Fifty Shades of Grey book now a turn-off for library users

The first instalment of the best-selling “mummy porn” trilogy by EL James has dropped out of the top 100 most-borrowed library books, plummeting from third place the previous year.

Judith Watts, senior lecturer of publishing at Kingston University and author of Writing Erotic Fiction, said the book had become so ubiquitous that it was no longer enticing to readers. “I think it’s to do with saturation, it became so widely available,” she said. “Certain charity shops won’t take it any more.”

Fifty Shades of Grey became the bestselling book in British history in 2012 when it sold more than 5.3 million copies, overtaking  Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The official library borrowing figures in which it did not make the top 100 were registered between June 2013 and June 2014.

 

The latest library lending figures, released today by the Public Lending Right scheme, show that the American thriller writer James Patterson has remained the most-borrowed author for the eighth year in a row. He had 13 novels in the top 100, with Second Honeymoon the most borrowed of his work, at No 8.

The most-borrowed book of last year was Dan Brown’s Inferno, despite its critical mauling.

Six children’s authors made the top 10 including former Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson, the third-most-borrowed of the year, Daisy Meadows and Francesca Simon, who was behind the Horrid Henry books. 

Public Lending Right (PLR) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1979, giving authors the legal right to receive payment from government each time their book is loaned through the public library system.

This month the PLR will make £6m payments to 22,053 authors, with the rate at 6.66p per loan.

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Book Buzz: 'Fifty Shades' casting, Katy Perry memoir

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Will Emma Watson star as Anastasia Steele? (Photo: Joel Ryan AP)

Here's a look at what's buzzing in the book world today:

Emma Watson in 'Fifty Shades': Could Emma Watson be the actress to bring Anastasia Steele to life? Hackers have leaked several documents which note that Watson is attached to star in the upcoming film adaption of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey.

Geithner book: Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is writing a book that will be a "behind-the-scenes account of the American response to the global financial crisis," to be published in 2014.

Man Asian prize: Malaysian novelist Tan Tan Eng has won the Man Asian prize for his book The Garden of Evening Mists, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize and is about memory and forgetting.

Pope book race: Publishers are already cashing in on this week's news of the new Pope. Two books about Pope Francis has been set for an April 30 release: Pray for Me: The Life and Spiritual Vision of Pope Francis, First Pope From the Americas by Robert Moynihan which was announced yesterday, and Francis, Pope of a New World by Andrea Tornielli, announced today.

Long-lost Stevenson essay:The Strand Magazine has published a long-lost essay from Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, in which he says he was often bored by the fiction written in his life.

Katy Perry book: Could the pop star be writing a memoir? British tabloids have reported that Perry signed a book deal for $3 million, but her rep has denied the news. Last month, ex-husband Russell Brand said that he was writing a second memoir that would touch on his 14-month marriage to the singer.

NYC Teen Author Festival: Six venues in New York City will host the fifth annual NYC Teen Author Festival next week, in which more than 90 authors have signed on to participate. The celebration includes a one-day event called the NYC Big Read.

'Devil Wears Prada' sequel: Check out the book cover for Revenge Wears Prada, the sequel to Lauren Weisberger's 2003 best seller that inspired the 2006 movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.

Want more Book Buzz? Follow @USATODAYBooks and @lindsdee on Twitter.

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Bret Easton Ellis shows 50 shades of green?

We have a new Twitter-fueled uproar today. Why is bad-boy novelist Bret Easton Ellis claiming TV actor Matt Bomer is "too gay" to play a straight role in a movie of Fifty Shades of Grey?

There is no movie, or at least not yet. It's not yet even a glimmer in Hollywood's addled brain, let alone cast, but fans of the hot-hot-hot novels of sadomasochistic sex are busy casting the major characters anyway, especially on Twitter. Bomer, the hot-hot-hot star of USA Network's White Collar who also had a role in this year's Magic Mike, is being mentioned to play the novels' soft-porn protagonist Christian Grey.

No way, tweeted Ellis, 48, the author and screenwriter of American Psycho and other books, who may or may not be gay himself but surely is the brattiest of the literary Brat Pack. He has nothing against gays or Bomer, Ellis says, but Christian Grey has to be into women or the story won't work. Which is what he said in a Twitter rant this week.

