Hedy LaMarr & Madonna? You've go to be kidding

Because they wrote and published books which were then censored. There's no reason to remove them.

Ashley: I suppose picture books can be included....(not my recommendation)

Sex by Madonna

Perhaps the most notorious book ever published in the last 20 years, Sex is also the largest-grossing illustrated book of all time. Photographed by Steven Meisel, designed by Fabien Baron, and written by Madonna, the book explores the Material Girl's innermost sexual fantasies in vividly graphic form.

Should I add Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine? ;)

It's not a book, so no. ;)

The project largely defers to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom and their Intellectual Freedom Round Table, of which I am a member. The OIF tracks challenges and bans and is generally considered the authority on the topic.

Really, there's no reason to be too restrictive with this project. If someone published a book and it was banned somewhere, they're eligible. Taste is irrelevant.

defers to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom and their Intellectual Freedom Round Table.... hmmm... perhaps 'defers' is not the concept I'd personally like to see :)

Moving on:
How about the Bible and the Qur'an?

By Brittany M. Hughes | January 14, 2015 (CNSNews.com) - Amid mounting pressure from both atheist groups and concerned parents, Orange County (Fla.) Public Schools have banned Bible distribution in several area high schools after Satanists and an anti-religion group announced plans to pass out their own literature.

Daniel Kalder
Tuesday 8 October 2013

on 20 September, a court in the Russian city of Novorossiysk banned a translation of the holy book of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. To be fair, it is one of several available in the country. This version, the work of an Azeri theologian named Elmir Kuliyev, was declared illegal for promoting extremism through "statements about the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims"; "negative evaluation of persons who have nothing to do with the Muslim religion"; "positive evaluation of hostile actions by Muslims against non-Muslims", and also, it was argued, inciting violence.

…. (same source) “Other bans are more controversial. As if in a warm-up exercise for the Qur'an ban, last year a Russian court prohibited over 60 Islamic books, including classic hadith collections, while Jehovah's Witness texts – not normally identified with extremism – have also been blacklisted. In February this year a Kaliningrad court banned works by the Turkish theologian Said Nursi, who is apparently considered so dangerous that 13 people have received criminal sentences for possession of his writings, according to Geraldine Fagan.
“
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/russian-cour...

resource:
http://minjust.ru/ru/extremist-materials

Holy texts are fine to add. The catch, of course, is determining who wrote them. Is that a debate we can resolve on Geni? Or should we just list the Bible and Qur'an as banned in the overview and leave it at that?

Elmir Kuliyev and Said Nursi are good additions. I'll add them to the index.

A thought:

Regarding Larry Flynt, maybe we should have a companion Banned Publishers project? Hugh Hefner would be another one to include. Plenty of radical newspapers and periodicals would qualify.