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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Liberal Fascism Finally Arrives in Canada
Chapters-Indigo's site is down at the moment, but - as of a few hours ago - Jonah Goldberg's new book, Liberal Fascism, has finally hit Canadian shelves. There were five copies listed as in-stock at the Coles store at Lougheed Mall in Coquitlam, BC. I'm guessing that stock at the rest will arrive and be set up tomorrow or the day after, since books tend to arrive company-wide when ordered.
Perhaps someone might ask our nation's monopoly bookseller why it took the better part of a month for them to get a New York Times-bestselling book onto their shelves. They don't seem to have any trouble stocking the other side's books. But, as I recall, they did have some difficulties with Mark Steyn's last opus. For that matter, they had their issues with the print version of this magazine.
Now, I'm a long-time Chapters customer (well, I'd pretty much have to be, wouldn't I?) - but I don't think that it can be denied that there's always a certian liberal bias in which books they stock, which they discount, and which they display. As a private business, of course, that's their right. However, one has to wonder if such behaviour is appropriate for a company which holds an effective monopoly on book retailing in this country (at least, a bookstore monopoly). I'm not free to just go to the local Barnes and Noble, after all (though, it should be said, that the Barnes and Noble in Bellingham didn't have it in stock last night either - said they were sold out - and that the girl at the counter gave me a real look when I asked after it).
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on January 30, 2008 in Books | Permalink
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Comments
From my experience, our local Chapters bookstore (Fredericton) seems to have the same liberal bias problem.
Posted by: Joel K. | 2008-01-30 2:49:26 AM
Chapters/Indigo is the worst bookstore. Last time I ordered from them, I waited six months before giving up. Go to Amazon.ca - they're great.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-01-30 6:08:23 AM
It's true, for better service and everything else, amazon beats chapters by a mile. read my gaza piece at top of www.darrellepp.com
Posted by: darrell | 2008-01-30 8:51:35 AM
Remember, for big orders go to amazon.com to get cheaper US pricing. I also have had surprisingly good deals from amazon.uk.
Epsi
Posted by: Epsilon | 2008-01-30 9:00:43 AM
Amazon.com No fuss, no muss. Cheaper to boot. Until the left shuts down the internet that is...
Posted by: Gorram | 2008-01-30 9:02:43 AM
Chapters/Indigo likely falls more into line as an Oligopoly than a monopoly.
I shop there for convenience... But I usually make an effort to go to local independent book stores. I pay a bit more but the service/titles and personal rapport I build up tends to be worth it.
When I visit Saskatoon I always make a special trip to McNally Robinson. Talk about a broader and better title selection. I spend hours there! Though something tells me you may be telling me they have an even more liberal bais than chapter/indigo.
I would questions your saying they have a liberal bias per se (http://www.caiaweb.org/node/136). The owners of the company par take in some explicitly unliberal activities.
Posted by: Fotis | 2008-01-30 10:17:39 AM
Chapters/Indigo is the big thing in Toronto and Ottawa. Does anywhere else really matter dahlings?
Posted by: Liz J | 2008-01-30 10:46:36 AM
Ah Yes Fotis and McNally on 8th st also has a really fine restaurant.
Books, booze and all that is needed.
Posted by: The LS | 2008-01-30 1:41:59 PM
Well ok, my sister is a book purchaser for Crap-ters. She freely admits with a look of revulsion that they dont sell enough of that garbage(right of centre books) to warrant her purchasing them. But the look of horror on her face when she talks about the righties just tells it all. She freely says to me that if she had her way, none of these idiots(again, all right of centre books) would get to purvey their filth in her stores. Oh but this isnt censorship nor is it a liberal bias...they are just catering to the market...ya sure they are.
Posted by: SW | 2008-01-30 2:10:58 PM
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuckwad
now this is funny...this site is actually calling Jonah Goldberg a fu
Posted by: SW | 2008-01-30 2:15:59 PM
I take it as my mission to put right-of-centre books on the display shelves at my local Chapters. This involves searching the dusty back shelves to actually find the books in question.