"He's NOT right for Christian G," he tweeted Wednesday. "Okay I'll say it. Matt Bomer isn't right for Christian Grey because he is openly gay...He's not CG. Never...I am NOT discriminating Matt Bomer because of his sexuality. Fifty Shades of Grey demands an actor that is genuinely into women. Get it?!?"

Cue the ensuing flow of push-back and atta boy tweets.

And, mind you, the fact that Ellis didn't get the job to adapt the story for the big screen has nothing to do with what E!Online called "Fifty Shades of Bitter." On that point, Ellis tweeted earlier, "It's a very major disappointment to announce that I've somehow been taken off the list of possible screenwriters for Fifty Shades of Grey..."

Bomer, 32, who recently came out, plays a sexy straight guy in his TV show and so far has managed to be persuasive despite going home every night to his male partner and their children. Ellis, in another tweet, said he thinks Bomer comes off as "totally gay" in White Collar.

By the way, Ellis himself has long been coy in multiple interviews over the years about defining his own sexuality. For artistic reasons, he has said, he doesn't want to say because "if people knew that I was straight, they'd read (his books) in a different way. If they knew I was gay, Psycho would be read as a different book."

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Book buzz: 'Fifty Shades' by the numbers

By Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

Here's a look at what's buzzing in the books world today:

--The week's hot books: USA TODAY's Bob Minzesheimer gives details on the week's top five new and noteworthy releases, including Gold by Chris Cleave.

--'50 Shades,' 23 ways: If you stacked up all copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, the pile would be 51 miles high. Or you could fill 12 Olympic swimming pools with all of the copies sold. Publishers Weekly tackles the best-seller in 23 fun statistics.

--All-American books: Feeling patriotic this July 4th week? The Daily Beast gives Independence Day books suggestions for people of all different viewpoints.

--Barnes on books: The Sense of an Ending author Julian Barnes writes about his bibliomania and defends physical books and bookstores on The Guardian.

--The vest plot: Jennifer Weiner pokes fun at The Marriage Plot author Jeffrey Eugenides and his infamous Broadway billboard vest with an ad for her new book,The Next Best Thing.

--Poet memoir: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet laureate Natasha Trethewey will write a memoir to be published by Ecco in 2014.

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'50 Shades of Grey' to return to Florida library shelves

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Less than a month after Fifty Shades of Grey was pulled from local library shelves, officials plan to put the erotic best-seller back in circulation as early as next week, according to the chairman of the Brevard County Commission.

Vintage Books, AP

Book covers from the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series.

Vintage Books, AP

Book covers from the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series.

Chuck Nelson said Friday that County Manager Howard Tipton and Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten, who oversees library operations, told him during separate briefings Thursday and Friday that the novel once more will be available to library patrons. Details are being worked out.

"Given where we are today," making the book available to library patrons would be "a reasonable approach," said Nelson, adding that e-mails and phone calls to his office ran heavily in favor of the book's return.

"I never want to be in a position where we appear to be censoring or banning books."

County spokesman Don Walker said the county manager's office plans an announcement next week, but no final decision has been made.

The county's Fifty Shades saga started when Cathy Schweinsberg, Brevard's library services director, decided to pull the system's 19 copies after reading the book. At the time, she said that the library had "erred in our selection process and are correcting the error, and, thus, it is not censorship."

Officials said then they would review policies by which books are selected, purchased and reconsidered.

But after Florida Today's first story about the ban appeared May 4, a national conversation ensued, with anti-censorship advocates demanding a return of the book by British author E.L. James. The first installment in a trilogy, it tops nationwide best-seller lists and features explicit sexual scenes.

Linda Tyndall of Viera and her 16-year-old daughter, Becca, started an online petition asking for the book's return that drew almost 2,000 signatures.

Tyndall said that while she might have understood had the library simply not purchased Fifty Shades -- many libraries nationwide have chosen not to buy it -- she would have fought as hard for the return of any book that was purchased and pulled.

"I'm very happy to have played a role in it," she said. "I do think the petition got the word out. … Anybody who spoke up against censorship needs to pat themselves on the back."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida notified commissioners this week that it was considering legal action against the county.

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E.L. James basks in 'Fifty Shades' of sudden success

WASHINGTON – Halfway through a two-week tour to promote Fifty Shades of Grey, British author E.L. James is 50 shades of shellshocked about the supercharged success of her erotic trilogy.

