Guardian columnist George Monbiot , with whom we shared a delicious dinner while he was in Vancouver signing books, says that U.S. publishing houses have so far spurned his bestselling (in the UK and Canada) Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning.
George says the U.S. editors have all said a version of the same thing: “Americans aren’t ready for it.”
That is, first of all, a dim view of Americans who, on the whole, are great deal brighter than their publishing industry imagines. It’s also self-fulfilling: if U.S. publishers refuse to carry good new books on climate change, then Americans will have to go on making decisions based on the kind of corrupt information currently being peddled out of the ExxonMobil-funded think tanks.
For the record, these are the readers and publishers who have so far praised Heat to its author, but passed on the opportunity to present it to the American public:
Eamon Dolan – Houghton
Ann Godoff – Penguin
Alane Mason – Norton
Colin Robinson – New Press
Bill Frucht – Basic
Colin Dickerman – Bloomsbury
Frances Coady – Picador
Tim Bent – Harcourt
Jonathan Burnham – HarperCollins
Bill Thomas – Doubleday
Sean Desmond – St Martins
Tim Bartlett – Random House
