Uncreated Conscience

As some of you might know, the FTC released new guidelines on product endorsement, which now includes books and book bloggers. To quote Ron Hogan quoting the new regulations:

Shortly after the Federal Trade Commission issued its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” yesterday, the world learned that the FTC judges newspapers and blogs by different standards—while newspapers (and magazines, and radio shows, and TV shows) are able to receive consumer products for the purposes of review with no requirement to disclose the provenance of those products, the FTC’s stated position is that bloggers are receiving those same consumer products as compensation for a presumed endorsement: Nobody but a blockhead ever gave a blogger anything, according to the FTC, except for good reviews.

Excuse me while I laugh. The idea that I might generate even the tiniest bit of income from this blog is ridiculous. I blog because I love: I love to read and I love to blog about what I read. And for the record, I have bought the majority of the books I review on this blog, with the notable exceptions of LIAR by Justine Larbalestier and CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins, the ARCs of which I borrowed from Russ. (And I went and bought the hardcover for CATCHING FIRE anyway, so nyah.)

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As it’s Banned Books Week, I’ve been doing a bit of musing about the subject in the past few days. I just finished John Green‘s most excellent PAPER TOWNS (review to follow soon), which I believe was challenged somewhere in this country, although for what conceivable reason I have no idea.

Verboten.

I grew up in a household which banned books. My parents are well-intentioned, lovely people who tried to instill in me a love of reading from an early age. Mum and Dad are not readers themselves, but nevertheless did their best by me. Our nightly routine included Mum bedding me down and Dad reading out loud to me until it was time to switch on the nightlights.

Unfortunately, because my parents are not readers, they didn’t necessarily care to review the books they perfunctorily forbade me to read. For instance, THE BABYSITTERS’ CLUB was proscribed in our house. Why? I have no idea. My mother insisted the books were “trashy”. (She’s never read one in her life.) I had to sneak home a few from the school library. I don’t know what she meant by “trashy”, but I suspect it has something to do with literary quality vs. book quantity. I mean, it doesn’t get more wholesome than THE BABYSITTERS’ CLUB!

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