Beyond hand-wringing
Two smart and concerned leading citizens of the world of books use the occasion of a leaked document from the Tribune company to suggest that the barbarians at the gate might have some good ideas...
Mark Athitakas: The good news here is that Abrams recognizes that there’s a small but passionate readership for book reviews—one that can potentially be monetized—and that covering the literary world is part of the mission statement of any media organization. (At least that’s how I interpret “one of those things you had to have for completeness.”) I’m not even especially troubled by the notion of more coverage of popular/Christian/celeb books. In fact, let’s expand it—make the books editor at the daily paper the ideas person, the person who’s able and willing to jump on the blog and round up the relevant books and call the relevant authors regarding the issues of the day. That’s across the paper—world, national, local, sports, etc. (Slate and the Washington Post work together on something like this, compiling reading lists on varied subjects, and the print version often winds up in the Sunday Outlook section.) Five essential books on NASA; the two best books on the neighborhood that’s about to be re-zoned for a strip mall; a handful of books on gun control; a top-ten reading list of best baseball stories, and talk to the person out in the city who wrote one that maybe didn’t make the list. All of this supplementing the regular Sunday review.
Mark Sarvas: And so we repeat a call we've made on stages and on panels before, something we've even suggested to a few well-placed folks at the Los Angeles Times Book Review: Rather than calving the book pages yet again, and grafting the limp remains onto Calendar's derriere, let's fold the print Book Review entirely. Stop it cold. Spare it further indignities. And take the budget of that hard copy review - including all physical costs (printing, a share of distribution) - and use those funds (with perhaps a bump if you're really committed) to create a web-only Book Review. Get the best contributors, stop worrying about length, innovate and create a vital resource. Get creative - don't say it can't make money or break even, figure out how to do it. Look, fifteen million people travel around the world on their computers to read the Guardian - because the Guardian offers something that is indispensable to anyone who cares about books: Inarguable quality. (Their blogs notwithstanding.) So why not bring in a team of the best web designers, of writers and editors who could create the most exciting new book section seen in this country since the New York Review of Books set up shop?
{Also, missed this, as I've been a bit behind, Sarah Weinman also weighs in.]