Charlotte Brontë's 'Shirley' and her sister Anne's 'Tennant of Wildfell Hall'.

It occurs to me to make dust jackets for them, or go to a charity shop and source inoffensive or politically correct dust jackets from other books and just dress my books in them. Why should that thought even occur to me? Why should I think about disguising the books on my bookshelves?

Damn. Forgot 'Vindication of the Rights of Woman' by the peerless Mary Wollstoncraft, of course.

The Wind in the Willows. Toad escaping his prison sentence by dressing up as a washer woman is pure dogwhistle transphobia.

I have the last 'Strike' novel where the murderer is not a transwoman. Plus various other JKR books.

I wonder what we'd be allowed to read? The Thoughts of Chairnonfemaleperson Mao, perhaps.

Our display that my daughter did. She is ploughing her way through the books, I've got a lot of reading to do.

Me too, EmmaGrundy, it's why it had to go in; can't have books teaching you to see for yourself rather than seeing what you're supposed to see, now can we? Funnily enough, I bought it in Newport, too - did my A levels there!

And about the same time - Left Hand Of Darkness and The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Or anything else by her, come to think of it.