Posted by: Bernie | 2008-01-30 2:57:31 PM
I shop at a local Chapters (Yonge and Steeles Avenue, Vaughan--just north of Toronto) and agree that left wing stuff/anti-American stuff is front and centre.
The story is surrounded by a predominantly Jewish area, but still stocks copies of Noam Chomsky and the latest nonsense from Jimmy Carter.
They occasionally have something by Ann Coulter, but I have not yet been able to find a single copy of Clarence Thomas's recent autobiography. The store has a lot of excuses and a fine selection of anti-Bush material.
If something is anti-American it gets on the shelf. If Bill Clinton is on the cover, the book is featured.
But anything conservative gets very short shift indeed.
Posted by: Janet MacDougall | 2008-01-30 3:34:15 PM
Not just Chapters/Indigo, but booksellers in the US as well. Last September I went into a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Virginia looking for "The Reagan Diaries". Couldn't find it and asked a rather effeminate looking employee where I could find it. He sighed, tossed his head and led me over to an obscure shelf where it was just shy of being hidden. He continued to sigh and look disgusted while I purchased it.
Folks, let them live by the sword and die by the sword. Enough people ( like myself ) purchase through Amazon and they will feel the heat.
Free markets are our friend.
Posted by: atric | 2008-01-30 3:57:43 PM
I wouldn't get too paranoid. They don't seem to give a hoot about what customers want because they have little competition left.
I have tried to find several classics for my kids and been greeted with stunned looks from employees. Even a few old favourites that have unfortunately been remove from school book shelves seem to have dissappeared from these bookmarts. Many of them aren't exactly right of center.
I have a feeling they're using profit margins when deciding which books hit the front shelves. Crappy books probably have more mark up. Complaining to employees won't change things a whole lot.
Posted by: dp | 2008-01-30 4:18:08 PM
Ahhh the blessing of living in the US - access to good bookstores. I regularly go to the Barnes and Noble in Columbus, Georgia. It easily overtakes any Canadian store.
The main benefit to shopping with Amazon.com (as opposed to Amazon.ca) is that .com pays the GST. It's an automatic discount on top of their other, already ample discounts. Their selection and service, however, make them worth paying extra if need be.
Crapters sucks - no other way to explain it. They lack good service and selection. Reisman just doesn't realize that she competes with Amazon and Barnes and Noble whether she likes it or not. She thought that she had the whole market to herself and could do as she pleased. McNally-Robinson wasn't enough to get her to change her ways. So she symbolizes that being Canadian is synonymous with low quality. I refuse to accept that, and if my shopping in the US hurts her profit margins, it's an added incentive.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-01-30 4:43:18 PM
My business goes to amazon and if the Canadian one does not have what I want which is not often, then I use amazon.com or the uk one. Always excellent service.
I agree with the remarks concerning Chapters. Other than the typical leftist propaganda it is difficult to find much. Of course as a private business they have the right to stock what they want and I as a customer have the right to shop elsewhere.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-01-30 4:43:26 PM
The same thing happened at Indimmigo when "Unfit for Command" (the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth book) was at the top of the NY Times bestseller list in the summer of 2004.
They had more copies of a Bush-hating book caled "Unfit Commander" that no one has ever heard of.
But, amazingly, I recently saw a few copies of Laura Ingraham's book on display in one of their stores.
Posted by: Joan Tintor | 2008-01-30 6:34:46 PM
To be fair, "Unfit for Command" was a true surprise bestseller. They did get it in fairly quickly, as I recall, once it became a big deal.
I generally don't order books online because I live in a condo and my mailbox is so small that any book ends up over at the local Post Office, which adds a day to shipping and means another annoying trip.
