Friday July 1, 2011
Two major book retailers, Paper Plus and the Warehouse, have already announced they will not stock the book.
The book, Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case, was written by journalist Ian Wishart and the twins' mother Macsyna King.
Whitcoulls acknowledged there was a great deal of interest in the book but until it was finished it would be "premature to make any further comment".
Full story at New Zealand Herald
And here also on the Herald website is the full text of Brian Rudman's column yesterday'
Shopkeepers cave in to a new generation of book burners
Page & Blackmore bookstore not stocking King's book
Footnote:
I applaud Whitcoulls stance to at least read the book before making a decision as to whether or not to stock it !
NotPC's blog sums the philosophical issues up for me pretty well:
ReplyDeletehttp://pc.blogspot.com/2011/07/some-propositions-on-free-speech.html
Namely, this is not a free speech issue as bookshops are as free to choose whether they sell this book, as Wishart is to write it. It would only be a free speech issue if the State stopped the sale.
But that doesn't change the fact that the bookshops which have decided not to sell it without even reading it have caved into the mob, which I abhor, so they won't keep my patronage (I'm all the time being pushed to ebooks and Amazon).
And the only interesting aspect of this story is missing: what criteria are Whitcoulls going to use in their assessment?
I reckon they're just digging their hole a bit deeper.