Monday, October 1, 2012

Banned Book Week: Executive Severance on the list!


It's Banned Book Week! Executive Severance was banned at Barnes and Nobles! And Posners! And at most independent bookstores in the New York area! And at the entire Queens Public Library system! But not for the reasons you might think. (I’m pretty sure that if Borders was still in business it would be banned there too.)

Of course, you never get specifics. The screener at the NYC Queens Public Library indicated that Executive Severance wasn't "appropriate" for the Library's collection. Management at Barnes and Nobles explained that their book inventory system couldn't "accommodate" my indie Twitter novel. Ditto, other independent bookstores. But some book sellers have responded positively, like The Mysterious Book Shop in lower Manhattan which jumped at the chance to host my book launch party this past March. To be fair, as Marshall McLuhan noted, it is sometimes difficult for people immersed in a legacy medium (print) to treat as a serious (though fast and funny!) work of art something produced in a newer medium... Or maybe it WAS the vulgar language and compromising sexual situations.

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