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Achtung bookworms! Book
reviews are an endangered species, scarily close to extinction. Much
like the deformed frogs in the Amazon or the disappearing European honey bees,
this is yet another disturbing indicator of our seriously out-of-whack literary
environment.
David Kipen’s recent
thought piece on Salon.com speaks more to this. Kipen is the former
editor of the San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review and one of the few book critics who voluntarily walked away from
his post. According to Kipen, this is a time when the book review sections of
newspapers have been moved and then moved again and then finally shoved into
the back where readers can’t find them and give up looking. Then, when the
newspapers editors learn that the book review sections aren’t being read, they
cut them. Plus, freelancers often contribute book reviews to newspapers and
they cost money, and trying to review every book that comes out seems
impossible… So, in Kipen’s words: “Why should we
blame some harried arts editor for thinking, "That beat's uncoverable.
Let's just give up and run sudoku-plus instead."
Oh no you didn’t! No offense to the fans of mathematical
brain teasers, but that just isn’t right.
Right now, there are only four stand alone Sunday book
review sections in America
including the Washington Post
Book World and the New York Times Book Review. The book review sections
have been cut back in other newspapers around the country from the Los Angeles Times to the Chicago Tribune and the Minneapolis Star Tribune to the Village Voice. Not good. And people are
protesting: the campaign
to protect the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s book review currently has
more than 5,000 signatures.
Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle, offers opinions and
insights from critics and authors on the current state of book reviewing and –
really – the current state of book readership.
Not that this is a surprise, but book readership is down. Way down. Take
a gander at the National Endowment for the Arts report Readership at Risk when you’re in the mood
for something depressing and distressing.
Some say that the amount of information about books on the
Web is enough, who needs a hand-held newspaper book review? And there is truth
to that – the Web is a huge forum for book reviews and discussion. However, as
the digital divide shifts from economics and access to generational
differences, there are still many people who cherish their newspaper. What
should stay or be pulled from newspapers is ultimately up to the editors, but
surely there are other sections that can be whittled other than the book review
section (if whittling is necessary at all). We cannot rely upon Amazon reader
reviews and Oprah’s Book Club alone to find out about what’s new and
interesting in the book world. And turning pages in the paper is good practice
for turning the pages of a book, something that is happening less and less.
What a shame, since there are few things more cozy and delicious than diving
into a captivating book. Also, didn’t you hear? Reading is sexy.
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