WaPo Book World: History Repeats Itself
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on January 30, 2009
Filed Under Washington Post
To jump off from the previous post, in 1973, Washington Post cut the standalone Book World section, leaving at the time only The New York Times Book Review and The Los Angeles Times Book Review as the only standalone sections published in this country.
Does this sound familiar? The parallels increase once you plunge into Ronald Smothers’s New York Times 1973 article on the initial folding. The article is behind a paywall, but there are some interesting facts: (1) The section was closed because of the high cost of paper and because the tabloid format was a waste of space. (2) If you think the current dilemma of 12 tabloid pages is bad, consider that the 1973 cut reduced books coverage to a four-page pullout in the Sunday Style section. (3) Carol Nemeyer, then the staff director of the Association of American Publishers, is quoted: “a danger signal to publishers who see the outlets for advertising and media reviews diminishing.”
And of course, the article contains much of the same arguments. Former Book World editor Byron Dobell — perhaps the Steve Wasserman of his time — noted, “A book review supplement should not have to pay for itself in advertising any more than a sports section should.” In November 1973, then Book World editor William McPherson disseminated a letter, reading, “These are parlous times….Will the books that most of us hear about be the major selections of the major book clubs, the highly touted bestsellers, what George Plimpton is advertising on television, and certain sensational items like The Sensuous Woman?”
Now keep in mind that all this was occurring when there weren’t any of those pesky bloggers banging out diatribes in Terre Haute basements.
Book World, as we all know, was revived as a standalone section in the early 1980s. And in an era of Kindles, G1s, and iPhones, what’s not to suggest that Book World won’t emerge yet again as a standalone section in a new format?
I get very well that the Jane Ciabattaris of the world are terrified of the present. But fear and desperate anxiety has rarely solved anything. Instead of ranting and raving about doom and gloom, and starting meaningless email campaigns, it might help to be more constructive and pro-active about current realities. Yes, Book World has taken a hit. But it’s not nearly as severe as the one leveled in 1973. Yes, you won’t see a standalone section anymore. But what about the hundreds of reviews that are still going to be published this year?
Literary journalism isn’t going to go away if we keep fighting for it, but we must consider the present realities. Hysteria certainly didn’t work for Book World in the 1970s. But adjustment and reaching out to readers did. Let us learn from the lessons of history. This time, we even have a better way of getting the word out.
[RELATED: Kelly Burdick has some interesting ideas over at Moby Lives.]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
[...] [UPDATE 7: I've located an article from 1973 depicting the then closing of Book World. The pertinent parallels and details can be found here.] [...]
Interesting history–I didn’t know about the 1973 move. And I join you in hoping that literary journalism takes the cue to innovate and evolve. But I’m not sure I understand your targeting of Jane Ciabattari, et.al. You may not like the methods of many who decried Book World’s closure–but they are not the enemy of the future you want to see.