The Book Standard has an interesting article: Jessa Crispin Pops A Question To Borders. In it Crispin, author of the great Bookslut blog talks about Borders’ choice to not carry Pop, a teen novel by Aury Wallington. They will special order it by request but will not have it on their store shelves. Why? Sex, sex, sex. I guess in this case, sex does not sell?
In the article, the Borders spokesperson pulls out the old no room on the shelves comment. Sigh. Don’t they know that librarians have long perfected excuses about why they don’t carry certain materials. Shelf space is so old hat. Instead try, “The binding is not high enough quality” (used by many libraries when talking about Madonna’s Sex book) or “It would just get stolen anyway.” (used when talking about any book with “sex” in the title and in conjunction with the previous example when talking about Madonna’s book.)
Lame excuse, Borders, especially when your competition has found room on their shelves for it. One would think that a national bookseller would have more courage than this.