The censor's guide to spotting 'harmful books'

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's attack on "harmful books", sent me scurrying to the bookshelves.

"Like poisonous, dangerous and addictive drugs which are not available for everyone without restrictions ... as a publisher, librarian or an official in the book industry, we don't have the right to make [such books] available to those without knowledge. We should provide them with healthy and good books." said Khamenei.

I've applied this helpful analogy to the stacks of books here at Guardian Towers.

Under "poisonous", I've marked Antony Flew's There Is A God, subtitled "how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind." Apparently his claim to the title of "most notorious atheist" comes from his inflammatory 1950 essay "Theology and Falsification", thereby rendering him poisonous to theists and anti-theists alike.

Under "dangerous", I've filed Frank Edwidge's Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afganistan. I note that it it's from a "foreign" publisher, Yale, and that it may be dangerous to national morale.

I also take a dim view of Rebecca Asher's Shattered, which styles itself "a call to arms for a revolution in parenting". A mixture of guns and kids is already pretty risky, but throw in a revolution and you've got a perfect recipe for peril.

The entire shelf of crime and thrillers could be filed under "addictive". With summer approaching and the Harrogate crime festival in full swing, they're particularly abundant.

But according to the semi-official Iranian news agency Ilna, it seems that there are even certain words which must be avoided. If writers actually want to see their works approved, they should remove words such as "kiss", "beloved", "wine", "drunk", "pork", "dance", "rape", "dog" and "meditation".

Which set me thinking. Surely there must be other words which should be condemned into oblivion? Suggestions under "poisonous", "dangerous", "addictive" or any other "harmful" headings more than welcome.

Source: guardian.co.uk