“OVER the past five years, one by one, newspapers have begun to forsake that reader”, writes John Freeman, president of the National Book Critics Circle. Most “book coverage has been cut back or slashed all together, moved, winnowed, filled with more wire copy, or generally been treated as expendable.” And so the group has begun a campaign to restore the word-count. Help save book reviewing!
As a book critic, I’ve had quite a few editors send chagrined notes requesting ever-shorter reviews.
The stiff competition newspapers now face to remain solvent has made waxing on about literature a bit decadent, particularly as the lone industry interested in such coverage does not have deep pockets. The most august American papers dedicated to books (such as the New York Review of Books) notoriously burn through money.
It’s worth dusting off an interesting chat over at the New Republic’s Open University blog, in which Jeffrey Herf grandly calls for a new American review of books. So many works of American scholarship go unreviewed! Alas, the only way to make this financially feasible is to put it on the web (scroll down to read David A. Bell’s insight on the subject).
But really, do people want to read more about books?
5 responses so far ↓
Wherewithal // April 25, 2007 at 8:09 pm
The pleasure of a good book review derives more from the style and personality of the reviewer than from the reported substance of the book. Maybe this genre’s a natural for video, where the reviewer can loom even larger: I’d take a two-minute diatribe delivered to webcam over a 500-word print article any day.
moreover // April 25, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I have to agree with Wherewithal: I get so tired of reading. Why not see and hear what someone has to say? Why not take in the endearing spluttering of a homely critic, rather than parsing their written sentences? I think the world is moving towards vlogs, and Mr Freeman needs to get on that wagon.
moreover // April 25, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Even vlogging demands too much from a viewer: there’s all that speech, and words, and arguments and stuff. I prefer a series of grunts and whistles, coupled with the occasional bout of physical destruction.
Richard // April 30, 2007 at 9:35 pm
If we just sign the NBCC petitions, people, we can get our big, wonderful book review sections back in the newspapers! They listen to THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE!
And while you’re signing their petition, can you please sign my petition to Fox to bring back “The O.C.”? Thanks!
Blogging books « Moreover // May 2, 2007 at 8:55 pm
[...] drum today about the dwindling column space dedicated to book reviews (something we’ve been lamenting ourselves). The issue is really money, not culture (and its much-heralded decline). Newspapers are struggling [...]