Marie Arana, Book Editor, The Washington Post, & Colleagues

The National Book Critics Circle has launched a Campaign to Save Book Reviewing.This post is part of the campaign’s blog series, which features posts by concerned writers, op-eds, Q and As, and tips about how you can get involved to make sure those same owners and editors know that book sections and book culture matter.

I've been in this business a long time, and I can't remember when book
review sections were not in peril. Newspaper staffs are filled with people who don't understand what we do or why readers love us, even though the very public they serve tells them often and strongly that books are important to their lives.

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.

We're lucky to have that kind of leadership at The Post. Long before my time at the paper, in the late 1970s, Book World was converted into a broadsheet and folded in with the opinion section for "cost saving reasons" (although, ironically, the paper was flush with post-Watergate success at the time). There was such a hue and cry from area readers and the capital's intellectual community that publisher Katharine Graham insisted the section be returned to its original form. We've been the same stand-alone tabloid ever since. Sixteen pages. And even though there is an ever-expanding rush of titles from the industry, our space never grows. It takes three full-page ads to bump us to twenty pages. A luxury we've seldom had.

Interestingly enough, a little more than a year ago, when The Post's head of advertising, Katharine Weymouth, looked into our situation and assigned a dedicated salesperson to Book World, our ad revenue began to blossom. Unlike the New York Times book review, which has a whole sales team, we had never had such a person before. Someone whose job it was to be imaginative and proactive about selling ads into our pages. Ad sales at Book World had always been a receivership, not a creative and aggressive enterprise. What does that mean? That with some effort and ingenuity, book review pages can pay their way. (No one, by the way, ever asks this of sports pages or opinion pages.) But as I say, it takes a strong leadership to put out that shielding hand and make something valuable grow.

I've asked four of our critics (two of whom are also editors on Book World's staff) to tell you why they think book review pages are critical to good newspapers. Here are their comments:

"For more than four decades I have been involved in newspaper book coverage at all levels, from a small, weekly book page to a large, stand-alone section. I know from long experience that newspaper readers--people who are, after all, readers--treasure these sections and depend on them for important news and opinions. It is essential that, in a changing newspaper world, these sections be supported and strengthened by all the newspapers that publish them." Jonathan Yardley, Book Critic, The Washington Post

"In an age that seems always more accelerated and superficial, a good book section helps readers stay tuned to the deepest ideas coursing through society. Let the A-section cover current events, let the feature pages attend to this season's trends, but don't lose sight of books, those curious, slowly produced reflections on where we've been, where we're going, and what it all means. If the lure of hyper-linked e-media is drawing away our audience and killing the newspaper business, it's suicidal for papers to starve the section that speaks most directly to careful,patient readers. At the same time, our cosmic importance mustn't become an excuse for turgid or self-absorbed book coverage. There's no use blaming our shrinking audience all the way to the grave. I'm reminded of Henry David Thoreau's wry anecdote about an Indian who was shocked that a wealthy lawyer in town wouldn't buy his baskets. "He had not discovered," Thoreau writes, "that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so." Let's be honest with ourselves: Companies (even newspapers!) survive by offering things that people want. Our best job security rests on producing book coverage that's engaging, entertaining, and relevant." Ron Charles, Book World Senior Editor, The Washington Post

"Every blogger wants to write a book. In fact, the dirty little secret of the internet is "Littera scripta manet"--the written word survives. A book is real, whereas cyberspace is just keystrokes--quickly scribbled and quickly forgotten. But to publish a book isn't enough: It has to be noticed. And this is where book sections matter. If you were an author, would you want your book reviewed in The Washington Post and The New York Review of Books--or on a website written by someone who uses the moniker NovelGobbler or Biografiend? The book review section, whether of a newspaper or a magazine,remains the forum where new titles are taken seriously as works of art and argument, and not merely as opportunities for shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity. Should we allow our culture to descend to this playground level of discourse? Newspapers sift, filter, and evaluate; they are responsible and strive to be trustworthy. So, too, do their book review sections. To curtail such coverage is to abandon an intellectual forum for a childish free-for-all. We would be shortchanging not only readers, but also the art, culture and scholarship of our time.Playgrounds, as we all remember, are ruled by bullies, loud-mouths and prima-donnas.

"The newspaper cannot compete with television or the computer for instant news updates. But it can offer in-depth coverage, more thoughtful analysis, amusing commentary, and the kind of articles that people clip and stick on their refrigerators or in their purses and files. Book reviews serve precisely this function, and always have. A book review section is,in its way, the canary in the coal mine: The health of a newspaper can be measured by its book coverage. When that is diminished, so is the quality of the newspaper. Instead of trimming book coverage, the wise publisher would beef it up. After all, the people who make up the hard-core readership of newspapers are also the people who buy and care for books. A newspaper that takes away its book review section ends up alienating its most faithful--and influential-- readers." Michael Dirda, Book World Columnist, The Washington Post

"Book review sections are where readers go to make sense of the daily news---to get the long view on everything from Iraq to healthcare to hip-hop. (Indeed, how much of the discussion of Iraq has been driven by such books as George Packer's "The Assassin's Gate," Tom Ricks's "Fiasco," and Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower," to name just a few?) Book review sections provide context to the news of the day, whether historical, cultural or fictional. They are the necessary shading that adds depth to a newspaper's coverage." Rachel Hartigan Shea, Contributing Editor, Paperback Columnist, The Washington Post

--Marie Arana, Editor, Book World, The Washington Post.