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Tony Miksak
WORDS ON BOOKS by Tony Miksak for KZYX&Z-FM, 90.7 Philo CA
Airs Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 10:55 am, repeated Wednesday, May 23 at 1 pm
(copyright 2007 Tony Miksak)
Title: Again WOB Agrees With Itself Again
As American publishers and booksellers prepare for their annual convention, this year in New York City June 1-3, their universe continues to contract.
And yet, somehow, they persevere. No one understands this.
Electronic things were supposed to supplant ink and paper things a long time ago.
Independent bookstores were supposed to go away. That didn't happen either. They are diminished but not discouraged.
Small publishers with high standards and small print runs were supposed to die off. Some have, many have not.
Straws in the wind blow in many directions. I prefer the straws still floating in sunshine.
"I am a book junkie," writes Donna Karlin in her blog. "There’s no question about it and I can never get enough to read, for my profession, life, or to feed and nourish my imagination but truthfully how many are still reading and how often? ... how many books have YOU read this year?"
She continues, "...those who can read and don’t are functional illiterates; don’t as in never, by choice, not sporadically as time allows. There’s a difference. There is so much richness to books, all literature in various forms, that our world would be very mundane without the concepts, mental images and perspectives that come out of books of any kind."
Of course, if you seek bad news you can find it. Big publishers continue to eat up small ones. Latest figures on national book sales are not rosy.
Bookstore sales fell 6.8% in March, to $998 million, according to the US Census Bureau. It was the third consecutive month in which bookstore sales have declined while at the same time overall retail sales were slightly up.
But really, who cares how many sell this month? Books have lost none of their ability to change minds as well as open them. Books have the remarkable power to change people, and that power has not gone away.
Then there's just plain silly book news: news:Publishers Weekly reports that "... Atria Books made a reservation with Ritz-Carlton to do a collection of short stories by some of its authors to be called Turndown Tales – the hotel chain would give the paperback free to customers for a month as part of its evening turndown service.
"But... the first draft of the pillow-drop project was initially turned down by Ritz-Carlton because of 'language issues' and 'some racy content.'
This tempest in a tea cosy reminds us that the battle for free speech in books was won long ago. While racy content on TV, the Internet, in video games, continues to be litigated and pontificated upon, you can pretty much publish whatever you want in a book.
In the 1950s and 60s the case against Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" was laughed out of court, James Joyce stormed past the postal inspectors, and Grove Press won the right to publish pornography with their literature. It's so over.
These days most censorship battles seem more silly than serious. Occupants of Ritz Carlton beds may well accomplish acts that would make a pornographer blush, but they won't be reading bad words in the books placed artfully on their plush pillows.
(MUSIC UP) Blogger Karlin says, "As long as there are readers, there will be books written and published."
And of course, I could not agree more.
(MUSIC) Talk back to Words on Books. Write to amiksak@mcn.org. Transcripts are available on the KZYX web site.
Notes:
Home page for BookExpo: http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/
Donna Karlin's blog:
http://blog.fastcompany.com/experts/dkarlin/2007/05/reading_books_here_to_stay.html?partner=rss
Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Tony Miksak
Words on Books: http://www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html
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