Embargoed. Not embargoed.
As of today on LJ’s website you can read our web exclusive “Xpress review” of Inside the Jihad, by Omar Nasiri. This book was embargoed by its publisher, Basic Books, meaning that reviewing agencies and other media receiving it in advance of its release date (yesterday) had to sign a letter of agreement vowing to maintain the strictest confidentiality about its contents prior to that release. The BBC had first dibs on interviewing Nasiri (aired on November 15th), and Basic was not going to let the BBC get scooped.
Still, the day after that interview Mark Landler of the New York Times surely reviewed the book in his article (published first in the International Herald Tribune) about speaking with Mr. Nasiri in Paris on November 10th. Perhaps Landler, as a news reporter rather than a reviewer, did not feel himself bound by the strictures of a confidentiality agreement that his book review colleagues may have signed.
Embargoing is usually not noted by the public, unless Harry Potter or the president of Pakistan are involved (and more likely only for the former). Whether it really promotes sales is a question. Grisham and Rowling would be purchased no matter what.
It will be interesting to see how Nasiri does in comparison to related recent titles. The Secret History of al Qaeda, by Abdel Bari Atwan (University of California Press) and My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (Tarcher/Penguin) were not embargoed and will be reviewed in LJ’s December issue.
For a buzz-generating title, I prefer Gartenstein-Ross’s, but it may be the book’s worst enemy as it implies drama and intrigue not present in the book itself, which dwells more on the inner journey. Atwan, unlike the two memoirists here, is a journalist and may have the deepest dual understanding of the West and the Muslim world.
The particulars don’t really matter. The books each provide valuable information; their unique perspectives mean that libraries will benefit in adding all to their collections and not simply Nasiri’s. I feel bound to say this having played into Basic’s embargo buzz and sent our review of Nasiri online quickly, while our reviews of the other two will emerge next month in print. These are titles most valuable as a group, helping us all, as readers, grow in our understanding of the world we share, a process from which none of us is embargoed.
Even our cities’ public libraries use the embargo practices. Our Boston Public Library press releases are not available as public records. It’s a bad practice because it violates FOI freedom of information public records principles.
It’s about time to examine these and related practices of our cities’ public libraries and improve them with regard to the same freedom to read and intellectual freedom principles espoused in other areas by our libraries’ leadership. For too long our public libraries’ unions’ collective bargaining labor relations advocates have been denied or delayed access to this and similar public records. For too long our library users/customers/consumers have been deflected when enquiries are perceived to be too close to the turf of library operations when the information is defined as public records.
Comment by don warner saklad dsaklad@gnu.org — November 25, 2006 @ 10:06 am
As the publisher of INSIDE THE JIHAD I’m comfortable admitting that we struggled with how to handle the embargo. But I’m also pleased with how professionally and efficiently LJ handled it. This one was uniquely challenging because the BBC contractually “owned” this story so in many ways we became the enforcer of their embargo. The decision to give access to the NY Times reporter for an author interview (the NYT Book Review did not get an early copy) was obviously in an effort to generate publicity for the book. We’ve been pleased that the book has indeed gotten a fair amount of attention and hopefully its sending folks into bookstores and libraries to see for themselves.
Comment by John.sherer@perseusbooks.com — November 26, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
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