Melville House Books

Amdist the ongoing uproar over the naming—or not naming—of meeting rooms in the El Segundo Public Library (see yesterday’s MobyLives digest), Return of the Reluctant editor Ed Champion makes an interesting discovery: the library, which was prevented from naming a room after Agathat Christie by the El Segundo City Council because she was not an American, already has an area named after a foreigner. In a brief report on his Return of the Reluctant website, Champion writes: “. . . if foreigners are unacceptable, why is one area of the library named the Matsui International, Inc. Meeting Room? Matsui International, Inc. was founded in 1911, a subsidiary of Matsui Shikiso Chemical Co., Ltd., which is located at Address 64, kamikazan, Sakuradani&##150;cho, Yamashina-ku 607, Japan.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.