Very odd!

Over the years, I learned that clerks at bookstores will give you funny looks if ask for a book that is out of favor with the prevailing orthodoxy . I remember when I was in my freshman year in college, I was assigned a paper in a literature class.  I thought that I had really gotten lucky, because I had drawn C.S. Lewis as the author to write about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis   If you wonder why I was so happy, ask yourself if you had to write a paper on the works of an English author, would you rather write on Lewis, who wrote clear, crisp, short books, or Thomas Hardy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy   or Anthony Trollope? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Trollope  Obviously, if you drew Hardy or Trollope, you might very well spend the rest of the semester reading and reading for that one paper to the detriment of your other classes, your health, your social life and your sanity.

My joy was short lived when I asked the clerk in the  Marshall Field book section for the SpaceTtrilogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Trilogy in paperback. You would have thought that I had asked her to walk barefoot backwards twice across broken glass. She relented a bit when I explained that I was doing a paper for a class. She said to me in a low, conspiratorial tone,   “He’s religious!”

Since that time, I have had a number of other encounters with book store employees when I asked for books that were somewhat to the right of the party line. I remember one clerk being very upset and trying to talk me out of buying William F. Buckley, Jr.’s latest offering a few years later. Things like that made me so glad when the Internet came along I could order books on-line.  Sadly, I think that I may have just had a similar experience today–although without the involvement of a noisome clerk.

There was a story in today’s edition of the Houston Chronicle that mentioned that a book on Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator McCain’s Veep pick, was on back order at Amazon.com because it had become wildly popular since her selection was announced yesterday.

When I went upstairs to my home office to order a copy of the book for myself, I forgot to carry that section of the paper with me. Being resourceful, I figured that I would have no problem finding the book on Amazon.com. I was wrong.

I searched under “Sarah Palin,” “Palin,” “Sarah + Palin” and many other variations on that theme all to no avail. I gave up after reviewing forty screens. But, I did learn that apparently half of the  books  written and available for sale  have a character named Sarah.  I never knew that.

Finally, just as I was about to admit defeat and walk downstairs to hunt up that section of the paper,  hit on another idea to find the book on-line. I went to the Barnes and Noble website. Searching under “Sarah Palin” the book appeared with no difficulty.  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Sarah/Kaylene-Johnson/e/9780979047084/?itm=1

Just out of curiosity, I decided to go back the Amazon.com web site to search for the book using the name of the author, Kaylene Johnson. Voila!  The book appeared quite easily. I noticed at the bottom of the entry that the book was listed #10. (As I write several hours later, it is up to #8.) http://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Hockey-Alaskas-Political-Establishment/dp/0979047080/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220129695&sr=1-1

My difficult search to find the book raises several questions in my mind.

First, why was it so difficult to find a book about Gov. Sarah Palin, searching under the phrase, “Sarah Palin,” on very user friendly Amazon.com’s web site?  Is there a political or ideological explanation for this difficulty? I would hope not, but one never does know, does one?

Second, how did the book manage to rise so high on the Amazon.com rankings, despite the problems with finding the book on the sight?  One has to admit that the title: Sarah:  How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment on Its Ear, is not the shortest or the most euphonious of book titles. 

This does seem very odd, doesn’t it?