Norwich Bookstore

A current attention-grabbing trend in titles is to add expletives - often written as in the comics with *#$% symbols. While this might have been a good idea once or twice, it is now overdone.

I’m not against a well-timed curse - when I hammer my thumb or a bus cuts me off on the highway - but if every other word is an obscenity, they lose their punch and are annoying.

And not just one category of books has jumped on this bandwagon. I can site examples of memoirs, parenting titles, current events, psychology, art, humor - Go the F**k to Sleep, Sh*t My Dad Says, Recipes and Sh*t, Assholes: A Theory - you get the idea.

As a buyer for the store, the abrasive book jackets affect my selections. I might pass on a book that would otherwise be of interest if I felt more comfortable displaying it. How do we place a stack of books in the front of the store that scream an obscenity without being offensive?

I was taught that constant swearing indicated a lazy mind. Can’t an industry that prides itself on wordcraft be a bit more creative and a little less obscene? - Liza