Costco Drops Then Restocks Controversial Book

By Dianna Dilworth 

America_NoShadow-270x415Discount retailer Costco has restocked copies of the controversial anti-Obama book America: Imagine a World Without Her by Dinesh D’Souza, after abundant backlash from conservative news pundits for removing the book from its shelves. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the company removed the book because of poor sales.

In an interview with Sean Hannity, D’Souza called the move “bizarre” pointing out that the book came out only three weeks ago.  “About a week ago, it surpassed Hillary’s book on Amazon. It’s actually currently number one on the Amazon best-seller list,” he told the Fox News anchor. “So the sales of the book have been strong. And then, of course, a few days ago, my movie opened in 1,100 theaters around the country.”

Costco defended its decision in a statement: “Costco is not a book store. Our book shelf space is very limited.  We exercise discipline in the best utilization of that limited space based solely on what our members are buying. We can’t carry every title that our members are interested in reading.  We are constantly monitoring book sales and make decisions to pull books off the shelves frequently based on volume to make room for other titles. Politics or controversy over content do not influence our decisions.”

The company has reordered the books, claiming that a supporting movie, which just opened in theaters has helped increase popularity for the title.