Steve Martin ‘So Proud’ FL School District Banned His Book

COLLIER COUNTY, FL — “Only Murders in the Building” star Steve Martin made a sarcastic dig on social media at a Florida school district for banning his book.

“So proud to have my book ‘Shopgirl’ banned in Collier County, Florida! Now people who want to read it will have to buy a copy,” the actor and comedian wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday.

The district removed 313 books across all grade levels from media center shelves earlier this month, NBC 2 reported.

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The district said the books’ removal was in accordance with the recently passed Florida House Bill 1069, which prohibits sexual content and mentions of gender, pronouns, and reproductive health in school library materials.

Newly banned books in Collier County include “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, according to Naples Daily News.

Martin's 2000 novel centers on Mirabelle, a bored salesgirl working in Neimann Marcus' glove department in Los Angeles, and her love triangle involving a wealthy businessman and an aimless young man.

The New York Times bestseller was adapted into a movie starring Martin, Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman.

Florida and at least seven other states have taken up legislation that could subject librarians to tens of thousands of dollars in fines or years of imprisonment for making “harmful” books available to children, according to an analysis earlier this year by The Washington Post.

Most of the legislation targets school librarians. The laws contribute to a climate of fear among school librarians, Keith Gambill, president of the teachers union in Indiana, one of the states with new obscenity laws, told The Post.

“It will make sure the only literature students are exposed to fits into a narrow scope of what some people want the world to look like,” he said, “This is my 37th year in education. I’ve never seen anything like this. … We are entering a very frightening period.”