How to read banned books using free software

In the XNUMXs, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR, many of us believed that an era of Peace and Democracy was beginning. Of course we were wrong. The fall of the Twin Towers and the fear of terrorism were enough for people to accept restrictions on freedom and the return of censorship. 1984 became an instruction manual.

The pandemic was the dream of all would-be dictators. Leaving aside the scientific method, the experience accumulated by medical science and the possibilities offered by the use of Big Data, measures were applied that made perfect sense in medieval times but not in the XNUMXst century. Measures based on the restriction of individual liberty.

And, before you accuse me of spreading conspiracy theories, I'm not saying it, says John Hopkins University.

And, since banning is a vice that is on the rise, the ban on books also returned.

In what is supposed to be the most democratic country in the world, Texas state representative Matt Krause has his own list of over 800 books on a watch list, many of which deal with racial and LGBTQ issues. On his side, an Oklahoma state senator introduced a bill to ban books dealing with, among other things, "sexual perversion" from school libraries. Not to be outdone, the McMinn County (Tennessee) school board has just banned Maus, a Holocaust graphic novel by Art Spiegelman.

How to read banned books using free software

Although many of the articles that can be found on Google associate the ban on books with the conservative movement, the truth is that the other side of the ideological spectrum also have their own lists. At the top is JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter for her claim that there are only two sexes. Also included are George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, and historians who refuse to accept revisionism based on racial or feminist ideology.

Luckily, the Internet allows us to escape this type of censorship and there are organizations that allow access to those titles that some enlightened people want us not to read.

A good resource is the Internet Archive which has a specific section to allow us to download them. It has a search engine that can filter by theme, audio and language. In Spanish we have 28 titles.

Another classic place to find books is the site of the Gutenberg project that is focused on titles that are in the public domain. We can find them in a variety of genres, formats and languages.

You will understand that, for obvious reasons, I can't link to sites like Libgen.rs or Z-lib.org because downloading them from there would be a copyright violation.

Some recommended programs

Ok, I admit that the title of the post is a bit clickbait.  The forbidden books are read exactly the same as the others. But, it never hurts to review open source ebook readers.

It's good to remember that book stores like Amazon that market their own device have complete control over what you download or store on it. They can technically delete titles that you don't want us to read. That is why I prefer to buy books in places that allow me to decide how and where I install them.

Reader Bookcase

It is an Android application that allows you to read e-books in PDF, EPUB, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR, DOC, DOCX, etc. formats.

It comes with 3 reading modes; normal page, scrolling and sheet music reading.

Can be downloaded from the store F Droid.

foliate

It is a very simple reader for Linux with the following features:

• View on two pages or scroll.
• Font and line spacing can be customized.
• Light, sepia, dark and reverse reading modes.
• Slide-out reading progress indicator with chapter mark indicator.
• Supports annotations.
• Quick search in the book.

Can be downloaded from the flathub store