Literary Odds & Ends
Western Book Notes
By Jenny Shank, 4-24-07
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Last year the beloved Denver book store, Tattered Cover, vacated its old digs in Cherry Creek because of rising lease costs, and relocated to Colfax (in addition to keeping its LoDo and Highlands Ranch locations open). Recently, Margaret Jackson of the Denver Post reported that the old Tattered Cover space will be turned into a high-end health club called Pure Vida Fitness and Spa. The Denver Business Journal further writes that “Spa owners describe it as a ‘membership-based, exclusive, adult-only health club and spa,’” so it sounds like the ambiance of the place will be the exact opposite of the old Tattered with its abundant chairs and browsers-welcome mentality.
Speaking of the Tattered Cover, the book store’s owner, Joyce Meskis, was just named the Director of the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute. She will assume the position in January 2008. According to a press release, “Founded in 1976, the Publishing Institute is an intensive four-week, graduate-level course devoted to all aspects of book publishing. The Institute offers workshops and teaching sessions on editing, marketing and production conducted by leading experts from all areas of publishing. “
Wyoming Author Annie Proulx will be attending a festival in Ireland that celebrates “creativity in older age,” according to The Irish Times.
Meanwhile, in the larger book community, the National Books Critics Circle is leading a campaign to save book reviewing in the United States because of recent alarming developments such as the shrinking of the L.A. Times Book Review and the sacking of various book editors (including that of the Atlanta Journal Constitution). Closer to home, the Rocky Mountain News, for whom I’ve written book reviews for seven years, recently shrunk its book section. The paper is still dedicated to running reviews written by local freelancers instead of wire pieces (unlike the Denver Post), and my entirely biased opinion is that the new, pithier format is highly readable, but still, all this book review cutting smarts! The National Books Critics Circle is encouraging book enthusiasts to sign a petition, write letters to the editors of their local papers, and generally raise a ruckus in the name of literature.
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Comments
Isn't it interesting that while newspaper managers and editors preach "hyper-local journalism" that the philosophy behind it -- that what matters in our neighborhoods, towns, cities is what readers want to know from the local press -- doesn't pertain to books? I'm not sure what it means exactly. Cynically, I could talk about philosophies meaning less than dollars, but I prefer not to be cynical. What it might say is that in the book world the national audience really is more important than what's happening locally. I wonder if the Journal Constitution or Post or RM News conducted readerships studies that showed folks just don't care about book sections. If so, it is a sad day ...
Marie Arana, who is the Books Editor of the Washington Post, wrote in a recent column in this series that readers DO care about books sections, according to surveys that the paper has taken. Here's what she wrote:
"A recent arts and entertainment survey of Washington Post readers shows that interest in book news is second only to interest in restaurants. That means that readers want book information more than they want information on new movies, pop music concerts, live theater,or even newly released DVDs. And yet when the accountants come around wanting to cut the newsroom's budget, it's always book sections that are scrutinized first. It takes strong executive editors and publishers to appreciate what many newsroom functionaries do not: that despite our lack of ads, despite the paucity of support from book publishers, the hard-core readers of newspapers (serious readers who know that their children's futures depend on education) are more than likely the people who buy and read books."
You can read the rest here:
http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/04/marie-arana-book-editor-washington-post.html
Apparently, a lot of editorial decisions are made based on how many ads are sold within a given newspaper section, whether or not the readership cares about that section. The amount of ads sold within a section doesn't always correspond to the size of the readership for that section.
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