A few weeks ago, we received some negative commentary about a book that we had in the front window of our Carlton shop. The book in question was Before They Pass Away, by English photographer Jimmy Nelson. Nelson has spent years photographing indigenous people around the world. It’s a stunningly beautiful book, and in years to come, Nelson’s work may well be as highly regarded as that that of Edward Curtis, who photographed Native Americans in the early twentieth century. Curtis was criticised in some quarters for exploiting these people for his own gain. The thrust of much of the backlash we received about Before They Pass Away was that Nelson’s work helped justify and make self-fulfilling the violence that continues to be perpetuated against minority tribal cultures. Some even commented that they would stop shopping with Readings if we didn’t take the book out of the window and off our shelves.

A week or so before all this, one of our staff posted on their Facebook page, describing how they’d earlier been stacking the shelves with books carrying titles like Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Why Men Love Bitches and Run, Fat Bitch, Run, and concluded that he thought the publishers actually hated women. I also used to regularly get a returned copy of the Readings Monthly in the mail from a subscriber with numerous titles highlighted and ‘left-wing’ books annotated, accompanied with a note that I should give conservative books equal prominence. My reply was that I would if there were good ones published, and that I’d be grateful to hear about them.

I was intrigued by our staff member’s post: Did they actually think that publishers hated women? Did they think we shouldn’t stock those books? No, they assured me; they were being ironic and simply having a dig at the publishing industry. Admittedly, Run, Fat Bitch, Run is a pretty revolting title but it’s supposed to be; it’s a book about how women can use running to become fit and lose weight, attempting to shock people into taking notice. The buyer who’d selected Before They Pass Away for our shelves had done so quite carefully, and was aware that there was some controversy about the project, but felt the artistic merit of the book warranted us stocking a copy or two.

There will be books we stock and sell that I might find offensive in some way, but as booksellers I don’t believe we have a right to make political or social judgements about what we stock. Equally, there are books that we stock that some of our customers, or staff, might find offensive, but should we be scared into not stocking them? As a business we do have to make commercial decisions about what we stock; did we sell 1000 copies of The Stalking of Julia Gillard as opposed to 100 copies of Tony Abbott’s Battlelines because we only promote left-wing books, as my conservative friend implied? I don’t think so; it was simply because The Stalking of Julia Gillard was the book our customers preferred.

It’s interesting that these most recent criticisms have come from the left – perhaps it’s reflective of the current political climate? I’d be interested in your views, dear readers!

Mark Rubbo