Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susana Clarke

Till We Have Faces by C.S Lewis

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

What about you?

Kyrie eleison

What's an unethical book to you?

intrigued. should i try

You mean Fahrenheit 451? Lol

Ew, you just reminded me about how Paul Bernardo temporarily had a book up on Amazon.

Wives and Daughters is fantastic, and the miniseries is excellent as well. It was written and produced by the same team as the 1995 Pride and Prejudice and has a top notch cast.

I’m sorry to say it’s been a few years since I’ve read North and South so I don’t have talking points ready in my head. I do remember finding her take on the Industrial Revolution interesting, especially her unwillingness to praise or censor either side.

We're talking about people in 2023 disowning their own progeny and family for being gay based on their special fairy tale book though, not shit 500-1500 years ago.

Well, House of The Seven Gables. Not because it was particularly controversial, but because it was several hours of my life I'd never get back again.

I feel like banning books because they might be 'offending' is something that needs a real reconsidering because everything is becoming offensive nowadays like never before, something that was completely okay is now being considered hateful and that in my opinion erases the history behind it , behind books and everything.

But in the case of books which are completely pointless and like most of the works these days; sexually explicit and are genuinely a bad example, I think it should be seriously considered before even publishing them.

[removed]

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus. It's a semi-autobiographical story about how she sexually harasses and publicly humiliates her muse, a fellow artist named Dick. Apparently Dick begged her to not publish the book. So the book itself is a form of harassment. Very gross.

This really horrible memoir by this woman who married a violent murderer Jason Staples who brutally beat his female roommate to death because she didn't want to have sex with him. The author called him a "gentle giant". She helped him by marrying him and moving him to a different city in Ontario, giving him some respectability, making people around her think he was a good man. He kidnapped, raped, and tortured two women the first weekend she went away after they got married.

The author proceeded to make every possible excuse for her rapist and murderer husband, cutting off people who thought she was making him out to be the biggest victim of his crimes, complaining about the lack of support for the spouses of rapists while insisting that when it was revealed that her husband had put video cameras in their bathrooms that she be the one who told the victims not the police or victim's services.

Oh, I forgot one of the worst parts. She actually quit her job as a guidance counsellor because the school board insisted on following proper safeguarding procedures and refused to tell her the identity of the teenage son of one of her husband's victims.

The entire book is a narcissistic screed of the highest order and it's a shame that she's used it to propel herself to the front various charities and movements.

Jeez thats horrifying. Perhaps the gruesome fun is itself, and myself, the problem...

I used to be very, very against throwing out old books. But I was doing some cleaning the other day and found an Oprah cookbook and I threw it out. I think that’s the only book I ever will throw out

There is a lot of interesting research and experience about how positive thinking and holistic views and also some treatments influence disease progress and prognosis. It can work well together with traditional/conventional medicine. Or by all means, solely in some cases. But it needs to be an informed decision not influenced by the profit hunger of someone else.

I think following the money can be very elucidating. Cui bono? Just like personal finance books written by people who only got rich writing personal finance books. Adding cancer to it just makes it even more heartbreaking.

You can have all the gruesome fun you want with Issei Sagawa that dude made an entire living out of eating a fellow college student in Paris back in the early 80s. he even made his own pornography where he acted with fellow female actors and then told the female actors about his past crime eating a woman and then recorded their reactions as again, more porn for his personal entertainment. Vice did a whole interview with him. It’s super fucked up.

I think in many countries it is already forbidden to make “health claims“ of a more specific kind. But it seems easy to get around it by insinuation and such. I agree about the Streisand effect.

There’s a son of Sam law for a reason and if the money isn’t going directly to the victims I’m not for it. But good joke you made!

Yep, that is one of the books I saw influence someone to make decisions that led to their premature death.

I agree with not burning them, definitely. No literal burning of books for me. But figuratively, I want to burn them.

Thing is, I do agree that adults need to take responsibility for their choices, for the information they consume and make decisions from. And information wants to be free. But having seen the chaos and desperation that some illnesses bring, the people profiting from this makes me sick. I have not heard about the podcast, will check it out.

Nah serial killer written fiction sounds like such an incredible niche that it might be worth reading.

Agree intentional lies are the line. Stark raving fascism is one thing but if they dont even believe what they are saying...

You havent heard of the renaissance and european imperialism then lmao

Greeks also did a bit of fun pillaging here and there too.

Id say that books that are intentionally predatory/intended as scams should definately go. A raving looney talking about their astral projections fine, but if they dont even believe it? cya.

I totally agree. I'm an organic farmer and naturalist, so I'm pretty open about this stuff. That said, I have several friends who have really bought into this stuff. It's so hard to talk them out of it without pushing them further away.

The appeal to nature fallacy is a strong one. It's so sad to see people gamble with their health, and infuriating that publishers are profiting off this. I'm sure some of these authors are genuine, but some must be writing in bad faith, especially those with scientific training.