{"id":5401,"date":"2011-07-15T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=5401"},"modified":"2011-07-15T06:00:11","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T10:00:11","slug":"update-on-the-topic-of-shamelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=5401","title":{"rendered":"Update on the Topic of Shameless(ness)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a recent blog post, Should We Protect the Grown-Ups?<\/em><\/a>, I expressed surprise that Shameless<\/a>, a terrific, funny, thought-provoking book for adults about adult issues like marriage, sex, and midlife identity could be — just by virtue of the subject matter — too volatile for some readers to feel comfortable discussing in a book group setting. My main point, which was a little obscured by the racy nature of this particular book (sex does somehow always trump other topics struggling for a voice at the table), was that as a bookseller, I’ve noticed a growing reluctance of adult readers to engage with reading material that they might disagree with politically, morally, and\/or religiously, and this has implications to me for the environment in which we’re raising our kids.
\nI think societies are healthiest with spirited debate instead of cautious segregation of ideas. So it was with great delight that I learned that several of the members of the book group that had decided not to read Shameless<\/em> have set up a satellite book group just for discussion of that title. This seems to me a perfect compromise, both acknowledgement of and respect for the group as a whole, and an innovative solution, accommodating those members who have an interest in and willingness to take on this slightly controversial topic.
\nHow civilized. How creative. How … democratic!
\nMy bookselling world is just a little brighter today. Controversy is not dead! Long live shameless book discussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Societies are healthiest with spirited debate instead of cautious segregation of ideas. So it was with great delight that I learned that several of the members of the book group that had decided not to read Shameless have set up a satellite book group just for discussion of that title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}