What better to give someone this holiday season than a paperback copy of the Senate’s report on the U.S. government’s torture practices.
Wait, what now?
Well, we’re not exactly sure what people are planning to do with the “Senate Torture Report,” but it appears that the downright gruesome subject matter did nothing to dampen enthusiasm for print copies of the document.
The report was officially released as a print book on Tuesday, and already indie publisher Melville House said that they have shipped out nearly all 50,000 copies in their initial print run.
Bookstores large and small from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble to independent stores like Politics and Prose put in orders with the publisher for print copies of the books, Melville said.
It is too early to know how well they are faring on bookshelves, but Melville is optimistic that the rosy reception will allow them launch a second printing by the end of the week.
“We’ve been trying to keep getting the book out and circulating it and hoping we could keep it alive in the holiday season,” said Melville co-owner Dennis Johnson in an interview. “It’s shocking, depressing stuff. It’s not exactly something you want to give someone as a Christmas gift.”
“But it is one of the most important documents I feel that this country has ever allowed to be realized,” he added noting also that “demand is off the charts.”
After a months-long delay, the report, produced by the Senate Intelligence Committee, was finally released publicly in early December, much to the consternation of intelligence officials (and to the horror of opponents of the so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques). Melville House announced that they would re-print the digital document, initially released as a PDF, in order to make it easier to read and handle.
We all know how unwieldy massive PDFs can be, and this near-600 page monstrosity is no different. Johnson said that around-the clock work went into typesetting, proofreading and converting the government’s document into something that consumers and scholars alike can use.
The Brooklyn-based publishing house — which was co-founded post-9/11 by Johnson, a former journalist, author, and Bush administration critic, and his wife — partnered with Random House to distribute the book. It is now selling in stores and online for $16.95 a pop.
Mind you, it is available for free elsewhere, but as Johnson notes, digital copies currently available simply reproduce the abysmal quality of the government’s release.
“As far as I know, we are the only company that has actually taken the report laid it out and made it searchable as a digital document,” Johnson said. “Our version of the report is actually 50-60 pages longer than the government PDF.”
“We are a mission driven company, and we were afraid the story would fade away unless there was a good, readable version of it,” he added.
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