Fahrenheit L.A. Times

So I read today that the L.A. Times has finally done in the book review section. Sad, albeit not unexpected. Short sighted, and just another bad omen for the print world. Bad news for readers, bad news for people who like to sit at counters in coffee shops learning about books and the book business. It was a good section, and it paid attention to western writers, and not only to their books, but also -- used them to good effect as reviewers. I grew up on it and remember the many incarnations, from stodgy to hip, but always righteous. Steve Wasserman, the book editor who was responsible for huge improvements a few years ago, commented that the move was a "philistine blunder that...will further wound the long-term fiscal health of the newspaper."
He's dead right. But philistine blunders are the order of the day now in American life. A bad time out on the dream coast for readers. When I was a kid there was Hunters Books, Westwood Books, not to mention Dutton's and its short-lived Beverly Hills off-shoot. (Beverly Hills now prefers crap retail to old school decency -- vulgarity and flash over the real deal. It used to be a village, and a romantic one at that.) Book Soup on Sunset, where I used to work through the early and mid 1980's, used to be open until midnight. Now that Tower Records has closed, street traffic is vastly reduced and the doors close early, like so much else in the city of angels.
So, it's left to the perpetually smart/dumb/smart/dumb L.A. Weekly to continue to champion books, and offer something to local readers and local writers.

Sad part? Nobody's gonna miss the thing. Nobody misses anything anymore. Until it's too late.

Comments

[darthmaul]

Now you know why Harry Shearer calls the Times the "Los Angeles Dog Trainer."

[maxlaw65]

A sign of the times? Or simply a sign of The Times?

The Washington Post's Book World still shines, and the DC area hosts two HUGE book fairs every year.

Sure, we are infested with politicians and we are constantly picking lobbyists out of our boxer-briefs, but at least Washington DC is literate,

A trip to the nation's capital might do you good.

[julica]

Ironically, Los Angeles is the biggest book-buying market in the country. What ARE they thinking?

[BrooklynBookWorm]

Back when dinosaurs roamed the world, I worked in a lively, diverse book business when four major papers -- NY Times, LA Times, Chi Tribune, and Wash Post -- each published a stand-alone book review. I remember when almost every daily in the country published "reviews" -- though many of them simply re-printed the flap copy. (I wrote flap copy for Doubleday and recognized my prose when it came back in the press clips.)

Today, it's only the Grey Lady who publishes an independent mag. To be sure, there's still the New York Review of Books (born of a newspaper strike!) and a dozen general-interest magazines who publish thoughtful book reviews. Some newspapers, including those who have abandoned separate magazines, still print reviews on a regular basis.

But the reviews that count are on Amazon.com. Vox populi rules in the age of the Net.

I prefer the untidy democracy of Amazon to the corporate rule of the chains. It's all well and good for mega-publishers, to buy out all the display space at Barnes & Noble. But it takes some genuine popular appeal to climb on the Amazon sales list.

Pretty soon , we wordsmiths will, like musicians, start counting downloads -- by Kindle or whatever -- and some very direct popular judgment. But just as a range of independent labels have appeared in the music biz, lots of independent publishers are springing up. There's the future!

[scxq28]

If there was any section of the LA Times that I looked forward to every week, it was the book reviews. Ironically, I just bought three books as a result of last Sunday's review on Tuna: A Love Story by Richard Ellis.

Alas, we can hope that the Huffington Post will implement a book review feature.

Despite the online world's prognostications to the contrary, I hope that print books will always remain a part of our culture. There's a primitive tactile pleasure in holding a book. There's a certain snug feeling curling up with a book in bed. And there's no place for a trashy paperback than the beach.

I doubt that a Kindle will replace those feelings, useful as it may be.

Perhaps books are simply old-fashioned, like an AM/FM radio.

I guess it's true...we don't miss anything until it's too late.

What's next on the waste pile of human culture?

[RobinSeattle]

Man, that is sad. I bought many a book after reading the reviews in the L.A. Times book section. The publishing industry should be alarmed at the elimination of such sections in our newspapers because people are going to miss out on a lot of good stuff and book sellers will be deprived of more sales.

[Balancement]

The publishing industry isn't alarmed. They're too busy slitting their own throats. The way to keep a book review section alive is through advertising, and the publishers are too cheap to advertise--ask any remaining book review journal--and they certainly aren't going to advertise the great, intelligent, little book that isn't written by a BIG NAME AUTHOR. America is dumbing itself down daily--and beating itself over the head while doing it.

Publishing is run by what is it now? 4 or 5 huge corporate conglomerates who don't give a bloody damn about books, or literature, or introducing new authors. The only thing they care about is bottom line and the shareholders. Same old American same old.

Publishing is dead and Publishing killed it.

[Bitsko]

As an old publishing hand (paste-up mechanical artist), I sadly agree.

[kellygrrrl]

whee doan neyd nah stinkun bukz

wer merikuh!!!!!

duh

[BADEN]

That was the last vestige of "culture" left for the masses to share for a buck.

Yeah - definitely shortsighted.