Sunday, July 29, 2012

Hotel replaces Bible with Fifty Shades of Grey. Will hilarity ensue?


I just read a HuffPost article about a hotel in England (Damson Dene) that decided that since not everyone is into the Christian religion, it'd be inappropriate for them to keep up with the tradition of leaving a Bible in the nightstand.

So they decided to replace it with Fifty Shades of Grey.

I have to admit, I'm intrigued. There's already been the typical statement that the move was inappropriate (by a Vicar, no less), but I'm interested in knowing what the average visitor will say or do.

Will this lead to more people coming to the hotel in order to see if the books are really there? If someone takes the book with them, will they be charged with it? If they don't, will the next visitor run the risk of touching a "used" (wink wink, nudge nudge) copy of the book?

And most importantly, if someone decides to torch their copy of the book in the loo's wastebasket and ends up setting the whole hotel aflame along with all of the hotel's copies of the book, would that be considered an   public service or a terrible atrocity? Depending on how you felt about the book, your opinion of this might differ.

(And if you're more of a Mile High club fan,  Virgin Atlantic Airlines will let you listen to the audiobook free of charge.)

2 comments:

  1. I dunno...

    It seems more like brilliant PR on the part of the publisher than it does anything else. I mean if you're going to put books for actual light reading, aren't there generally better ones?

    Maybe not the complete works of Shakespere, but perhaps some of his better plays? Or maybe some Updike short works?

    Though if the goal is to help people sleep I humbly submit that the Silmarillion would do...

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  2. I remember trying to read that (Silmarillion) in high school. I think I lasted about 30-40 minutes before I just couldn't take anymore and ended up grabbing a Stephen King book.

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