List of books banned by governments

Banned books are books or other printed works such as essays or plays which have been prohibited by law, or to which free access has been restricted by other means. The practice of banning books is a form of censorship, from political, legal, religious, moral, or commercial motives. This article lists notable banned books and works, giving a brief context for the reason that each book was prohibited. Banned books include fictional works such as novels, poems and plays and non-fiction works such as biographies and dictionaries.

Since there have been a large number of banned books, some publishers have sought out to publish these books. The best-known examples are the Parisian Obelisk Press, which published Henry Miller's sexually frank novel Tropic of Cancer, and Olympia Press, which published William Burroughs's Naked Lunch. Both of these, the work of father Jack Kahane and son Maurice Girodias, specialized in English-language books which were prohibited, at the time, in Great Britain and the United States. Ruedo ibérico [es], also located in Paris, specialized in books prohibited in Spain during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Russian literature prohibited during the Soviet period was published outside of Russia.

Many countries throughout the world have their own methods of restricting access to books, although the prohibitions vary strikingly from one country to another.^{[citation needed]}

Despite the opposition from the American Library Association (ALA), books continue to be banned by school and public libraries across the United States. This is usually the result of complaints from parents, who find particular books not appropriate for their children (e.g., books with graphical depictions of child sex, like Gender Queer: A Memoir). In many libraries, including the British Library and the Library of Congress, erotic books are housed in separate collections in restricted access reading rooms. In some libraries, a special application may be needed to read certain books.^[1] Libraries sometimes avoid purchasing controversial books, and the personal opinions of librarians have at times affected book selection.

The following list of countries includes historical states that no longer exist.