posted on June 7, 2004 10:21:49 PM new
LONDON (Reuters) - In a bid to lure men in Britain away from TV soccer games and into book shops, publisher Penguin Books will send out a sexy model to offer 1,000-pound ($1,837) prizes to males spotted reading a selected title.
The publicity ploy, launched Monday, aims to boost sales among men, who on average buy fewer books than women.
"It's to sex up the book industry, which probably needs it, but also to address the more serious issue that reading has fallen off the radar of younger men," said Neil Griffiths, author of Penguin-published "Betrayal in Naples."
Penguin's so-called Good Booking Girl will canvass the streets this month for men older than 16 years reading versions of Nick Hornby's "31 Songs" that bear a special cover sticker.
A different title will be chosen each month.
At the same time, Penguin, a unit of Pearson Plc, released results of a poll in which 85 percent of women said a man could increase his chances of getting a date by talking about a favorite book.
By contrast, more than half the men polled said they believed that flattering a woman would suffice to impress her.
An accompanying Good Booking chart of 40 books recommends such lad-friendly Penguin titles as Anthony Burgess' violence-filled "A Clockwork Orange," Raymond Chandler's noir thriller "The Big Sleep" and Jack Kerouac's beat odyssey "On the Road."
posted on June 8, 2004 09:03:04 AM new
Ha! Well Kiara this is one of those sexist double-sided swords managing to grossly insult men and women at the same time. We wanted equality..er..I guess this is it????
posted on June 8, 2004 11:13:37 AM new
The best reason is to learn what the liberal media misrepresents or fails to truthfully publish in news papers or television.
"The Secret Service has announced it is doubling its protection for John Kerry. You can understand why — with two positions on every issue, he has twice as many people mad at him." —Jay Leno
posted on June 8, 2004 03:59:59 PM new
Just out of curiosity... are any of our female posters insulted by this? Personally I think it hilarious.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on June 8, 2004 05:25:03 PM new
Doesn't insult me all. Now if they would just have a "Good Books Boy" built along the lines of Schwarzenegger and wearing a small speedo roaming our streets looking for women readers,I be sure to sit out on the corner with a book in my hands...
edited to delete an extraneous "the"
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We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
[ edited by bunnicula on Jun 8, 2004 05:34 PM ]
