Bonnie Powell points us to this incredibly odd story from the folks at Chelsea Green, the publisher of cognitive linguist George Lakoff’s latest book Don’t Think of an Elephant! (Previous BB posts about Lakoff here and here.)
Following reports that George Lakoff’s political work Don’t Think of an Elephant! had made the Booksense and San Francisco Chronicle paperback bestseller lists, Chelsea Green received word that the book had made #30 on the NY Times paperback list. We were ecstatic, but troubled to see that the book was listed with the wrong author (Howard Dean) and wrong publisher (Ballantine). When president and publisher Margo Baldwin called the Times to correct the information, she was told that the book was no longer on the list at all, as it had been reclassified as a How-To/Self-Help book.
The email exchange between Baldwin and the New York Times is funny, and sad.
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