Banned Books

William Powell was just 19 when he wrote this 1971 cult classic. The guerrilla how-to book managed to anger not only government officials, but also anarchist groups. One such organization, CrimethInc., said the book misrepresents anarchist ideals and later released its own book of the same name. Other critics attacked the book for more practical reasons — some of the bombmaking recipes that Powell included turned out to be dangerously inaccurate. Ironically, an older and purportedly wiser Powell later tried to censor his own book. After converting to Christianity, Powell publicly denounced his work, writing in 2000 on Amazon.com that the book is a "misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in." But even Powell couldn't successfully ban the book from print; he no longer owns the rights.