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dijit 3 hours ago

They are banned somewhere and the library is open in Portugal.

If they were banned in Portugal it would run afoul of the legal system, and probably be closed down, obviously.

But if the criteria of being in the library - that the book be banned somewhere in the world; that's a reason to visit the library in of itself.

Though I think there's going to be a lot of garbage, one need only remember that Life of Brian (the Monty Python movie) is banned in the Vatican. (along with a bunch more).

Sometimes just seeing what is banned and where is a sort of art in of itself.

graemep 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> one need only remember that Life of Brian (the Monty Python movie) is banned in the Vatican.

I can find no confirmation of this, or of any ban since 1966 (and that is assuming that the index of forbidden books had legal force in the Vatican).

> But if the criteria of being in the library - that the book be banned somewhere in the world; that's a reason to visit the library in of itself.

Is it worth a visit to a physical location? A lot of those books are ones I could see on a list and order online. Its not really that interesting if a book as been banned somewhere very authoritarian, nor am I that interested if schools in one area somewhere were not allowed to have a book in their libraries. On the other hand reading down this list is very illuminating, and often astonishing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern... I am still scrolling down it, but Austria, Australia and China are all fascinating.

rsynnott 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

One thing to note about this list is that it mostly seems to be books which were _banned at some point_. It's also terribly incomplete; while they got unbanned a while back, at one point Ireland banned _thousands_ of books, for instance.

(Some but not all country grids do list unbanned dates.)

dijit 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ah, sorry, I was confused, it was Italy.

https://www.thewoodword.org/entertainment/2023/04/03/reeling...

ricardobayes 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Life of Brian is banned from public screening in parts of Germany on Good Friday. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23227452

yorwba 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Good Friday is a "quiet holiday" in North-Rhine Westphalia (and other areas), which involves restrictions on various kinds of entertainment: https://lexmea.de/de/gesetz/feiertg-nrw/6 So it's not that Life of Brian in particular was banned, but the activist group in question picked it intentionally for their screening to protest against the holiday.

logifail 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In Germany you're not allowed to mow your lawn with a motorised mower or to recycle glass bottles on Sundays either.

"Banned" feels like a slightly clumsy word to use to describe restrictions such as these.

datadrivenangel 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think I'll make showing that on Good Friday a tradition now.

1234letshaveatw an hour ago | parent [-]

ok