Book battle: Scientology and Tom Cruise

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Book-banning, censorship and Scientology: controversy rages over the new, unauthorised biography of Tom Cruise.

Meet Tom Cruise the scientologist. Few outside the Church of Scientology have seen an internal video in which the megastar explains: "so it's our responsibility to educate, create the new reality, we have that responsibility to say 'hey, this is the way it should be done, because we do it this way and people are actually getting better' - and let's get it done."

He calls non-scientologists 'spectators'.

"Get those spectators either in the playing field or out of the arena, really, that's how I feel about it," the video continued.

"You're on board or you're not on board, but if you're on board, you're on board just like the rest of us, period."

But it seems Australia's big booksellers are getting off board when it comes to the new Andrew Morton book, 'Tom Cruise: The Unauthorised Biography'.

Faced with the threat of legal action from Cruise and the Church of Scientology, Angus and Robertson Booksellers declared: "Although there is huge public interest in the book, there are certain legal issues that have occurred overseas and with all of the risks involved, we will not be stocking it."

Dymocks said: "We take all accusations of defamation very seriously and as a result we won't be stocking the book."

That's strange, because neither book chain had any problems stocking certain other books, despite similar threats of legal action: biographies on Alan Bond, Alan Jones, Kerry Packer, Graham Kennedy.

Even the Catholic church's condemnation couldn't stop them shipping in huge volumes of the bestselling Da Vinci Code.

The CEO of Dymocks Bookstores, Don Grover, called Today Tonight reporter Bryan Seymour and said the real reason they weren't stocking the book was that's it was simply not possible to order it from wholesalers in the US.

David Gaunt runs Gleebooks in suburban Sydney and is waiting on an order of Andrew Morton's book. He has not been informed by his American wholesaler of any problems.

"Well, I don't know, to the best of our knowledge, we've got stock on the way," Mr Gaunt said.

Likewise, the Australian Publishers' Association told us there's no reason why Dymocks and Angus and Robertson cannot stock this book.

"This is quite an unusual situation, where it would be a publisher who is responsible, who would be advising us that we can or can't put a book on our shelves," Mr Gaunt said.

"Or that we should take it off because there's been a writ or some sort of action against it. But in this case no publisher has seen fit to publish it here, the book is being published in the States and there are wholesalers, to the best of our knowledge, who are prepared to sell it to us - so we bought it."

Today, another independent bookstore, Kino Kinuya, one of the largest in Australia, confirmed it has a large order of the book already on the way and is ordering more.

But not Dymocks and Angus and Robertson. It seems they are making up your mind for you.

Among the alleged defamatory claims in the book is that Tom Cruise is now second in command of the Church of Scientology. He rejects that. But here's what the church tells it's own members:

"Tom Cruise has introduced LOH technology to over one billion people of earth. And that's only the first wave he's unleashed, which is why the story of Tom Cruise, scientologist, has only just begun."

Late this afternoon, Angus and Robertson appeared to be wavering, declaring they will order in the Tom Cruise biography for individual customers, and they are reconsidering putting it on their shelves.

Further information

Gleebooks: www.gleebooks.com.au