Bookshop fights for principle

More than 500 people attended the benefit event

By the BBC's Maggie Shiels in San Francisco

A veritable who's who of California's literary set attended a benefit to support one of America's leading independent bookshops, currently embroiled in a legal fight over first amendment rights.

Around 500 people turned out in San Francisco to raise money for Denver's Tattered Cover bookshop.

They heard readings and posed for photographs with Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, writer and feminist Dorothy Allison, children's favourite Daniel Handler and the bestselling David Eggers.

It's not a far step from wanting to know if someone is buying books about opposition political parties

Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon has been vocal in his defence of the decision by the Tattered Cover not to give police the book buying records of someone suspected of running a drug lab.

He insisted: "One has the right to read what one wants and without interference from the government."

It was over 18 months ago that police approached the Tattered Cover for the records of a man who had bought two books describing how to make a drug.

They were found at his home along with a shipping envelope from the book store.

Opposition parties

The police believe that connecting the books to the suspect will make it easier to convict him of violating the drug laws.

But Michael Chabon, like all those attending the benefit, was concerned about such attempts to make a link.

The bookshop is in Denver, Colorado

"It's not a far step from wanting to know if someone is buying books about opposition political parties.

"Someday I could have the FBI trying to find out if I bought any books on Judaism or Islam."

Dorothy Allison says this case is one everyone should be concerned about.

"Everyone should support the Tattered Cover because you bought Hot Throbbing Socks, because you bought a copy of the Anarchists' Cookbook...

"Because you bought a copy of something you don't want your momma to know you picked up, much less John Ashcroft and the government, " she told the crowd.

Sexual dysfunction

Chris Finan, the president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) said: "People shop in bookstores on the understanding that their choices are confidential.

People shop in bookstores on the understanding that their choices are confidential

Chris Finan
ABFFE

"There is a lot of books about subjects like mental health and sexual dysfunction, that we do not want our wives or husbands to know we've been reading about.

"If people who use bookshops know the police can get that kind of information they will not shop for those books."

He claims that will mean controversial books will not get written because people will be too scared to buy them.

Protecting rights

That is something that concerns Michael Chabon who says this can "only hurt authors, publishers and booksellers".

At A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, where the benefit was held, the owner Neal Sofman believes that in today's profit driven business world, the independent bookstore is at the forefront of protecting the rights every American holds dear.

"We are the keepers of the word, the keepers of the flame and we have to stand up and say this is not the right thing to do."

The case parallels that in which a Washington DC bookstore was subpoenaed to hand over a list of books bought by Monica Lewinsky.

The bookstore refused but in the end Ms Lewinsky reached a deal with then Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.