It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year: Banned Books Week. If that sounds ironic coming from a journalist, it is; you’re no more likely to find a censorship advocate in a newsroom than in a publishing house. The thing is, banning books tends to boost sales; so thought police can do their worst. Ban on.

It’s more than curiosity or book-lovers’ spite that make banning good for business, at least for well-known authors. The greatest of literature, don’t you know, often gets blacklisted by the see-no, hear-no, read-no types. Bury your head in the sand and keep it from exposure to the big, bold, daunting and dirty, wonderful world, and you get nothing but ignorance and its progeny of stunted growth. So the same material that tends to most expand life-aiding, soul-transforming knowledge, i.e., learning from others’ different and difficult experiences through rich storytelling, makes the most interesting reading list.

And that tends to be what is banned. Why advocate the dark, when shining a light upon our fears diminishes their power?

Book banning also boosts sales for the simple reason that no publicity is bad for a book. Ban it and they will come, in droves. Bans, a.k.a. book “challenges,” have resulted in spiked sales for modern titles such as John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” the book-turned-blockbuster “Hunger Games,” the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three,” and Khaled Hosseini’s award-winning masterpiece, “The Kite Runner.” Several classics by Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, including buddies Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, as well as “What is Man,” have enjoyed the shaking-finger challenge; so have the Bible and other religious texts. No shortage of sales.

But never mind the good writers; it works as well for those without a smidgen of talent. The worse the accusations against “50 Shades of Grey,” the higher sales soared. No, I haven’t read it; a few paragraphs were enough to induce nausea. If that’s your thing, try the once-banned “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by

D.H. Lawrence — now that’s writing.

Running straight for what’s verboten is a universal human temptation which transcends cultural borders. In China, reading a banned author has become popular to the point of gimmick. China has a media regulator whose job includes blacklisting authors deemed critical of China or its government. So naturally Chinese citizens seek out what’s disapproved, so much so that publishers use it as a marketing tool, according to the Wall Street Journal. Anticipated controversy becomes a sales pitch, even before an author is “smothered” (banned). Buy now, before you can’t!

Need an English reading list? How about banned authors John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, Harper Lee, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury… Plenty more award-winners among the top 100 banned books by decade, courtesy of those great defenders of knowledge, the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (freedom ­— wasn’t that the ideal?) at Ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top100.

It’s Banned Books Week. Read one at your local library.

Sholeh Patrick, J.D., is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.