Someone hid my book at an Idaho library. So I'm bringing 10 of them to hide myself.

[Demovictory9]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/someone-hid-my-book-at-an-idaho-library-so-im-bringing-10-of-them-to-hide-myself/2019/11/14/3e50fdcc-0722-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html

There’s a very odd thing going on in an Idaho public library.

Somebody keeps hiding the books he doesn’t want people to read. They’re mostly anti-Trump books like Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury,” but also an LGBTQ book and even a golf book: “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump,” written by . . . well . . . me.

He even left a clue. “I noticed a large volume of Books attacking our President,” read a note in the library’s comments box. “I don’t want this propaganda winding up in the hands of young minds.”

This surprised me for three reasons:

1. Minds have hands?

2. There are still comments boxes?

3. A hardcore Trumper went inside a library?

The IdaHider has struck many times, but, alas, he remains at large. Where is Agatha Christie when you need her?


The director of the Coeur d’Alene library, Bette Ammon, 68, is stumped. “We don’t have security or cameras or anything like that,” Bette tells me. They tried flying a camera drone above the stacks to look for books, but that didn’t work at all, perhaps because librarians should not be anywhere within a par 5 of drones.

Where does Hidaho stash the books that offend him? Sometimes they’re turned around so you can’t see the title on the spine. Sometimes they’re moved to sections where you’d never look for them. My book, which was supposed to be in Political Commentary at 973.933, was found days later by a staffer on its side behind the novelist Stuart Woods’s section (WOOD).


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This little news story has made it all over the world and has stirred people to stand up for libraries. A woman from Germany offered to pay for replacements of all the hidden books. Another woman sent a check with the note “When I lived there, your library was my haven.”
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I think what Hidaho is doing is wrong, whether a righty is hiding “Fire and Fury” or a lefty is hiding Donald Trump Jr.’s “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Whoa This Title Is Way Too Long.” Either way, it’s censorship.

That’s why, on Nov. 21, I’ll be coming to the Coeur d’Alene library with an armful of 10 of my books, which I’ll hide myself. (Your move, Hidaho.) I’ll secret away at least one book in the following sections:

●Narcissism (155.232)

●True Crime (364.00)

●Horror (KING), among others.

You can hide one of my books, Hidaho, but can you hide 10?

[itcfish]

1. Maybe its

The Librarian??

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. NO librarian worth her/his salt would EVER hide a book! n/t

[obamanut2012]

4. yeah, no -- just stop

[itcfish]

18. Sorry, It was Sarcasm

I guess sarcasm does not do very well when written

[marlakay]

3. I just messaged my friend

That lives there to tell her about it.

[maxsolomon]

5. Libs are doing the same thing at bookstores.

It is information warfare, on the minor skirmish level.

[MineralMan]

6. At the small town library I used to volunteer at one day a week,

someone used to hide a rather innocuous sex education book. It kept disappearing from its Dewey Decimal position on the shelves. Since one of my jobs as a volunteer was to shelve books, I'd find it from time to time, shelved in some area where adolescents rarely looked. It was a popular book, that had been checked out many many times, and was also read inside the library quite a bit.

I mentioned it to the woman who was the branch librarian. She frowned and said, "I'll think of something."

Well, what she though of was to put it on an individual book holder out in the public part of the library with its cover in full view. Here's its cover. It didn't get hidden any more, but it got checked out and read in the library a lot.

[Demovictory9]

10. too public for the prude to mess with it

[MineralMan]

11. Yup, that was the librarian's idea.

It was a popular book with the middle school kids.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Just place the books on the next shelf. Theyre too stupid to search around the shelves above/below.

[Vinca]

8. We have a little shed at the local recycling facility where we can all pick up books.

The lady who oversees it seems to pick out books she deems "harmful." That means anything racy, demonic or otherwise offensive to her sensibilities. I've found rare, antique books in the trash that she's torn to shreds. Since then I try to check the thing several times a week to rescue books. I keep some, sell some and donate some to a local charity. One way or another they're saved from demolition.

[Demovictory9]

9. good for you

[Maru Kitteh]

12. Lolz, I'll be passing through Coeur d'Alene in a few minutes

Maybe I should stop by and relocate He’s book to the loo?

[Duppers]

13. "A hardcore Trumper went inside a library?"

Really! 😉😅

[Hortensis]

14. Bump! Way too funny to miss.

Maybe opening with an incognito window will work. Regarding the author's planned evening talk in the library about this:

Soon followed a hair-raising email from a sergeant in the Coeur d’Alene police department telling me that he’d be escorting me “for my safety needs” that night along with three other uniformed officers.

Wait. What?

He also asked: 1. Are you bringing any sort of security team with you? 2. What problems have you encountered in past speaking events? 3. Do you have any requests?

Answers: 1. No, but I have a Sharpie. 2. One time, in Scottsdale, Ariz., an old guy in a red hat got up and walked out, but that might have been a Flomax issue. 3. Can I not do this?

No, I’m definitely coming, but a note to all locals with carry permits: There’s no shooting allowed in the library, as it is much too loud. And murders are to be confined to section 360.00.

Btw, learned that some Trump caddies carry four-inch green tees so they can hurry ahead and tee up his ball in the rough, that Trump used Trump Foundation charity money to pay $158,000 to a golfer because Trump didn’t buy the right hole-in-one insurance, that the POTUS routinely cheats at golf. Wow. Who knew?!

[GoCubsGo]

15. This person hid Stephen Colbert's book, too. His response:

[ck4829]

16. Why don't they just put notes that 'debunk' what is said in between the pages of the books?

That's what I did with David Horowitz's books in my college library.

Instead of hiding them, they should put something exculpatory in between the pages of the books... oh right, that's because they have nothing that is exculpatory, just more attacks and clowning.

[DFW]

17. They should beware of Lorna, the library book burglar

I couldn't find an original of Les Barker reading it himself, but this isn't bad: