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Is This the End of the Stand-Alone Book Review?
By Tod Goldberg / July 3, 2007
Each Sunday, I commit a crime in the name of personal literacy: I steal the New York Times Sunday Book Review from Starbucks. I’m not even discreet about it. I order my drink and whatever mound of trans-fat appeals to me from the pastry section and then I wander over to the newspaper stand and yank apart the New York Times until I find the Book Review. I then read the first couple of reviews in full view of the asexual – yet provocatively pierced – barista while I wait for the he/she to make my drink. No one says a word to me – not the employees of Starbucks, who’ve seen me do this every Sunday for the last six years nor my fellow patrons, many of whom I see so frequently in service of this crime that we now nod to each other like co-workers – because, clearly, no one cares about the book reviews. Now, if I filched the Sunday sports page, I can only imagine an Ox-Bow Incident ending.
If the workers and patrons of a typical suburban Starbucks don’t sound like a scientifically sound focus group, they do at least comprise a metaphorical one as it relates to the dwindling space and attention given to book reviews nationwide. Their tacit approval of my crime is emblematic of just how little readers in general care about what was once a staple of the Sunday paper and, for authors, the best way for them to get news of their latest work before the most likely buying audience.
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If that includes Middlemarch, well, I'm afraid you'll be alone in that fight…
Ok, I was just trying to get off easy with the “readers maybe care more about older stuff”. But what about: what we should make readers care more about is the older stuff? (Not saying that’s my position, this just for argument’s sake.)
I don't agree with Andrew (who I actually moderated a panel on litblogs with at the LA Times Festival of Books, which I think is available as an mp3 somewhere on Galleycat and who I rather personally like) — in fact my feeling is completely contrary. I believe the democratization of opinion, at least in terms of book reviewing, is a fine thing. That's not to say I put as much faith in what Harriet Klausner or Joe Blow with a livejournal has to say about a particular book as I do an expert in the field, only that I think the availability of vast opinion is largely a good thing, particularly in light of the demise of book reviews in papers. Plus, as I said above, I find book reviews to be a form of entertainment and god knows I find much entertainment in those not codified as experts — I may be the only person alive who tivos old episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.
And I don't think readers care more about older stuff. And I don't think sales figures show that to be true, either, at least in terms of books like the Davinci Code or the Lovely Bones or whatever John Grisham happens to spit out next month. I think readers care more about easy reading of the Mitch Albom variety vs. picking up Chekov.
Your argument is strangely reminiscent of part of Andrew Keen’s attacks on the ‘web 2.0′. Yet it seems to be flawed in its print-newspaper-are-about-to-die-right-this-minute. This all-too-oft heard tune is about as scary as the modern Paul’s announcing the immediacy of judgement day (well, Shwarzy did make it to governor of California, so maybe I should heed those calls a bit more seriously).
Foreign Policy debunked this myth in this month’s issue: “data from the World Association of Newspapers show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, new dailies are being launched at an impressive clip, and paid newspaper circulation around the world has grown steadily since 2001.” (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/users/login.php?story_id=3883&URL=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3883)
Isn’t the problem rather that there are increasingly many books, and that contrary to Keen’s general appreciation (I’m not sure whether it’s also yours), the publishing process does not veto out most of the crap? Truism alert: we have only so much time, and there’s so much to read. Since a lot of the good stuff to read is stuff that has been written over the past centuries (and thus selected for survival in a harsher manner, one could argue), why shouldn’t the modern day reader care about those first? I mean, I completely understand that any author would want the readers to care about what he’s written, but is it really an indication of lack of interest in literature that readers care more about older stuff, for instance (I’m not claiming that it’s the case, this is just a hypothesis)?
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