Review of Book Reviews

I always read the book review sections on Sunday. Still, being an avid reader, I seldom find anything in it that appeals to me. I like to see the difference between the SF Bay Area bestseller list compared to the NYTimes one, but both are generally populated with stuff I don't want to read. It always seems like a club of the same old tired popular writers, with an occasional upstart. Furthermore, the books they usually choose to review seem to be on either end of the spectrum. They're either from that clubby bunch, or they're from a set that appeals to snooty book reviewers but not to me. Is there some kind of snootiness initiation rite you go through when you get an MFA degree and qualify as a book reviewer or something?

You now see why I was interested to read this article in the SFChronicle about the LATimes planning to shut down their standalone book review section. You Washington Post types get a book section on Sunday, so maybe you were unaware that it's very unusual. Over time, almost all papers that had one have cut back on the amount of content and folded book reviews in with other stuff. That's the way the SJMercury has done it for as long as I can remember. The Chronicle went that route a few years back, and it caused such an uproar they reverted to the standalone section. At this point it's pretty silly, since they cut back on content to where it's only a few pages anyway. Still, a book section is a coveted thing for book lovers, and probably even more coveted by the diminishing ranks of newspaper readers. Losing one gets people worked up. In the end, though, it's all about money -- in this case advertising.

"If Barnes & Noble took out full-page ads every week, there would be more book review sections," said David Cole, publisher of News Inc., a weekly newsletter tracking the industry.

The Chronicle's Bronstein agrees, saying that if book publishers advertised, "it would send a very good signal that they believe in their product."

Paul Bogaards, director of publicity at Alfred A. Knopf book publishers, sees it differently.

"Where are the ads in the sports section?" he asked. "If you put out a great newspaper or a great magazine, the readers will come. Consumers want credible reporting on books in newspapers."

Yep.