The thing I would say, Alain, is that a private business has every right to do whatever it wants - but, when government policy gives a private business a de facto monopoly, this becomes an abusive practice - and is another reason why that monolpoly should be ended.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 2008-01-30 6:47:28 PM
you idiot. barnes and noble is an AMERICAN company, and the only reason for an AMERICAN company to exist is to MAKE MONEY. Jonah's publisher only printed a limited run, either to control demand or cuz they thought it wouldn't sell. EVERY barnes and noble was scheduled to get three copies, but only about 20% of us got any. A second run of the book was printed, and all B&N locations recieved their books either yesterday or today.
perhaps if conservatives would stop blaming everybody else for their problems, the world would take them a little more seriously. man up.
Posted by: bryan | 2008-01-30 8:09:58 PM
And Chapters-Indigo isn't in business to make money?
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2008-01-30 8:17:54 PM
Chapters is a book store? I thought it was a card and gift shop smelling of cheap perfumed candles and over roasted Starbucks coffee.
SW, tell your sis about my 3 strikes rule, which I think a lot of us share. I give any business 3 failures to sell me the only thing it is in the business of selling. If it is too stupid and slow to do that, I won't come back, perhaps ever, certainly for a long, long time.
Strike one: "Rudyard Kipling, who's that... H. L. Mencken, likewise".
Strike two, the Steyn book. (Yo Heather, the interwebtubes let me get my own personally inscribed and signed by Steyn. Bite me.)
Strike three: Me to Chapters clerk:"I see from your computer you know about this Goldberg book but there are no copies in any of your stores in Alberta. What's with that." Response: "Dunno, don't care, drop dead, (glances of suspicion-though perhaps I'm too paranoid and they were merely glances of bovine stupidity), and I don't know or care if we ever get it". Very slightly paraphrased, but I got the gist.
So tell sis that she's right, don't stock any right wing stuff for me because I won't be back.
Posted by: BlacquesJacquesShellacques | 2008-01-31 8:48:55 AM
I work at a Coles bookstore in Southern Ontario, only the Chapters in my town got Liberal Fascism. In our store book facings are determined by what promotions the company's running and the quantity of the book. Bestseller's at 30% get faced, sometimes tax books get special placement around springtime, dictionaries in August, Oprah's book club books get a special area etc. But political bias doesn't factor into it. Recently I made sure to face Bill O'Reily's book and I did the same with David Frum's book, but I don't see my fellow employees deliberately hiding conservative books. My manager doesn't select which books get sent in either. The room for bias is probably further up the chain. Also, it may simply be that the yuppies who frequent Chapters and drink the overpriced lattes drive up the demand for LIEberal [sic] books.
Posted by: Andrew | 2008-04-17 9:21:13 PM
I work at a Coles bookstore in Southern Ontario, only the Chapters in my town got Liberal Fascism. In our store book facings are determined by what promotions the company's running and the quantity of the book. Bestseller's at 30% get faced, sometimes tax books get special placement around springtime, dictionaries in August, Oprah's book club books get a special area etc. But political bias doesn't factor into it. Recently I made sure to face Bill O'Reily's book and I did the same with David Frum's book, but I don't see my fellow employees deliberately hiding conservative books. My manager doesn't select which books get sent in either. The room for bias is probably further up the chain. Also, it may simply be that the yuppies who frequent Chapters and drink the overpriced lattes drive up the demand for LIEberal [sic] books.
Posted by: Andrew | 2008-04-17 9:24:12 PM
Does one have to be anti-Canadian to be in Harper's fan club? Why are all these American bootlickers ranting about their Buy-American biases and running down Canadian owned businesses? If the grass is greener in America, how come Conrad Black is the queen of his jail in Florida? LOL! If you love America, move there and experience a Connie Black moment! LOL!
The market is always right and there is no market for rightwing trash, except to line budgy cages.
Posted by: ROGER | 2008-04-17 9:32:21 PM
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