Banned and Challenged Books discussion

Well, I started this book club because I am personally fasinated with censorship and the fight against it. I thought it would be really cool to start a book club where a group of people would read books that had been banned, challenged or censored in a variety of states, countries and for various reasons. I wanted to see what people thought about these books and if they thought that it was okay to have them censored. That's about it.

I find it really interesting that one countries books that are banned in schools are another countries required reading.

I had to read several books on/have been on the USA banned books list in High School as these are the books all of our exams and class work were based on.

I came to "banned books" as a 40 year old who took up a good reads challenge and one of the books I had to read was a "banned book".

Up to that point the only book banning I had heard of was The Satanic Verses which caused a huge stir about half my life-time ago. So I sighed and wondered if I was going to have to read that because what else has been banned? (I don't think Australia is big on book banning). When I finally googled lists of banned books I found to my relief that I was reading banned books all the time and had in fact just finished one (Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) and used another one for my work with small children (And Tango Makes Three) this last one is such an unbelievably sweet and innocent book that I was amazed it was banned

But i guess it's given me an interest in the how and why of book banning.

Whose interests does it serve I wonder when a book is banned?