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.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 10:51 am (UTC)Our director is in for a shock, methinks, but with a different item. The other day I realized she had added the DVD Your Highness to the collection. There will be feedback, and it won't be to her liking. After all, she has goes out of her way to please patrons, adding notes to the card pockets to highlight movies' ratings, and even resorting to adding little pasties to Vanity Fair magazines covers to hide T&A.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 02:39 pm (UTC)Yes, we could have censored the cover or removed the dust jacket, but I was particularly irritated by the name swap stunt. The book was meant to be authored by Jill Emerson, and even if Block makes no secret of the fact that he is Emerson, it should have had that on the cover and title page. That would have kept it from selling as well, of course, and also kept it out of our automatic shipment.
We don't buy or accept "bodice rippers" or Harlequin type stuff at all. Admittedly, we do buy a lot of stuff that I don't really think is much better, but those are just too cheap and shoddy to waste the time on and especially so if challenged to defend their place in the collection. We stood up to critics for Harry Potter, and we keep replacing the copies of Darwin that are deliberately removed from our shelves, but trashy pulp stuff just isn't worth the effort and cost.