Women’s Boycott of Ellis Book

The editorial “Worries About a Book” (Dec. 16) objects to women’s efforts to boycott Random House/Knopf, the publisher of a book that describes in prurient detail the torture and murder of women.

To boycott is neither to censor nor to suppress. Surely, if publishers are free to print such vicious material, women should be free to do everything in their power to persuade them not to print it. This includes using their freedom to choose not to buy the publishers’ products--or boycotting them.

Would your editorial writer have called for “tolerance” if a million Jewish people in pre-Hitler Germany had boycotted the publisher of “Mein Kampf” and the bookstores where it was sold?

CAROL McPHEE NORTON

San Luis Obispo