Something quite new
Sep. 16th, 2011 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI actually censored a book today. Not because of content but because of the cover art which was bound to cause so much fuss if we put it out on the shelf that it just wasn't worthwhile. If you want to see what it was, the title is Getting Off: a Novel of Sex and Violence and the author is Lawrence Block "writing as Jill Emerson." You can look it up on Amazon to see what the cover looks like.
We have a standing order for books by Lawrence Block, who is a popular mystery writer. Normally such orders do not include works published under other pseudonyms, as this was was evidently supposed to have been, but the publisher put Block's name on the cover in large letters and the pseudonym in much tinier letters. This, in my opinion, is an unethical attempt to sell more copies by using the better known name, and foils the author's intention to keep a work separated from the body of writing done under the well known signature. But that's between Block and his agents or publishers or whatever. We just decided that the cover was obnoxious and guaranteed to raise too much fuss in our community. Since in at least one neighboring town the library director was forced to resign over this kind of controversy, and this particular book doesn't appear to have that much "redeeming value" we decided not to fight the fight to justify it.
We aren't the only ones. When the director called our distributor to say she was going to return it, they were not surprised. I suppose some publishers figure they will make up in sales what library sales they lose if the cover is lurid enough, and perhaps they are right.
Other than that, it's still cold here. Our geothermal system is not working properly and we need to have the service guy back. Fortunately we got a load of wood this week and the woodstove is functional.
Unfortunately, this looks like another weekend from hell. I'm starting to have a desperate need for unscheduled quiet time. Next week doesn't look any better.
We have a standing order for books by Lawrence Block, who is a popular mystery writer. Normally such orders do not include works published under other pseudonyms, as this was was evidently supposed to have been, but the publisher put Block's name on the cover in large letters and the pseudonym in much tinier letters. This, in my opinion, is an unethical attempt to sell more copies by using the better known name, and foils the author's intention to keep a work separated from the body of writing done under the well known signature. But that's between Block and his agents or publishers or whatever. We just decided that the cover was obnoxious and guaranteed to raise too much fuss in our community. Since in at least one neighboring town the library director was forced to resign over this kind of controversy, and this particular book doesn't appear to have that much "redeeming value" we decided not to fight the fight to justify it.
We aren't the only ones. When the director called our distributor to say she was going to return it, they were not surprised. I suppose some publishers figure they will make up in sales what library sales they lose if the cover is lurid enough, and perhaps they are right.
Other than that, it's still cold here. Our geothermal system is not working properly and we need to have the service guy back. Fortunately we got a load of wood this week and the woodstove is functional.
Unfortunately, this looks like another weekend from hell. I'm starting to have a desperate need for unscheduled quiet time. Next week doesn't look any better.
