Book bans and challenges: October 10, 2025

Here's the latest news on book bans, challenges, and other literary obstacles — and efforts to fight back against them.

• Andrew Lownie, author of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, and his publisher, HarperCollins UK, have removed claims in the book that Melania Trump met Donald Trump through convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (The Hill).

• Terri Lesley, the former director of a Wyoming library, has won $700,000 in a defamation and civil rights lawsuit; she sued over her firing for refusing to remove books that referenced sex or LGBTQ+ themes from the youth sections (The New York Times).

• An appeals court has reversed the dismissal of librarian Amanda Jones's defamation lawsuit against conservative bloggers who implied that she promoted porn in libraries, allowing her to continue seeking legal recourse (The Baton Rouge Advocate).

• Kelly Jensen shares how to become an informed pro-library and pro-literary voter in her weekly roundup of book ban and challenge news (Book Riot).

• Nine children's authors describe the event cancellations, book bans, and harassment they've experienced because of either their Palestinian heritage or the non-political descriptions of Palestinian life and culture in their books (The Guardian).

• Karis Rogerson describes the societal, financial, legal, and emotional consequences of book challenges, from both her experience and that of other authors (Electric Literature).