(Some) reaction to shrinking book coverage
Well, the barricades have not exactly been stormed, but there have been a couple polite protests to recent cuts at the Toronto Star (which has halved its weekly books section, from four pages to two) and The Globe and Mail (which has put its own books section on a two-week hiatus). A letter to the editor appeared in the Star and two appeared in the Globe (the latter one from gardening author Liz Primeau).
Oh, and there’s a Facebook group called “Save the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Weekend Books Sections,” though we’re not sure where they’re getting this info: “After [the Globe’s August hiatus], it’s undecided whether or not the Saturday Books section will even continue.”
When I write my (it now seems like monthly) cranky letters to the editor, I have stopped including my university affiliation because, as an administrator, I don’t wish to appear that I am speaking for my university. But I think this issue should be a concern to educators, as well as to all readers. I get great professional benefit from the Globe book section, and I am sorry that this has happened — if, in fact, it is something other than a vacation — while we are all frantically trying to get in some last R/R or prep for Fall Semester.
Craig Monk, University of Lethbridge
You’re lucky to get TWO pages for book reviews in one newspaper–in India, we have to do with just one page for book reviews per paper. So each newspaper is able to review two to three books a week. It’s the same with the magazines–two or three pages, with maybe one page devoted to an important work with the less important sharing a page and the least important relegated to a para or so at the tail end of the column. It’s a really sad situation.
While I suspect the Globe and Mail’s book section is on hiatus because the editor is on vacation, it’s also true that if the book section was a high priority, they would have had someone else edit the section for those two weeks. And it’s still possible that they’re thinking of downgrading the book section in line with the trend across the newspaper industry. This would be a great loss in my view; I specifically buy the Saturday Globe & Mail for the book section, and probably would not do so if it is dropped.
I used to write book reviews for my local newspaper, The Calgary Herald. Now that paper barely leaves room for local reviewers, with the exception of staff members, and takes the remainder of its reviews off the wire services. Am I one of the few people left who think the book section is far and away more important than the movie section or the sports? Has reading a book become simply too much trouble for most people these days? I’d hate to think so, but that’s the way it looks.
I think this whole thing probably says more about the financial state of the publishing industry than it does about newspapers and the people that run them. Most of the ads in the Globe’s Books section are from publishers or bookstores. If these dry up - and it seems to me like they have been in recent months - then so will the newshole (or reviewhole, as it were).
The best part of all of this has been the reaction in the Cdn. lit-blogosphere, which has been, in every sense, hysterical.
Here, in the safety of the Quillblog, let me float this notion: do newspaper book review sections deserve to survive? Sure, authors and publishers (usually) want them. Reviewers need them. But what about the general readers that they purportedly serve? Dragging themselves through indulgent blocks of bland text, and twee illustrations, how often do people truly make a discovery, and find a title that they might not have initially been attracted to? The format of book review sections seems staid and static, too often featuring the usual suspects. So should books be integrated into the arts and entertainment sections? Are there more dynamic, less self-serving ways to bring deserving work to attention? Is anyone else secretly bored?
Reader X - I don’t have hard data, but speaking from experience, book reviews and review sections do get attention from the vaunted general reader. The upticks in interest following a review, esp in the Globe and the local paper, are noticeable. Whether that interest translates into increased sales is hard to quantify, but people are definitely making discoveries and finding new titles to be attracted to…
Are there more dynamic, less self-serving ways to bring deserving work to attention?
In a word, no. What brings attention to books is media coverage. Print is the medium of literature, and no other one has significantly contributed to the success of books.
except oprah.
R in V, I agree that positive reviews probably lead to an increase in book sales, but probably among those people who regularly read newspaper book reviews: seems to me there’s a larger audience of people to be tapped, and the traditional form of review simply may not welcome them in successfully. Newspaper readers skew older, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a limited audience. And Michel, while print may be the natural medium to discuss books, I’m saying that sometimes I’d rather read an excerpt, or an interview, discussion of ideas that mentions books, rather than a formulaic newspaper review. Most reviewers are authors or would-be’s themselves, and while some are brave and opinionated, others tread the middle ground or are hopelessly compromised by their desire to sustain publishing and personal connections.
Having missed the small print in an earlier Globe & Mail about my much-enjoyed Saturday Books Section being suspended temporarily (?) for second half August, while on a camping trip near Campbell River, Vancouver Island last weekend, I drove back several miles to the Starbucks in town where I’d just purchased a copy of the saturday paper….thinking that the missing Books Section had been mislaid….only to find after looking through every copy of the paper still for sale that noneof them had it! What consternation! Same again this Saturday - whereupon I find out the reason from reading Quillblog. i simply can’t imagine buying the Saturday G&M without the wonderful Books Section - editorial staff, please bring it back on Labour Day weekend!
Certainly I had the same experience as Joe Simpson and twice now bought the Saturday paper at our little village store for the Book review section (That’s why I buy the G&M Saturdays!!) only to discover again no Books section. After thoroughly going through the paper section by section(yes, I’m slow), I finally realized I had to check online. What was going on? Only to discover this so-called two-week hiatus. Film etc was still given coverage, but my beloved books section??No, G&M, no good. For me that’s the reason I buy your paper! Especially out here on the remote west coast where I live, it’s always wonderful to be able to read the reviews. it’s tough that short fiction has been cut out of so many magazines, but now to have G&M’s weekend book section possibly cut? Instead it should be increased and room again given to poetry as well. Come on, editors! We’ve a wonderful literary community in this country of ours. Please reflect it.