By LEANNE ITALIE
By LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Ashley Cummings had a little mishap while engrossed in “Fifty Shades of Grey” on her way to the San Francisco subway. Head down, clutching her iPad, she ran smack into a fellow pedestrian. When the downloaded culprit became clear, her victim went from grumpy to new friend.
It’s not the only time the 24-year-old publicist’s e-edition was something less than private. Across the country in Connecticut, her 13-year-old brother wondered why she was reading “those sex books” when they also showed up on his iPad, since the two share an account.
“I laughed it off,” Cummings said, “and proceeded to lock him out!”
Much has been made of the erotic trilogy’s success thanks to discreet e-books, but whether downloaded or between paper covers, it has made for many a twisted life scenario since a mainstream publisher acquired rights and shot it out into the world nearly two months ago.
Margie Goolan’s reading group with five, 40-something girlfriends in Novato, Calif., just finished “Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman” by Robert K. Massie. Before that it was “Tinkers,” a Pulitzer-winning journey into the painful past of a dying clock repairer, by Paul Harding.
Highbrow be damned for their next meeting. They succumbed to Grey, though Goolan was pulling for Brian Doyle’s “Mink River,” the lyrical story of quirky, fictional townsfolk along the Oregon coast.
“I had a laugh when I bought ‘Fifty Shades’ at the small local bookstore,” said Goolan, in San Francisco’s north bay area. “I’m in there often. When I told him that it’s my book club’s selection so I get the store’s book club discount, he just smiled and said ‘so it’s gotten that far already.’”
So much further, Mr. Bookseller.
Some Grey-lings proudly brandish their copies in public, posting and tweeting photos of themselves with their prizes for fun or as some sort of kinky badge of honor. Others won’t leave the house with their books, while an unknown number are going the e-route.
Random House and its Vintage Books paperback imprint have sold more than 10 million copies of the rough-sex love story across all formats, including audiobooks. The publisher won’t break down the sales by e-book versus paperback, but you know who you are (no judgment, just sayin’).
Meagan Feeser, 30, in York, Pa., is a Kindle kind of Grey girl.
“It’s embarrassing enough without everyone around you knowing that you’re essentially reading pornography in their presence, not to mention the fact that I’m 37 weeks pregnant, so I would look like a walking stereotype,” she said.