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Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship
Banned Camp is a comedy podcast where we read banned books and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
Each season, we tackle a new banned book, reading it chapter by chapter and asking: What made someone clutch their pearls and scream, "BAN IT!"? (Spoiler: It’s rarely what you’d expect.) One thing is clear—the people banning these books often haven’t read them. While we uncover some eyebrow-raising moments, nothing truly justifies censorship.
Join us—and our listeners, "The Scary Book People"—as we explore the strange, hilarious, and sometimes baffling world of banned books.
Past seasons have featured classics like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
This season, we’re diving into 1984 by George Orwell—a dystopian warning that feels eerily real today. From thought control to banned books, its message is more relevant than ever, and that’s exactly why it remains one of the most challenged books of all time.
By reading these books, we ask big questions: Why are banned books important? What does “banned” mean? What does “challenged” mean? How do book bans affect students? Are book bans constitutional?
Come hang out with us and have some laughs while we dig into the drama behind banned books—you might even learn something cool along the way!
Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship
Banned Camp Bonus: The Bookstore Fighting Back—with a Taser
In this special episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan take a break from 1984 to talk with Lindsay Schultz, owner of The Spine Bookshop in Smyrna, Tennessee. Lindsay isn’t just selling banned books—she’s giving them away for free to students who need them, dodging bigotry with boldness, and standing up to extremist attacks with a taser in one hand and a banned book cart in the other. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who’s ever wondered what resistance looks like in real life.
Things To Listen For:
- A bookstore owner who’s banned from school board meetings… and proud of it
- What happens when the Rainbow Sex Cult gets banished by evangelicals
- SAT prep sabotage via censorship (yes, really)
- How to give a Pride group a $500K settlement and still not learn your lesson
- What it looks like to fight for books in Tennessee—tattoos, tasers, and truth
- Dan and Jennifer trying not to cry (or rage)
- Robot gets the day off, but the resistance does not
Banworthy to Bingeworthy:
Check out Good News for Lefties, the daily podcast that proves progressive victories still exist—even when headlines say otherwise. Available wherever you get your podcasts or at goodnewsforlefties.com.
💥 Support The Cause:
Lindsay’s bookstore is The Spine Bookshop, and her Banned Book Brigade is doing life-changing work. Visit thespinebookshop.com to buy a banned book, donate one, or just throw money at someone who’ll fight the good fight with it.
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Topics Covered:
Banned books, censorship, The Spine Bookshop, Moms for Liberty, tasers, Tennessee school boards, SAT access, LGBTQ+ rights, free expression, bookstore activism, Pride festival lawsuits, federal vs. state law, the Miller test, resistance, community organizing
Don’t forget, you can grab a free ‘I Read Banned Books’ decal at BannedCampPodcast.com/stickers. Supplies are limited, so don’t wait.