Library Stuff

“A Brazilian judge has ordered bookstores to ensure that the erotic trilogy ‘‘Fifty Shades of Grey’’ is out of the reach of minors. Judge Raphael Queiroz Campos issued the order Jan 14 after he saw children in one of city’s bookstores looking through erotic books, according to a statement issued by the Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary Department Thursday night.

Eleven copies of the ‘‘Grey’’ series were among 64 books taken from the shelves of two bookstores because their content was deemed improper for those under the age of 18.”

via

“You shrink from leaping on to a media bandwagon, but this seems to be an unexpectedly good cause. The headline-making novel Fifty Shades of Grey is doing what years of good-hearted effort have struggled to achieve: encouraging people who normally have little to do with books, to read them. And to use their local libraries which, for all the occasional bright spot such as York’s new Reading Cafe in Rowntree Park which the Guardian Northerner highlighted yesterday, are at risk from the public spending cuts. Hartlepool is an example. Our colleagues at North News have sent a despatch on how E.L.James’ novel and its successors are bringing borrowers in.”

via Guardian