I’m a voracious reader, but am very picky on what I add to my personal library. Usually I’ll pick up a particularly interesting history book, a work of political science (not current politics – political science), or some escapist science fiction that earned a place in my heart on first read.

But I am committed to buy one book, as soon as it is published, even without reading it or looking at the reviews.

It’s title? "The Jewel of Medina."

A historical novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride that was pulled by Random House over concerns it would anger Muslims has been sold to another publisher, the author said Wednesday.

"We do have a U.S. publisher," Sherry Jones, of Spokane, told The Associated Press in an e-mail Wednesday. "We can announce that, but not the name until they announce it."

Jones' agent, Natasha Kern, said a publisher for "The Jewel of Medina" in the United States and the United Kingdom will be announced later Wednesday.
Jones said her debut novel will be published in October, two months after it was to have been published by Random House Publishing Group.

Random House caved in after pressure was brought to bear by a feminist Middle Eastern Studdies professer from University of Texas orchestrated a campaign against the work, leading Random House to conclude that the threat of violence was too great to justify the book’s publication. That act of cowardice was a disgrace to the publishing world, and to the notion that there should be a free exchange of ideas in the world. Instead, fear of the fanatical knuckle-draggers who murdered Theo van Gogh, hounded Salman Rushdie into endless exile, and rioted over a bunch of cartoons from Denmark was grounds for silencing the author’s voice.

I don’t know if I’ll like the book. I don’t know if I’ll read it all. But I will buy it.

After all, it is important to stand up to the forces of darkness that would impose the mores of seventh-century Arabia on the civilized world.

UPDATE: And the British publisher is -- Gibson Square, a small British publisher. They say the first run will be only 20K. I hope they are ready for a second run, given the interest the book has generated among friends of freedom in the English-speaking world. The US Publisher will be announced next week.