Book News

Amazon has banned a book that provided the code to create a 3D printed gun.

The book, a 584-page tome called The Liberator Code Book: An Exercise in the Freedom of Speech , contained computer code that could reportedly be fed to a 3D printer to create a plastic gun called The Liberator. The book was selling at $20 prior to being removed from the store

Author CJ Awelow wrote on Amazon

The purpose of this exercise is to give a physical analogy between computer code and books. Code is speech. This is a printed copy of .step files for the Liberator. and not much else. Don't expect a gripping narrative: that's being played out in the news and the courts. Proceeds from this book will be used to fight for free speech and the right to keep and bear arms.

According to The Washington Post, the book had appeared on Amazon on August 1, just a day after a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the public availability of the code in question.

Amazon took down the listing noting that it violated Amazon's content guidelines, but would not elaborate further.

Far-right protesters have ransacked a socialist bookshop in London. The owners of Bookmarks say masked attackers wrecked displays and tore up books.

Posting on Facebook and Twitter, Bookmarks said staff were closing the shop on Bloomsbury Street in central London on Saturday evening when about a dozen people descended on it.

A far-right protest against censorship of the website Infowars took place in central London on Saturday at which protesters were seen with the same placards. Others wore Make Britain Great Again caps.

For Malaysian cartoonist Zunar, three years of constitutional challenges pale in comparison to the 43 years imprisonment that were on the line. But after a legal battle active since 3 April 2015, Zunar's nine sedition charges were dropped on Monday 30 July 2018. With three days in court still to follow, the victory is one of several the artist is seeking as an advocate for free expression and the repeal of the Sedition Act.

Under the newly (re-)elected PM Mahathir Mohamad things seem to be improving for freedom of expression. the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) has announced that it would review all ongoing sedition cases starting 13 July.

Ten LGBT-themed children's books have been banished to the closed sections of Hong Kong's public libraries after heavy campaigning by an anti-gay rights group.

For months, the Family School Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance Concern Group complained to the Home Affairs Bureau about books that promote gay and transgender awareness.

In a Facebook post on 17 June, the group shared an email from the Bureau confirming 10 books would be removed from library shelves after consideration by the Collection Development Meeting that is made up of library professionals.

Library users must now ask staff to see the books. The email says the Collection Development Meeting decided seven of the 10 books were neutral and do not promote homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Yet they were still moved to the closed shelves so parents can decide what their children read.

THE 10 BOOKS:

• Daddy, Papa, and Me
• Mommy, Mama, and Me
• And Tango Makes Three
• Molly's Family
• The Family Book
• Introducing Teddy
• The Boy in the Dress
• Milly, Molly and Different Dads
• Annie on My Mind
• Good Moon Rising

Saudi-based journalist, Ahmed Al Omran, recently tweeted a photo of a censored magazine cover featuring Meghan Markle in Saudi Arabia with a crudely drawn black ink  stole covering her bare shoulder.

One Twitter user shared a different version of the cover, with white stickers covering the Duchess' arms and shoulders. The tweep told StepFeed it was taken in Jeddah at Aldanoub Supermarket.

However, staff members at Arab News visited several newsstands in the kingdom, and said the issue of the cover was available and uncensored.

The censorship is commonplace in the Middle East and hardly newsworthy, but when they vandalise images of royalty in such a way then the censorship attracts a little more coverage from the press.

Sensitive snowflake students will soon need trigger warnings for some of the world's most famous literature, an award winning author has claimed.

Julian Barnes was stunned to learn young university pupils had been critical of the behaviour of book character's like Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Students in the US called the protagonist, Emma Bovary, a bad mother based on her affairs, her lifestyle longing to escape dull, provincial life.

The 72-year-old told those gathered at the celebration of the Booker's half-century on Sunday:

I don't know where to begin to unpick that.

As for students asking to hear in advance the bad things that happen in Titus Andronicus.

We might as well have a trigger warning on all great works of literature.