Today's NYT piece about the holiday climate for publishers is the bloggers' equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Which quote should I spear first? Jamie Raab's, about a book being a "lovely, respectable gift?" Steve Ross's mock shock at the price of cocktails in Midtown? Jonathan Burnham's lip service to fiscal responsibility (remember, this is the man who paid Vikram Chandra a $1 million advance for one of 2007's biggest duds)? Journalist Motoko Rich's observation that "one silver lining of the downturn" is that it doesn't take as many books sold to make an author a bestseller?
Look, I know Jamie Raab and Jonathan Burnham very slightly, and they're both lovely and respectable people. (They might disavow knowing me, especially after reading these cranky meanderings.) Steve Ross probably is, too -- and Motoko Rich has written some terrific pieces for the NYT. It was the unfortunate layering of all these quotes in one place that sent me over the edge today.
But hope springs eternal, and I found something to soothe my ruffled pinfeathers at the piece's end, when literary agent Larry Weiss said "I think and I hope — and maybe it’s just blind hope — I think there is a yearning for authenticity out there, and people are going to go back to the things that really matter, and one of those things, I hope, will be reading books."
Many of us believe this is what it's all about: not how economical a book is as a gift (even though they are), not about trimming advances (even though they need to be trimmed), not about cutting back on entertaining budgets (even though that can't hurt), and not about making it easier for authors to climb the somewhat arbitrary bestseller lists (even though I'm happy for those who make it). It's about going back to things that really matter, and those are stories and ideas.
Everything else? Red herrings.
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