While sales are huge, so is the controversy. Several libraries have either pulled the book from their shelves or have simply refused to purchase the book. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has come out against the library policy and in a statment, executive director Joan Bertin said: “The vast majority of cases that we deal with have to do with removing books to keep kids from seeing them … in the case of adults, other than the restrictions on obscenity and child pornography, there’s simply no excuse. This is really very much against the norms in the profession.”
The NCAC has created a petition criticizing the Brevard County Library in Florida which yanked the book. The NCAC says that Fifty Shades of Grey is “comparable to Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Fear of Flying” in it’s content. Here’s an excerpt: “The very act of rejecting erotica as a category suitable for public libraries sends an unmistakable message of condemnation that is moralistic in tone, and totally inappropriate in a public institution dedicated to serving the needs and interests of all members of the community.”
You can read the entire letter in it’s entirely here.