Entertainment

If I Did It? If you want it

U.S. bookstore chain Barnes & Noble Inc. says it will have copies of the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It on shelves after all.

Barnes & Noble says customer demand justifies stocking O.J. Simpson book

U.S. bookstore chain Barnes & Noble Inc. says it will have copies of the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It on its shelves after all.

After announcing Aug. 21 that it did not believe there was sufficient demand for the book to stock it, Barnes & Noble appears to have changed its mind.

"We've been monitoring the pre-orders and customer requests, and have concluded that enough customers have expressed interest in buying the book to warrant stocking it in our stores," Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said.

"We do not intend to promote the book, but we will stock it in our stores because our customers are asking for it."

Both Barnes & Noble and Borders Group Inc., another large U.S. book chain, have said they will not promote the publication.

Barnes & Noble had offered the book online.

The former pro football star'sghostwritten, hypothetical story of how he would have murdered his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman is being published by Beaufort Books on behalf of Goldman's family.

An earlier HarperCollins plan to publish the book was scrapped amid outrage that Simpson, who has been acquitted in a criminal trial of killing his ex-wife and her friend, would write about it.

But a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book rights to the Goldman family as part of the settlement of its $38-million US civil suit against Simpson.

Simpson has disowned the book, saying he had little to do with its creation. It was ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves, who said it is based on extensive discussions with Simpson.

If I Did It has beenamong the top 100 bestsellers at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com for the last few weeks.

With files from the Associated Press