American Booksellers Association and Abigail Shrier

If you read the piece in Publisher’s weekly (linked by PP up thread) you’ll see even more hyperbole from the ABA:

"We traumatized and endangered members of the trans community… These were egregious, harmful acts that caused violence and pain. One negligent, irresponsible, and racist; the other negligent, irresponsible, and transphobic."

(Emphasis is mine)

Absolutely ridiculous statement. And then, if you read further, you’ll see that their ordering system can be permanently filtered so that no “anti-Trans” titles will even show up.

And the irony that the same organisation publishes a banned books list… 🤯

Unbelievable. Is there any other group, community, minority who would ever be spoken to in this way? What is it about the trans issue that has people running scared like this? Who on earth does it actually help?

Even if the ABA felt it had made any kind of 'mistake' it should be easy enough to say so and draw a line under it. But all this talk of violence and harm is ridiculous, and only encourages more indulgent nonsense.

It's the hyperbole that gets me. They're booksellers. They're supposed to understand what words mean.

This is how they used to be 🤷‍♀️

Still impressive, Clymene. I recall throwing Finnegans Wake across the room as an undergrad.

Ellie that response from the publishers has brightened up my morning.

Don't ask me for a précis

The story has made it into various publications, including Publishers Weekly, who quote an enjoyably snarky response from Shrier's publisher:

Regnery was blindsided by the ABA's statement, according to president and publisher Thomas Spence, who denounced the organization's characterization of the incident as "an act of violence." In an e-mail to PW, Spence wrote: "The only explanation I can think of for the ABA's statement that credits them with a rational (though dishonorable) motive is that they're trying to drum up publicity for their annual Banned Books Week promotion, coming in September (this year's slogan: 'Censorship Divides Us'). Perhaps finding books that have been 'banned,' in any meaningful sense, is so difficult that they have been forced to do the dirty work themselves."

I have NEVER made it through Ulysses. I'm exceedingly impressed by Clymene!

Well, thanks to the ABA and the mass of free publicity they have afforded the book, I've just ordered my own paperback copy - from Wrdry. Marked down price and free postage.

No South American rivers benefitted from this purchase.

Win/win. What's not to like?

I got the audiobook, which turns out to be a violent act. In my left ear I have Abigail Shrier trying to read her book aloud and in my right I have a TRA going “LALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Trying to imagine where you could have been going to have a train journey long enough to get through Ulysses, clymene 😱

Twice round the world?

Anyone who lived through the controversy around The Satanic Verses is probably having the same powerful sense of deja vu that I am right now. I think we’re all probably quite surprised that in this adaptation the Ayatollah Khomeini is being played by the American Booksellers Association, though

The whole gender identity thing makes me feel I’m living in an implausible dystopian fantasy novel. Book-banning organised by booksellers adds a whole new farcical twist.

I did not get through it. I felt I ought to, but Christ his meandering brand of whimsical/dull does not do it for me

I do wonder what percentage of purchasers actually finished TSV. At times, it was harder going than A-level French poetry.

I hadn't yet got around to buying Irreversible Damage, but I've got it in my basket now. Want to show the publishers that people do want to read these books.

Same Purgatory! My parents bought it to see what the fuss was about and didn't read past the first few pages, and then somehow or another I got stuck with it as one of a few books when I had nothing else to read. So I read it.

have been challenging myself to outdo it, but short of a free TERF scalp with every trans book, I came up blank.

Don't give them ideas

@Sophoclesthefox

Unlike The Satanic Verses though, Irreversible Damage is worth a read

I got through it, but I'm never ever going to reread it ever again.

Holy hyperbole! How DO these people function in day-to-day life?!

Good grief . These clowns are in the business of selling books - and they don't understand the English language.

I see their commitment to free speech is written on soggy tissue paper.

Don't you just love it when the opposition helps out the GC cause. They are kind aren't they 😂😂😂