The University Book Store’s Shelf Life blog has a tremendous post up about the cuts in the Seattle Times‘ Sunday book reviews:
I’ve left out the greeting; “Dear readers,” because I thought I’d savor the irony of that at greater length. “Dear readers,” indeed.
In today’s Sunday paper the diminution of of the book review, and by extension of books as a primary cultural focus in Seattle, was announced with sincere regret by an anonymous editor in a banner atop the last remaining page of book reviews in the Entertainment Section. I assume an editor was responsible, but then, with Michael Upchurch gone a week or more since, who knows? With the steady departure of all the established cultural critics/editors in the past few weeks, anonymous direct address would seem to be the only option left for informing the “dear reader” of further changes.
“Readings and a book review will still appear every Friday in Ticket; additional stories about authors and and literary events will be incorporated regularly into the daily NW section.” (Emphasis mine throughout.)
I don’t often comment on other book sections in Seattle because no matter what I write, people interpret it as smug. I want to say on the record: I wish all the other papers would publish great books sections, and I think cutting books sections in Seattle—more than any other American city—is a tremendous mistake. Books are a unique part of our culture. In lieu of my commenting further, you really should read the rest of the UBS post. It perfectly states the folly in the Times‘ decision to further cut their books sections.
I dunno. I can’t remember the last time I read more than a sentence of a review in the Seattle Times or the P-I. The only time I usually see the Times is on Sunday, and I never even glance at the books and arts section. And that’s not for lack of interest in books; I buy a couple hundred books a year. But I only rarely buy books reviewed in the Times or P-I.
I’m rather annoyed at the notion that the loss of a few Times reviews constitutes a dimunition of books as a primary cultural focus in Seattle. I don’t think there’s any culture in a typical daily’s book review section at all. It’s not like they’re TNYRB or anything. The New York Times book section is barely culture; Seattle’s is nothing. You can read better reviews on Amazon OF BOOKS YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY WANT TO READ.
The Arts section was usually the first I used to skip to in the Sunday Times, when it was an actual newspaper several years ago.
On a minor bright side, I noticed a tiny Upchurch capsule jazz recommendation piece in today’s Times, as well as a small sidebar on some recent local books…
I don’t understand this part of the post: “I think cutting books sections in Seattle—more than any other American city—is a tremendous mistake. Books are a unique part of our culture.”
What’s so special about Seattle with respect to books? Other places have books too. Not snarking, but genuinely curious.
I was gonna ask Erik’s question. Oh, well. Instead I’ll try to finish that new book by the House of Sand & Fog guy.
Erik, Seattle has always pretended to be super-special by virtue of it supposedly buying more books per capita than anyplace else. I dunno (or care) if this is true or not, but I’ve seen the books that a lot of people are buying, and it’s nothing to brag about if we’re buying more of them.
@3, “Minneapolis and Seattle have tied for the title of America’s most literate city in 2008, according to a recent survey.
Minneapolis moves down from its No. 1 ranking last year to tie with Seattle, last year’s number two city, according to a survey taken by Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University…”
Seattle was found to be most literate in 2005 and 2006, but was displaced by Minneapolis last year…
You know what I liked about the LA Times while I was here?
Nothing.
The Seattle Times is even worse.
@6 – we’re still most literate bike-riding city where people never build transit, though.
Yes, and your “literate” rating in large part depends on people buying “Big Book of Cats” at Walmart, or the many, many equivalents.
Don’t knock the Big Book of Cats, it’s a great read, although not as good as the Big Book of Dogs.
@9, you can read up on the annual study and its methodology here — it has nothing to do with Walmart or any particular book, nor even book sales: http://www.ccsu.edu/AMLC08/overview.htm
But, no, it’s based on a number of categories. Seattle, for example, is tied in first (with San Francisco) for number of booksellers per 10K people, in second place (to Plano, TX!!!) for level education attainment, seventh place for internet connectivity and is tied in fifth place for libraries. Interestingly, the city didn’t place in the top ten for newspaper circulation or magazine publishing.
should have said, “level of education attained”
So, Powell’s in Portland counts the same as B. Dalton at Southcenter?
@13, yes, but B. Dalton at Southcenter is not Walmart, is it (technically, B. Dalton is owned by Barnes & Noble, who in turn seem to be closing those stores anyway)?
Would you rather than no one at Southcenter could buy a book at all? I’m seriously curious, here. You seem to have a hierarchy of what books people should be allowed to buy, and where they should be allowed to buy them (maybe even which sorts of people should be allowed to read at all?)…
No, I think people should buy whatever books they want, and in enormous quantities. I just don’t see the point of crowing about how “literate” we are as a result.
Smug mother fucker…
For Jim Henson’s sake, Constant, it’s not “The University Book Store,” it’s just plain “University Book Store”! Get it? Got it? Good.
And if anybody makes any “I’m the goddamn University Book Store” jokes in this thread, I’ll crown ya!
@17: I got the space in between Book and Store. What else do you want? Proper articles? Jesus Christ!
The novel I read last was The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I am not ashamed.
@18,
That’s Jesus W. Christ to you, booknerd!
Hey, you still got some book coverage in the Times, right? And tomorrow will have more. Upchurch can write for any day of the week, not just for Sundays.
Problem is, they hafta cut space (and copy editors), because space + staff = lots of money, which nobody has right now. Especially not advertisers. Because readers’ two bits don’t even begin to cover the cost of newsgathering, printing and distribution.
And that, my friends, is why your favorite paper to bash is barely making ends meet.
As Col. Blethen used say, see ya in the funny papers — oops, those got cut too.
The thing that I don’t get with people’s comments about how they’re bad anyway—and to not hurt feelings, let’s say we’re talking about my section—the thing about a bad newspaper book section is that there’s always a chance it could get better, if, say I were to get replaced with someone competent. But if you cut a book section, you’re not likely going to ever get that book section back again. See what I mean? Average with a chance for improvement is better than nonexistent, because nonexistent is…well, nonexistent.
Are you getting all Sartre on us, Paul?
I think Mr. Constant is a little worried about his own job. He sounds more like the auto industry that says “We know we suck. But give us another chance. We can do better.” Not likely on either count.