By Forrest MacCormack, for USA TODAY

E.L. James signs books at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda, Md., while on a two-week tour.

By Forrest MacCormack, for USA TODAY

E.L. James signs books at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda, Md., while on a two-week tour.

"It's really exhausting, and I find all the hoopla around it extraordinary," the fortysomething married mother of two teenage boys says in an interview with USA TODAY at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the nation's capital. "But it's great to meet people who really love the books, just to say thanks, if nothing else, and just exchange a few words. I really enjoy that."

Thousands of fans have lined up in Miami, Chicago and Philadelphia to have copies of Fifty Shades autographed since James' book tour began in late April.

And it's not just books she's signing. Fans are asking her to sign gray neckties, T-shirts, even iPads, Nooks and Kindles. Police officers, she says, laughing, have had her autograph handcuffs.

'I'd rather be writing'

Despite all the fan enthusiasm, James (whose real name is Erika Leonard) says the depth of her newfound fame and fortune hasn't sunk in. "It's very strange," she says, brushing her brunette bangs off her forehead. "It's just that everything has happened so quickly. It's like it's happening to someone else. They've just been shipping out books like nobody's business."

And that's no overstatement. The erotic novels, about a virginal college student named Anastasia who enters a submissive sexual relationship with Christian Grey, a handsome young billionaire, were first published by a small Australian publisher last May, largely as e-books.

They became such hot properties — dubbed "Mommy porn" by some wags — that Vintage, a division of Random House, bought the rights.

In April, Vintage's paperback editions began selling here. In less than a month, Vintage has sold 3 million copies (digital and print) of the trilogy.

Fifty Shades of Grey, first in the series, is No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, a spot it's held for two weeks. They are best sellers in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, and nearly three dozen other countries will be selling them in translation soon.

All the attention, James says, is sometimes overwhelming. "In New Haven (Conn.), I went into a room and there were about 1,000 women in there, and they all started applauding, and I started to cry. The response has been so extraordinary, so no, I'm not used to it yet. Part of me loves it, but I'd rather be at home writing."

James, a former BBC production executive, is beginning to understand what people like about the books.

"It's a combination of things. Fundamentally, people like a good love story. That's it," she says. "They like the sex as well. They love Christian Grey, a complicated, damaged, talented man. He's very capable and strong and domineering but broken. So he's a fixer-upper. I mean, it's a fantasy — the whole book — and so they bought into it and suspended their disbelief. Gone on a vacation really."

Stella Lee, 27, of Baltimore brought her husband, Nelson, with her to James' book signing at the Bethesda, Md., Barnes & Noble last week.

While waiting in line to meet James, she laughs and reveals she has read the series five times. "There's so much talk about the S & M, but it's just so romantic. The love between the characters is so endearing. I just love Christian Grey."

Robin Preston, 50, of Alexandria, Va., also waiting to have her books signed, says the series "consumed" her. "I fell in love with the characters. I'm not much of a fiction reader, but this kept my interest. I could not put them down."

And how James came to write her famous erotic trilogy is equally fantastic.

After reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, about a high school girl who falls in love with a handsome vampire, James began writing fan fiction about Edward and Bella, the Twilight protagonists.

But it was far less chaste than anything Meyer ever wrote. "It was very sexy," James says, and the story of Christian and Anastasia is basically that fan fiction. "I had to tone it down and alter certain bits of it for publication, but fundamentally, it's the same sort of story."

Fever-pitch excitement for the novels heated up more after Universal and Focus Features bought the movie rights. As for who she thinks would be the perfect on-screen Christian and Anastasia, James will say only, "I'm keeping very quiet about all of that."

Don't ask, don't tell

She's also deflecting questions about whether she and her husband have experience with domination — "I've a little bit of experience, but I think that's mostly between me and my husband" — and says most of her research for the books was done on the Internet, "but also just thinking things through in my head."

She also knows she's influencing the sex lives of her fans.

"Yes, oh, God, yes. They say: 'You've really spiced up my marriage. Thank you very much, and my husband thanks you, too.' Of the thousands of e-mails I get, that's the main tenet. I get so many lovely e-mails. I think it's great. I say go for it. I think that's wonderful."

But she's not, she says, "making any huge statements" about lifestyle. "It's about having fun. What people get up to in the bedroom is entirely their own thing, and as long as it's safe, sane and consensual — those are the watch words of the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) community — who are we to judge?"

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