Okay, never mind, you can stand down now. It’s not quite a matter of ‘Never mind, it was just a case of the fantods, we’ll be going ahead as planned, sorry to trouble you,’ but it’s almost that. Close enough. All may go according to plan after all. Sorry about the interruption.
Actually it was just a ploy to bounce people into ordering advance copies! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Just kidding. Things did look ominous from our angle, and there is still a part of the story that is obscure, or unfinished, or changing as we speak, or something. But it may turn out all right. I’ll let you know.
Addendum. (Look, it’s earlyish in the morning and I’ve been up for hours, and I haven’t slept much since Friday, so my wits are not what they might be.) I should have said – things did look ominous from our angle for reasons: on Friday the possibilities discussed included not publishing the book at all, dropping a chapter, and making changes – along with that other, major part of the story that is either obscure or unfinished. So it’s not as if the request for a conference call were obviously not going to be more of the same – and certainly nobody told us it was not going to be more of the same – so it’s not as if we over-reacted or leapt to conclusions or spotted goblins behind the refrigerator. We had every reason to think bad things were afoot, and to get busy resisting them.
Comments
26 responses to “Pax scriptorum”
Good to have an update. Still standing by though.
Really? But we’re all baying for blood, what are we to do now? (kidding). A pleasing victory for common sense I hope. I’m glad you and Jeremy can (almost) rest easy now. I really am looking forward to reading it. Why only today I pulled out WTM to find an apposite Hobsbawm quote for a History Tutorial I’m attending tomorrow (etitled “The Postmodern Challenge” (pfft, you call that a challenge?)), and I ended up rereading an entire chapter. Such lucid prose.
They’re not exactly your friends if they’ve really put a favourable quotation from Nick Cohen on the cover as UK Amazon seems to show. This will mislead buyers into thinking it is a Mad Mel/Michael Gove style rant rather than a serious book. I’ll be buying it anyway incidentally – and perhaps this will result in a few nutters accidentally educating themselves, so I suppose it may actually be a good thing.
Thank you!
I’ve just re-read the Hobsbawm passage myself – very apposite, isn’t it.
There’s a mention of the Southern Baptist Convention near that passage. The SBC goes on to play a starring role in the new book.
A ploy to sell more books? “The book we thought they might try to ban” isn’t the best marketing slogan.
Glad to hear everything is OK. Look forward to reading it.
Are you actually comparing Cohen to Mad Melanie Philips!? Cohen doesn’t deserve that. I’m sure the authors appreciate his endorsement. I highly doubt Ophelia wouldn’t see anything wrong with it; Cohen’s “What’s Left?” contains more than one chapter that fights the good fight against the sort of woolliness that OB has been battling for years (in fact Cohen cites B&W repeatedly)…
You’re right – I am being a little unfair there. Nobody deserves to be compared to Mad Mel – and Nick has stood up for Simon Singh.
So I don’t have to pre-order a copy after all? What about a review copy?
Yes, I disagree with almost everything Melanie Philips says – but agree with almost everything Nick Cohen says! Some *accounts* of What’s Left make him sound like MP – but that’s not his fault …
That’s a relief, although if things had turned out badly there was a pretty formidable posse ready to form out there.
I shall be ordering through my local bookshop, which already stocks a fairly complete collection of yourself, Jeremy and Julian. And remains resolutely woo-free.
Good to hear.
I can just continue my promotion, then :-)
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Good news!
Guess I can take off this rusty armor now.
Excellent.
I await publication with trepidation.
I prayed that this book would be published unaltered and it has come to pass, this proves the existence of God?
Modified Relief – to paraphrase Nanki-Poo. Hopefully I can leave the book on my “to get” list…
On the topic of censorship(?) has anyone else noticed that Jesus & Mo has been down for a couple of days?
“I prayed that this book would be published unaltered and it has come to pass”
No it hasn’t, not yet.
Down? Wotcha mean down? No, I haven’t noticed – and in fact it wasn’t down yesterday, I remember looking at it.
It’s still there, Don – there are fresh comments and I just added one. Must be something local to you.
Whew, that was scary.
That’s good, but I’m still getting ‘not available’. I get a little jumpy when certain sites don’t appear.
Ok, works on Firefox, but still not on AOL.
(Yes, I know, there are probably many reasons not to be using AOL, but I’m not very computer savvy.)
Hi Don,
AOL is the devil:) Seriously, that’s definitely the problem, and undoubtedly causes you other problems on the net. If you’d like some suggestions for getting away from AOL easily, just email me.
Great stuff Ophelia, will order a copy when it becomes available. One or two friends and relatives will probably be receiving surprise copies in their “birthday stockings” as well ;)
In the light of recent revelations may I be so bold as to suggest a title for the next book in the series? “Does God Hate Children too?”
Huh. We could do a whole series. Does God hate Jews? Does God hate Shi’ites? Does God hate Sufis? Does God hate atheists? (Well what do you think?!) Does God hate fags? (Well Fred Phelps says he does.)
A new series from Routledge or Continuum – the ‘Whom does God hate?’ series.
Or, how about, “Whom does God hate enough to give a good, ol’ fashunned spank’un to?”
I mean, I know. . I think. ..that he doesn’t hate me. Um, unless I’ve been very, especially naughty. . .
Oh, dear. I hit just the wrong note with that last attempt at humor, considering the appalling revelations about the Irish Catholic church. Mea culpa. The whole dust-up over Ophelia’s book – the publisher’s (apparent) baffling reaction – turned my mind to the absurd, but that fell flat, and I wish I hadn’t posted it.