Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship
Love banned books? Hate censorship?
Same. You’re our kind of people.
Banned Camp is a comedy podcast where we read banned books and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
Each season, we tackle a new banned book, reading it chapter by chapter and asking: What made someone clutch their pearls and scream, "BAN IT!"? (Spoiler: It’s rarely what you’d expect.) One thing is clear—the people banning these books often haven’t read them. While we uncover some eyebrow-raising moments, nothing truly justifies censorship.
Join us—and our listeners, "The Scary Book People"—as we explore the strange, hilarious, and sometimes baffling world of banned books.
Past seasons have featured classics like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and 1984 by George Orwell.
This season, we’re diving into Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's a dystopia built on pleasure, not fear. People are engineered, drugged, and distracted into obedience, and they’re taught to love the system that controls them. It’s funny, creepy, and disturbingly familiar. And like all great banned books, it makes you question the world you're living in.
By reading these books, we ask big questions: Why are banned books important? What does “banned” mean? What does “challenged” mean? How do book bans affect students? Are book bans constitutional?
Come hang out with us and have some laughs while we dig into the drama behind banned books—you might even learn something cool along the way!
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 27 minutes
- Episodes
- 249
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
1984 | Ch. 1.2 - Orwell Predicted Everything Except the Golden Girls Cover Song
Welcome back to Banned Camp, where we’re reading 1984 one chapter at a time and slowly realizing Orwell was way too optimistic. In today's episode, we cover Chapter 1.2, where Winston Smith is legall…
1984 | Ch. 1 - Big Brother is Watching (And So Are We)
Welcome to the new season of Banned Camp, where we dive into 1984 by George Orwell—a book that somehow gets more relevant every year. In Chapter 1, we meet Winston Smith, a guy whose daily routine in…
Slaughterhouse-Five: Page vs. Screen (Crossover with Queer Cinema Catchup)
In this special crossover episode, Jennifer and Dan from Banned Camp team up with Joe and Allison from Queer Cinema Catch-Up to compare the Slaughterhouse-Five novel with its 1972 film adaptation. Is…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 10 - So It Ends, So It Goes
This is it—Jennifer and Dan reach the final chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, and they’re not alone! Special guest Beowulf Rochlen, host of Good News for Lefties, joins the discussion as they navigate …
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 9.3 – Billy Pilgrim Walks Into a Times Square Bookstore...
Billy Pilgrim sneaks out of bed rest and takes an impromptu trip to New York City—because of course he does. His itinerary? Wandering into a seedy Times Square bookstore, buying a Kilgore Trout novel…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 9.2 - The Saddest Wagon Ride in History
In this episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan explore the poignant and chaotic events of Chapter 9.2 in Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim wakes up in a hospital, reflects on his past, and takes a…
Banned Camp Presents: The Holocaust, Slaughterhouse-Five, and the Fight Against Forgetting
This special episode of Banned Camp marks International Holocaust Memorial Day, a somber reflection on one of humanity’s darkest chapters. Dan and Jennifer explore the historical significance of this…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 9.1 - Valencia’s Last Ride and Billy’s Woke Math
In this episode, Jennifer and Dan dive into Chapter 9 of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, where Valencia’s catastrophic final car ride steals the show—complete with mufflers falling off and a fa…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 8.3 - From Barbershop to Bombing: Why Billy Can't Let Go
Today on Banned Camp, we dive into Chapter 8.3 of Slaughterhouse-Five, where Billy Pilgrim—our favorite emotionally unstable time-traveling optometrist—falls apart over a barbershop quartet. Why? Bec…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 8.2 - Kilgore Trout Crashes Billy’s Party
In this episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan continue reading, chapter 8 about that awkward world of Kilgore Trout, Billy Pilgrim’s favorite sci-fi writer. From delivering newspapers to mingling …
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 8 - Kilgore Trout, the World’s Saddest Sci-Fi Legend
In this episode, Jennifer and Dan tackle Chapter 8 of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, where absurdity and tragedy collide. They delve into the unsettling introduction of Howard W. Campbell Jr., …
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 7 - Billy’s Plane Ride to Chaos and Yodeling Skiers
On today's episode of Banned Camp, we read Chapter 7 of Slaughterhouse-Five, where Billy Pilgrim survives a plane crash he knew was coming. (Spoiler: He said nothing. Thanks, Billy.) We also meet a b…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 6 - Billy Pilgrim: Cinderella in Combat Boots
War has never looked so absurd. In chapter six of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim stumbles through fate’s cruel wardrobe department, emerging as a tragicomic figure draped in azure curtains, muff-…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.7 - Billionaire’s Dreams Vs. Earthling’s Nightmares
Jennifer and Dan are back, and this time, they’re wrapping up Chapter 5 of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Get ready for Howard W. Campbell Jr.’s scorching takedown of America’s wealth obsession…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.6 - Barbed Wire Ballet, PTSD, & Latrine Woes
In this episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan continue chapter 5 of Slaughterhouse-Five, where time travel is real, PTSD gets metaphorical, and barbed wire proves surprisingly good at teaching Bil…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.5 - Billy Pilgrim’s Rusty Hinge of Destiny
In this episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan explore Chapter 5.5 of Slaughterhouse-Five. From alien zoos with woke Tralfamadorians to Billy Pilgrim’s existential tunnel vision and rusty hinge rom…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.4 - Jesus Was a Nepo Baby?
In this episode of Banned Camp, Jennifer and Dan dig into Slaughterhouse-Five’s Chapter 5.4, where Billy Pilgrim’s life reaches peak absurdity. Picture this: he’s naked in an alien zoo, under a dome …
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.3 - Aliens, Trauma, and the Children’s Crusade
Why listen to this episode? Because where else will you find a discussion that careens from Billy Pilgrim’s mental unraveling to the mystical fourth dimension, with a pit stop to clarify that William…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.2 - Giraffes, Morphine, and Billy on Fire
Strap in, scary book people—things get absurd (and flammable) in Chapter 5.2 of Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim stumbles into a series of surreal scenarios, from setting himself on fire (casually,…
Slaughterhouse-Five | Ch. 5.1 - A Tralfamadorian Time Warp
In this episode, Jennifer and Dan take a wild ride through time and space, exploring the mind-bending philosophy of the Tralfamadorians. And let's not forget Dan's own personal tale of wartime trauma…