Susanne Horman, owner of the Robinsons Bookshop chain, gave her first interview to Andrew Bolt, following the vicious, wokist, left-wing attack on her sparked by a series of tweets. To be fully in the picture, one must see the tweets in full:
‘What’s missing from our bookshelves in store? Positive male lead characters of any age, any traditional nuclear family stories, kids picture books with just white kids on the cover, and in which no wheelchair, rainbow, or indigenous art, non-indig aus history.’
‘Books we don’t need: hate against white Australians, socialist agenda, equity over equality, diversity and inclusion (READ as anti-white exclusion) left wing govt propaganda. Basically the whole woke agenda that divides people. Not stocking any of these in 2024.’
‘So I am advocating for a substantial shift in the focus of Australian publishers to be in line with public opinion and requests for what is GOOD! We aren’t going to stock books that intend to cause harm and make Australians hate each other.’
From a sales and marketing point of view, this is a true analysis of the sorts of books publishers are releasing and of what’s lacking in the market. I spent most of my working life in the book industry – mainly with publishers. Susanne’s tweets are the sort of analysis sales and marketing people engage in daily. What’s selling? What’s not selling? What type of book is flooding the market? What gaps are there in the market?
I’ve been at sales meetings where the critical language is far more frank and colloquial than Susanne’s.
What really is the issue here, is the political control the wokist gatekeepers have on the book market. There have been instances in recent years where a publisher’s editorial staff has refused to work on a manuscript the publisher has contracted. One of Jordan Peterson’s book suffered that fate. The bookshops can be just as bad. Many US booksellers refused to stock Candace Owen’s book “Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation.” Read the case HERE.
The problem here – an astonishing irony – is that the instruments of information dissemination (publishers and booksellers) are censoring themselves on the basis of ideology. I suppose when a nation’s educational establishments become unbending purveyors of rigid ideology, the publishers and booksellers will go the same way.
Andrew Bolt’s interview sadly shows a bookshop owner battered and bruised. She needs our support and we need to support a bookshop that remains true to its social function in a liberal democratic society.
Sussane Horman, owner of Independent bookshop group Robinsons Bookshop, is reported as saying:
“What’s missing from our bookshelves in store? Positive male lead characters of any age, any traditional nuclear white family stories, kids picture books with just white kids on the cover, and no wheelchair, rainbow or indigenous [sic] art, non indig [sic] aus history.”
“So I am advocating for a substantial shift in the focus of Australian publishers to be in line with public opinion and request for books and for what is GOOD! We aren’t going to stock books that intend to cause harm and make Australians hate each other.”
I have to smile at her innocence. Did she not know what would happen? Did she not know that the usual hysterical crowd of sanctimonious, virtue-signaling, wokist guardians would be onto her in a flash, led by the usual suspects: The Age, The Guardian, and SBS. SBS, anti-white and Anglophobic central, will feed on this for months. No doubt The Sydney Morning Herald and others of the same stamp will follow.
According to the SBS report, Emily Rainsford of something called ‘coffeebooksandmagic’ got the ball rolling. Frank Chung of news.com.au reported that Rainsford, puffed up with an overload of sanctimony, wrote that she was “not one for willy nilly ‘cancelling’ but the comments … are so wildly out of pocket that I have no problem suggesting a widespread boycott would be appropriate”.
That’s the wokist way, Emily: destroy those who don’t meet your ideological requirements. Frank Chung, right on the case, appealed to his readers: Do you know more? Email the authorat frank.chung@news.com.au. Frank will stay on the case as long as necessary.
The only regrettable aspect of this melodrama is that Susanne Hormann apologised for saying what thousands are thinking. Ordinary people are sick to death of the unending wokist sermons that are preached to them everywhere in the media – especially in bookshops. Walk into a bookshop, including the Robinsons group, and you have it staring at you in the face.
I know. I’m a book buyer. I have an account with one of the Robinsons stores. I won’t be changing anything. Indeed, I will make it my business next time I’m in their store to tell them they have my unwavering support if they carry through Susanne’s plans for 2024 stock.
Of course, you can understand why Susanne Horman apologised. She has a business to keep afloat, she has staff to keep, and customers to serve. She runs a real business – not some rinky dink indulgence to demonstrate the ideological purity of its owner.
I appeal to Robinsons customers not to desert Susanne and her dedicated staff – certainly not when she has the bravery to say what thousands are thinking.
*****
The SBS report:
More ‘white kids on the cover’: Bookshop apologises after owner’s comments spark outcry
Victorian independent bookstore Robinsons Bookshop has publicly apologised after its owner made comments online calling for an end to diverse books promoting “the woke agenda that divides people”.
A Victorian independent bookstore has apologised after comments made by its owner online. Source: Getty / Luis Alvarez
KEY POINTS
Robinsons Bookshop has apologised over comments made online by its owner in December.
In posts on X, Susanne Horman called for more books with “white kids on the cover”.
The bookshop said the comments have been taken out of context, and that it supports stories from diverse voices.
An independent bookshop in Victoria has apologised after its owner made comments online calling for more picture books “with just white kids on the cover”.
In recent comments posted to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the owner of Robinsons Bookshop Susanne Horman also claimed the store would not be stocking books that “intend to cause harm and make Australians hate each other”.
“Basically the woke agenda that divides people,” she said.
The comments from early December were shared in an Instagram post on Saturday by an account named coffeebooksandmagic.The bookshop has since apologised, saying the comments are being “taken out of context”.
An Instagram post from an account named coffeebooksandmagic has shared information about comments made by Robinsons Bookshop owner Susanne Horman. Source: Instagram / coffeebooksandmagic
“What’s missing from our bookshelves in store? Positive male lead characters of any age, any traditional nuclear white family stories, kids picture books with just white kids on the cover, and no wheelchair, rainbow or indigenous [sic] art, non indig [sic] aus history,” read one post shared on Instagram from an X account ostensibly owned by Horman.
“So I am advocating for a substantial shift in the focus of Australian publishers to be in line with public opinion and request for books and for what is GOOD! We aren’t going to stock books that intend to cause harm and make Australians hate each other.”
Another post read: “Books we don’t need: hate against white Australians, socialist agenda, equity over equality, diversity and inclusion (READ AS anti-white exclusion), left wing govt propaganda. Basically the woke agenda that divides people.
“Not stocking any of these in 2024.”
A screenshot from an Instagram post shared by coffeebooksandmagic showing the now-deleted X account of Robinsons Bookshop owner Susanne Horman. Source: Instagram / coffeebooksandmagic
