10 Books That Never Reached The Shelves

Just because you get a book deal, doesn’t always mean things will work out. Sometimes books get canceled or postponed. Sometimes they make it all the way through publishing to only be pulled from the shelves. With the most recent cancellation of Milo Yiannopoulos’ book Dangerous, this list will explore that and other books that never quite made it to the shelves.

 

1. Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos

Dangerous was to be the third book by this English journalist. It was due to be released June 13, 2017, by Simon and Schuster. However, this autobiography was canceled after an interview in February 2017 where Yiannopoulos made comments that seemed to support certain types of paedophilia.

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Source: Her Campus

2. If I Did It by O. J. Simpson and Pablo Fenjves

If I Did It was O.J. Simpson’s version of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman if he had committed the murders. The book was canceled by Regan Books after public backlash at the idea of O.J. Simpson profiting from the deaths. However, a year later Beaufort Books picked it up and had it published.

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Source: Amazon

3. How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan

This YA novel was written by Viswanathan just after she graduated from high school. The book was highly publicized, but then swiftly pulled from publication after it was found that many passages were plagiarised. Some 40 passages were marked as being similar or identical to two books written by Megan McCafferty.

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Source: Wikipedia

4. The Murder of Stephen King by James Patterson

Patterson had planned to write a book wherein a Stephen King super fan was re-enacting murders from King’s books with the ultimate goal of killing King himself. However, after hearing that crazed fans had caused trouble for King before (such as breaking into his house) Patterson decided to cancel the book. If you’re interested, you can read more about it in this article.

5. The Continent by Keira Drake

In The Continent, Vaela Sun gets the chance of a lifetime to visit the war-torn Continent with the hopes of improving the maps she drew of the frozen land. The publication of this novel was postponed after it was discovered the book was littered with racial stereotypes.

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Source: Epic Reads

6. What the (Bleep) Just Happened? by Monica Crowley

Another book pulled due to plagiarism. This book was a critique of Barack Obama’s presidency and was published in 2012. However, recently it was discovered that many passages were lifted from various sources including The New York Times, Investopedia, and The Associated Press.

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Source: Overdrive

7. When We Was Fierce by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

This novel centers around gang violence. It is narrated in an invented African American street dialect that many have found deeply offensive. As a result, the novel was postponed so that this issue could be (hopefully) fixed.

8. A Birthday Cake for George Washington by Ramin Ganeshram and Vanessa Brantley-Newton

This children’s book was the tale of chef Hercules and his daughter Delia. The pair were slaves of George Washington and the book illustrated them happily making a birthday cake for him. Accused of whitewashing slavery, the book was pulled from shelves.

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Source: Forbes

9. Pickton: In His Own Words by Robert Pickton

Pickton, also known as “the pig farm killer” was a serial killer convicted of 6 murders. This book was written by Pickton himself and claims that he is innocent. The book was published under the name Michael Childres, but as soon as it was found out that Robert Pickton wrote it, the book was pulled. The publisher stated the reason being “a long-standing policy of not working with, nor publishing work by, incarcerated individuals.”

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Source: Toronto Sun

10. The Embassy House by Sergeant Morgan Jones and Damien Lewis

The Embassy House was an eyewitness account of the attack on the Libya Embassy which resulted in the death of 4 Americans. Except…it wasn’t. While the author told the FBI that he was at the scene of the attack, the truth is he never made it to the compound. After this was discovered, the book was pulled from shelves.

What books do you think should have been cancelled?

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Featured image via The Tab

h/t Bustle