Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Update 2 on The Jewel of Medina

On Tuesday night, MSNBC had an update on The Jewel of Medina. They directed readers to the Wednesday morning edition of The Bookseller.

The Bookseller reported that the UK's Gibson Square publishing house has put the October 15th release of the controversial book on hold. Alan Jessop of Compass, Gibson's Squares sales agent was quoted by The Bookseller, speaking about Martin Rynja, the managing director of Gibson Square, whose home and office were the target of an Islamic terrorist attack this weekend:
"He is in good spirits, but has put publication in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is."
You can read about the thwarted firebombing here.

Publishers Weekly (PW) interviewed Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, The Jewel of Medina’s U.S. publisher. Kampmann has already begun shipping the first run of 50,000 books. PW reported:
. . . given the events in the U.K., [Kampmann] said he is now being “super cautious.” He has been in touch with the FBI and New York City police and is considering hiring a security firm to protect Beaufort and Midpoint’s New York offices. Through early Monday, Kampmann said he has received no threats over the book. The New York office was closed Monday, Kampamm said, since his executive staff was already at an offsite meeting. “We are being vigilant,” . . .
Kampmann expects the books to be in stores by the end of the week.

The Bookseller reported on UK bookstores:
But booksellers spoken to by The Bookseller said their were unbowed by the letter-bomb and the threats from some extremists of further violence. Michael Jones, books category manager at Borders UK, said: "We haven't changed anything about what we're doing. We will be going ahead and selling it." Amazon.co.uk also said it would be selling the title, while Blackwell's maintained its stance that it would let individual bookshop managers decide.

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