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Talking to my cousin in Singapore about a book I sent him
I mailed him a copy of a novel I loved, 'The Satanic Verses'. He called me last night and said he had to hide it because it's completely illegal there. He told me, 'If they find this, it's not just a fine, it's real trouble.' It hit different because we grew up sharing books. Makes you wonder how many stories just stop at a border. Anyone else had a simple gift turn into a weird lesson like that?
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shanel132mo ago
Does that make the postal worker the last person to read a banned book? They have to see it, judge it, and then decide to destroy it. That's a strange kind of power over a story.
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matthewh281mo ago
There was this podcast I heard a while back, talked to a retired postal inspector. He said they're trained to spot certain things, like packaging from known banned book distributors or certain author names flagged by customs. So it's not just some random worker guessing. They have lists, protocols, all that government stuff. Makes you wonder how many books just get quietly tossed in a bin and nobody ever knows.
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taylor.jordan2mo ago
Forget the border, that story stops at the mailbox. Makes you realize our postal systems are quietly enforcing these rules every single day, sorting what's allowed to arrive. We talk about banned books like they're locked in a vault somewhere, but they're often just intercepted in transit, vanished before they ever reach a shelf. It turns a simple act of sharing into a weird game of chance, where the penalty for losing is so serious.
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