"Fabrications acknowledged, a bestseller is withdrawn" by Joseph P. Kahn | Globe Staff, August 01, 2012
The Harvard Book Store in Cambridge had sold well over a hundred copies of Jonah Lehrer’s nonfiction bestseller “Imagine: How Creativity Works.” But on Tuesday, the remaining six copies of Lehrer’s book were pulled from store shelves at the direction of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the book’s Boston-based publisher, since the book will no longer be sold.
The unusual move — prompted by Lehrer’s admission Monday to having fabricated quotes he attributed in the book to Bob Dylan — surprised many book-trade veterans, who have seen other well-publicized scandals roil the publishing industry in recent years.
“This isn’t unheard of, but it’s certainly not common,” said Harvard Book Store general manager Carole Horne, who has been in the business for 35 years. As for Lehrer’s fabrications, Horne added: “I don’t know how people think they can get away with this in this day and age.”
To date, more than 200,000 copies of “Imagine” have been sold in hardcover or e-book form. Released in March, the book debuted at the top of The New York Times bestseller list and has remained on the list for 16 weeks....
Lehrer, 31, is a former Boston resident now living in Los Angeles. He has, in years past, been an occasional contributor to The Boston Globe’s Ideas section.
Now the section really makes sense. He was a real gritty reporter from what I've read.
In a statement released through his publisher Monday, Lehrer said, “I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers.”
Yeah, thanks, but not enough after the decades of diarrhea that has spewed forth from a newspaper I once believed was better than those other ones.
He also announced his resignation from his staff position at The New Yorker, a job he’d held only since June....
Well, yeah, his career should be over but it doesn't mean it will be.
Publishers like Houghton — which emerged from bankruptcy protection in June, following a court-approved deal to eliminate $3.1 billion in debt — are under relentless financial pressure to produce commercial hits.
This blogger sits here astounded. Did you get debt forgiveness so you could keep your home? Any European country being squeezed have their debt eliminated?
Therefore they may be “more inclined to let things slide,” as Nowatka put it, when it comes to fact-checking, a process undertaken by newspapers and magazines to a far greater degree than book publishers — although newspapers and magazines, too, have fallen victim to fabricators like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass.
Shouldn't Judy Miller be included there, as well as the entire government- and Zionist-fed media?
Oh, right, courts in AmeriKa have ruled it is okay for newspapers and television to lie. And then there is the Oprah scandal.
The authenticity of Lehrer’s work came prominently into question last winter, with the discovery of similarities between a piece published in the MIT alumni edition of Technology Review and one later posted by Lehrer on The New Yorker website. Other pieces written by Lehrer himself were recycled on his New Yorker blog, prompting a note of apology in June by New Yorker editor David Remnick.
It was not known whether this latest, more serious breach could cost Lehrer in ways that go beyond mere embarrassment or public contrition. According to John Taylor “Ike” Williams, a Boston lawyer and literary agent, book contracts routinely include clauses that hold an author financially responsible for deliberate misrepresentations or defamations in a work of nonfiction.
Uh-oh.
And if that were true for AmeriKan media, they would be done today instead of the slow self-implosion that is occurring.
Should the publisher’s lawyers recommend pre-publication changes, and an author refuse to make them, he or she may be forced to return any advance money already received.
Notice how the topic has slowly shifted to the money not the lying?
The same penalty holds true if a work violates a clause in the publishing contract asserting that it is “original, true, and accurate.”
One thing you can not argue about here: my commentary is original even if you don't believe the other two of me.
Given how most contracts are written, says Williams, it’s conceivable Houghton could face class-action lawsuits by disgruntled book buyers. “Once an author admits to taking liberties with a public figure, that’s serious stuff,” Williams commented. “This isn’t Bob Dylan’s sideman we’re talking about.”
Back into bankruptcy, Houghton.
Not only could Lehrer face paying back his advance against royalties, added Williams, but he could also be held liable for other losses incurred by Houghton, including the cost of returning unsold books....
Karma from the co$mo$.
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I think other apologizes are in order to those who truly do the hard work of trying to find the truth through the unbelievable illusion our society has become.
Whatever you are reading or seeing from the corporate/AmeriKan/Zionist/Jewish/call-it-what-you-will is a staged and scripted production and in many aspects has no relation to reality. It's a tough, tough, idea and item to choke down, but it's true.
