James by Percival Everett

Hi Linda. Please read the guidelines for authors: https://www.librarything.com/about/authors and note that commercial spam advertising books in unrelated threads is against the terms of service for this website, is frowned upon by the users of this site, and will not get more eyes on the book you are spamming.

>2 GraceCollection:

She's not the author. Why she is advertising this book, which needs no advertising (it just won the National Book Award, for pete's sake), all over the forums is beyond me. Particularly as she hasn't even bothered to catalog a copy.

>3 lilithcat: Apologies. I had never heard of this book, so I didn't know. Thought maybe it was a sock-puppet ("Ha Ha! They will never suspect I am the author if I have a different name!") or a publicist.

Rest assured, I won't be reading it now.

>4 GraceCollection:

Rest assured, I won't be reading it now.

Please don't let this put you off. Everett is a brilliant writer. I haven't gotten to James yet, but I really liked Erasure.

>5 lilithcat: Hm. Well I have to admit Erasure looks interesting...

I'm a pretty strong contrarian. "I'm not going to do that specifically because you told me to do it" runs in the family. I'm not running out immediately to the bookstore/library to fetch it, at the very least.

Everett is brilliant. I've been reading him for years. Erasure is awesome, The Trees is very weird, but compelling, Watershed is kind of wandering, but my favorite is Assumption. I have had So much Blue around for a while and really need to get to it. James will come to me eventually.

>6 GraceCollection:

If your library is anything like mine, you'd have a long wait.

Book: Holds: 592 on 125 copies
eBook: Holds: 1485 on 179 copies
Audiobook: Holds: 844 on 79 copies

and 24 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list (currently #1).

I don't think Everett needs Linda_Mcgregerson14 to help to sell his book!

>8 lilithcat: Goodness! Maybe a book so popular will wind up in one of my beloved secondhand bookshops in a year or two. I'll reassess how I feel about being spam-advertised to when/if I find it there.

>9 GraceCollection: This isn't a spam ad. It's a random nobody who for some reason feels compelled to tell us to read a book we were going to read anyway. Just ignore them and forget that you saw this "recommendation".

Rebecca, you're new and maybe only signed up so you could post this "rejoinder", but you're seriously lacking in understanding. This kind of advertising is not allowed outside of very specific groups on LT. Calling it out to better direct the efforts of someone trying to showcase a book is absolutely fine. Your responses in several posts, which is annoying enough in itself, is inappropriate and just plain wrong. GraceCollection is not alone is specifically avoiding books spammed by users abusing the platform. Maybe do a little research yourself to understand your audience and the site before engaging again.

>15 rebecca_roberts0347: But I have the right not to read either your or her "free speech".

Blocking.

There's been a little rough talk in this conversation, but this group is specifically a "catch-all for book-related discussion" so I fail to see why the thread is spam/inappropriate. Or is discussing any specific title not allowed in this group? Genuinely curious.

Is it possible that Linda just loved this book and wanted to talk about it? Perhaps James is worthy of a group discussion. It is the top book on the list of books that LibraryThingers loved in 2024.

>12 rebecca_roberts0347:

"Do a little research before you attack someone for using their right of free speech hun".

No, you don't have the 'right of free speech'. The First Amendment ONLY applies to governmental censorship. Private companies may censor as they wish. LibraryThing is not owned or operated by any governmental agency.

Additionally, LibraryThing is international in scope. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America does not apply to any country except for the United States of America.

>18 sturlington: Sounds more like a text produced by ChatGPT than a real human, but I agree, it's not spam. Which is why I counterflagged it.

>1 Linda_Mcgregerson14: and >11 rebecca_roberts0347: seem to be related to each other in some way, from my digging. Removing them both and taking a closer look at recent users.

>18 sturlington: It's not about this specific thread. It's about the OP and their actions, where this same post appeared in multiple threads (some inappropriate) without any reason to engage with the membership. So while one small thread is fine, a spasm of posts of the exact same thing across multiple threads may lead to more questiing.

>22 gilroy: OK, thanks for the explanation. I hadn't seen the other threads. Seems a very odd thing to spam but maybe they were just testing the systems...

>27 sturlington: You may want to check over on the spam reporting thread starting at this point, you'll see the running discussion.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/366326#8700613

>28 gilroy: Curiouser and curiouser. Thanks for sharing!