So we did a little clean-up of the home library over the weekend. Filled several boxes with books that we no longer wanted or would ever re-read, nor would they provide any value as a reference work. The first few sets were easy:
Accounting and finance books from business school. I will never be in that function. Anything I need cam be easily gleaned from the web.
Poorly written science fiction and fantasy that I won’t re-read.
Child rearing books that don’t apply to my boys anymore (if they ever did)
Cookbooks that I never go to, and never really liked. With Epicurious on my iPhone, I only kept some critical ones that I keep going back to.
Airport fiction. This is those books bought at the airport for cross-country flights that we don’t want or need (hello Clive Cussler and others).
That brings me to the last set. The racist / conspiracy theory books given to us by our fathers. Yep, both my dad and my wife’s dad have their own brand of nuttery that often strays into blatant racism and anti-semitism, plus a strong strand of conspiracy theory. I had already boxed up the stack of “banned books”, but was not sure what to do with them (after tearing out pages where dad or FIL had inscribed them to us).
I could not bring myself to throw a book away. So I dumped them with the rest of the donations going to Goodwill. Somewhere in Southern California, the local Goodwill sorter is opening up a box and finding a stack of books with a certain, ahem, theme.
Ugh. I was feeling sordid no matter which direction I took, I admit.
I thought about writing down the titles before I donated JUST to share with the Dope. However, once I decided to get rid of them, I did not even want to re-open the box. From memory:
History of the White Race (made to look like a textbook)
a signed and inscribed copy of one of David Duke’s recent tomes
The ACLU’s War Against America
Brainwashed - America and War (or something like that)
Some 9/11 Truther bit as I recall
The Turner Diaries
It’s not totally impossible that a university might have some use for them. I read The Turner Diaries for a class in college. Because the professor didn’t want us to actually have to buy the book and give the publisher money, she photocopied her copy for us to read. I can imagine that other academics might want some of that sort of thing without wanting to pay for it.
If anybody wants to read The Turner Diaries without financially supporting National Vanguard Publishing, there’s an online copy here (warning: huge .pdf).
The book is oddly fascinating, like a grisly car accident you can’t look away from.
And on the other end of things, I bought a copy of the Turner Diaries from a Goodwill because I wanted to pull it out of circulation. It’s on a back shelf now, collecting dust, as it should be.
Slight hijack – I’m not entirely sure this was appropriate for a college professor to do. Copyright laws are there to protect everybody, even evil idiots. (Unless this book is in the public domain, in which case nevermind.)
The mail comes regularly (OK - one book a quarter), whenever one of them finds another gem and feels the need to share it. This week I have a 9/11 truther bit, and I am expecting a Pat Tillman was killed by the Jews because he was bad talking the Iraq war book as soon as someone publishes it.
