The new autobiography by moose hunter and failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is harder to find in the Bay Area than a hockey mom. Some bookstores figure it's one of those grit-your-teeth First Amendment deals that principled booksellers must put up with from time to time.
But many nonchain bookstores won't handle it.
"Our customers are thinking people," said Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. "They're not into reading drivel."
There's not a single copy on the shelf. Embretson said no one has asked for it except for one guy, who was kidding.
"He said he wanted to look at it but he also said he didn't really want to read it," Embretson said. "Anyway, he certainly didn't want to buy it. I think he regarded looking at it as a kind of punishment."
There are no copies of the book at Cover to Cover Booksellers in Noe Valley, either.
"Anything like that we wouldn't carry," said clerk Emily Stackhouse. "We're a small store and it would probably gross us all out. Some things you carry because of freedom of speech, but a book like that is just gross."
One customer did put in a special request for the book one evening but, perhaps thinking better in the light of day, failed to show up and actually pay money for it, Stackhouse said.
Sheryl Cotleur, the head buyer for Book Passage, which operates stores in Corte Madera and San Francisco, said the two stores have sold exactly two copies of the book. That works out to one copy per store. Cotleur said two other people have asked to look at the book but no one else has asked to buy it.
